The Wrong Crowd?
Matthew 9:10–17
Remember being warned about who you associate with?
Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash
As Jesus sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; otherwise, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.” - Matthew 9:10–17
I remember my mom and dad warning me when I was a kid. Don't hang out with the wrong people.
It wasn't that they didn't trust me to do the right thing. They were more concerned that I would be swept up along with others who were a bad influence on me.
They were just being protective, but they had the same perspective as the Pharisees, who acted like parents.
Remember how we would react to criticism from others at that age? You are not my parents. Leave me alone.
Parents had a right to tell us who we could be acquainted with, but everyone else could not.
Jesus could have said, "Hey, you're not my dad."
Instead, he said that the sick need a doctor.
That was another way of saying, "This is your job, and you're not doing it."
It is a matter of how we see each other. The Pharisees saw the tax collectors as a bad influence, people who were dirty and evil. But Jesus saw them as people in need of healing and help.
Which way do we look at each other?
Do we see the other as evil and dirty, or as someone in need of help?
If we all saw each other as just like us, but in need of something else, like love, or compassion, where would we be as a people?
More to come...