Who Is Jesus?နမူနာ

Jesus Is The Friend Of Sinners

The cafeteria at lunchtime is not always the most welcoming place. 

Meals can be an opportunity to include people, or exclude people. Meals can create barriers, or break them down. The person, or people, you sit and eat with at lunchtime often tells on-lookers who you accept and embrace. 

Meals in Jesus’ day told a similar type of story. 

The religious leaders often criticized Jesus for the people whom He ate with, because in that culture meals were a symbol of friendship and acceptance, and what surprised others was that Jesus ate with people who were messed up, sinful and seemed far from God. 

“When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw Him eating with the “sinners” and tax-collectors, they asked His disciples: “Why does He eat with tax-collectors and sinners?” (vs. 16).

But Jesus responds by saying, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (vs. 17).

Part of Jesus’ identity was His reputation for being “a friend of sinners”. 

If you imagine God’s kingdom as a party, the Pharisees only want to invite those who are socially acceptable, the morally upright citizens of the day who keep the rules and appear very religious. 

Jesus, on the other hand, invites everyone. It does not matter what you have done or how badly you have messed up – you are invited to God’s party though a relationship with Him. There is room at His table for rebels and law-breakers.

This infuriates the Pharisees because they thought that holiness, moral purity, or right behaviour led to a relationship with God. But Jesus knew and acted like holiness, or right living, resulted from a relationship with God. 

To say it another way: Instead of, change before God can love you, Jesus invites us to believe, God loves you and His love can change you. Jesus does not start with lifestyle; He starts with God’s love, knowing that God’s love will, over time, change our character and our lives. 

Through Jesus, God invites us to belong before we believe and even before we behave, because our invitation to God’s party is not based on our goodness, it is based on His grace. 

Jesus’ table was telling a story about God’s gracious acceptance of all different types of people. 

I wonder what type of story our tables are telling?