The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they
say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and
“sinners.” ’ But wisdom is proved right by her actions.”
(Matthew 11:19)
Sometimes, it
seems to me that God just can't win. If He sent prophets, the Jews called them
liars and killed them. He sent John the Baptist as the last prophet. He
separated himself from the people and pronounced fire and brimstone on those
who didn't believe and they declared he was possessed by a demon. Jesus came
along preaching that the kingdom of God was among the people and because He
didn't separate Himself from people, He was rejected as a "friend of tax
collectors and sinners." The implication was that because He associated
with these sinners, He must be a sinner or approve of the sin.
We hear some of
this same idea today. People like to remind us that He was "a friend to
tax collectors and 'sinners.'" What they want us to do as a result of this
claim is to say that the sin is OK, but Jesus never told sinners that their sin
was acceptable. I heard someone wise say that Jesus never met an adulteress. My
initial thought was "what about the woman caught in the act" (John 8)[1]? After thinking about it
for a while, I reached the conclusion that the person who said this was right.
Jesus never met an adulteress. He met a woman who was caught in the act of
adultery. There's a difference. The former is a label. It is an abstract. The
latter is a person. It is concrete. In the same way, Jesus was never friends
with a tax collector (even though one of His disciples was one before he became
a disciple) or a glutton. He was friends with people but He never pretended
that their sin was OK.
In the same way,
we need to love and befriend people no matter what their preferred sins or
besetting weaknesses are, but we should never, ever treat their sin as
acceptable. And, we need to love and befriend ourselves no matter what our
preferred sins or besetting weaknesses are, but we should never, ever treat our
sin as acceptable or negligible.
[1] According
to my study notes, the best manuscripts don't include this story. It would not
be generally wise to use this passage to establish and defend any doctrines,
but it helps me explain the idea.
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