evangelism

Eating With Sinners, # 20

/ Bryan Lowe / Leave a comment
Courtesy of Holy Spirit Catholic Church

“And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 But when he heard it, he said, 

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Matthew 9:11-13 (context vv. 10-13)

God is not against us because of our sin. He is with us against our sin. We barely believe this. It doesn’t make any sense at all. It’s one of those pure and unadulterated grace ideas and somehow that just might confuse us. It’s counter-intuitive to everything we know; and it’s the tragic way of the religious world.

Jesus is now sitting and eating with sinners!

Can we even grasp how amazing this is? His guests at the table were the awful–the nasty dregs of a nice proper society. Tax collectors who had renounced Judaism for Rome. There were the sinners who were the unacceptable. (Even the whores and the drunks showed up!) Can’t He do any better than this?

It seems to me we’re living in this world ‘blind and dumb’ to what grace really is. Our legal analysis seems right on, but we have to admit we’ll sometimes operate under certain dictates of a ‘comfortable’ propriety instead. “What can we do to merit God’s love and become acceptable?” How can we truly fellowship with a God who is completely holy?

We see (or read) of the Lord who chooses to fellowship with the ungodly rather than the religious. That shakes us to the core, as it should. He loves associating with unacceptable people. That alone should floor us-and maybe scare us too.

The religious Pharisees found ‘grace’ to be unacceptable. They walked and breathed legalism. Keeping the Law was their way to be acceptable in God’s eyes. And they were now angry, or maybe somewhat mystified, by Jesus’ incredible desire to associate with evil people. But they’re misunderstanding the grace and mercy that resides in God’s heart.

Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.

–Anne Lamott

Do we seriously understand the kindness and grace of Jesus? Does it ‘saturate’ your mind and heart? Are you completely ‘marinated’ in God’s outrageous love for you, the ugly? Think about this; ‘Could it be that pharisees are still alive and well today?’

Eating with sinners. We read that the Pharisees objected. It strikes me that these guys were trying to attack Jesus by ‘splitting’ the disciples from Him. They wanted them to question His actions. This is Satan’s strategy.”Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” ‘Why’ seems to be the voice of the disbelieving and ‘ungraceful.’

Mercy is always better that any “sacrifice” we can make. Does this bother you? (It should.)

The ‘healthy’ don’t need any help. No doctor’s appointments are necessary. And yet Jesus chooses out the sinners” instead. You need to understand this, to be called like this is the ultimate gift. Grace for the ungraceful is unreal. It seems oddly unnatural. And yet the Father’s grace is now waiting for you. You must believe this.

What are you struggling with?

What ‘distracts you? What are you trying to do to be ‘righteous’ in God’s eyes? Do you really believe that He desperately wants to sit down and have a meal with you, just as you are?

“I do not understand the mystery of grace — only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.“

-Anne Lamott

Quenching Our Thirst, Entry #13

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“Jesus answered her, 

“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

John 4:10, (context 4:7-42)

A rusty pail and a very old well. A woman comes to draw out some water from a well dug by Jacob, a patriarch from the pages of Genesis. I believe she was a ‘scarred’ person, she had been married to five men, and she really hadn’t decided to marry #6.

Noon wasn’t the norm, it seems she purposefully waited until the coast was clear. She avoided any contact with others. She would go in the heat of the day. But really deep down, she was ashamed of herself, and grieved over how she had destroyed her life.

She didn’t count on meeting someone at the well, much less a Jewish man who was tired and weary and waiting for a cool drink. She was even more surprised when Jesus spoke to her, that wasn’t proper. A Samaritan woman with a checkered past conversing with a holy Jewish teacher. On heard of.

Jesus waited for her to come, she has an appointment to keep with the second person of the Trinity who was waiting by this well.

“Living water,” how quickly we zoom through this phrase. We seldom stop to consider that what Jesus was offering her was ‘alive.’ It was water infused with life itself. It was water with eternal vitality over sickness, sin or death. When He talks about “living water,” Jesus is referring to Himself.

This particular incident with the woman at the well became the entry point for the ‘good news’ to come to the entire village. Living water would quench the thirst of this backwater Samaritan town.

“People pay attention when they see that God actually changes persons and sets them free. When a new Christian stands up and tells how God has revolutionized his or her life, no one dozes off. When someone is healed or released from a life-controlling bondage, everyone takes notice.”

-Jim Cymbala

  

The Doves in the Temple, Entry #11

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“And he told those who sold the pigeons, 

“Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” 

John 2:16, (context 13-17)

The temple was meant to be a place where people could seek and find God. It was meant to be a place of seeking, of sacrifice, and a place of worship. It had no other purpose other than linking man to God. It wasn’t architecture, it was ‘reconciliation.’ The temple was God’s plan of making a way for sinners to engage Him.

Along the line somehow it became corrupted. Unscrupulous man had a way figured to make money off of pilgrims. The temple required temple currency, hence the money-changers who made a tidy little profit. The birds, lambs and bulls were suddenly provided to the worshipers as a convenient way to ‘sacrifice.’ (That made it easier if you had the cash to spend.)

“So he took some rope and made a whip. Then he chased everyone out of the temple, together with their sheep and cattle. He turned over the tables of the moneychangers and scattered their coins.”

John 2:15

Was this wrong? Did Jesus really make a “whip?” Did He really flip over tables like some sort of ‘religious’ brawl from some old western movie? I have to believe He did do this. Chapter 2:17 explains things like this:

“The disciples then remembered that the Scriptures say, “My love for your house burns in me like a fire.”

Jesus loved God’s house, at least for what it was designed for at the beginning. (Some translations use the word, “zeal.”) God’s heart is for fellowship with man. He desperately wants to engage us, to bring us directly into the “holy place of the Holies.”

He wants us there for the companionship. He seeks “friends.”

The doves? Jesus never hurt them. His anger wasn’t directed at them, but rather at the humans who made the birds available to be sacrificed. The Lord didn’t focus His displeasure at those fine feathered ones in the cage, rather He commanded that they be removed from the temple. No whip was used here, only understanding of the need for a kinder approach. (They’re just little birds after all.)

He really wants to fellowship with you. He will do whatever it takes to remove things that should’ve never been there in the first place. He ‘discerns’ the issues, and is very gentle, not an ounce more than is necessary will be applied to your life. He is supremely wise and astonishingly kind.

“Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.”

-Francis de Sales

   

Catching Men, Entry #9

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“The Morning of the Fisherman,” Valentina Kostadinva, oil

“And so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon,

“Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.”

Luke 5:10

Fear is an ugly thing, it turns men into timid cowards who cannot really trust God. Simon Peter is promised courage. Throughout his life this will be a constant battle for him. It seems like Simon Peter will always struggle with what people will think about him. He is ‘crippled’ and he needs Jesus to intervene. And He does.

I remember Jody and I were sent out by a pastor to do “door-to-door” evangelism. I was terrified. We knocked on a door and then I sort of freaked out, I left her on the porch and hid behind a tree. Witnessing scared me. She shared Jesus while I ran away. How ‘Peter-like’ I am.

“Catching men” is a reference to Peter’s occupation as a fisherman. Jesus speaks so Peter will understand. He expresses evangelism in a way that describes the work of the Kingdom. Fishing describes the main task of the believer. All too often we’re ‘fixed’ on self-improvement, and our vision becomes blurred. Evangelism is to be our work.

“Evangelism is not a professional job for a few trained men, but is instead the unrelenting responsibility of every person who belongs to the company of Jesus.”

-Elton Trueblood