November 8, 2009 Pastor Tim Pusey

THE WRONG COMPANY
Luke 5:27-32

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Have you been noticing all the Christmas merchandise arriving in area stores? I think I noticed the first of it as early as September—Santas in September! But now that the Halloween stuff is being cleared out, Christmas will reign full force in the stores until early January when they’re trying to clear it all out!

And Christmas is less than seven weeks away now—and Cindy and I have already begun to feel the squeeze! She hit the panic button this week I could tell (husbands know these things!)—as she began to count down the days until this or that and subtracting out days for all the other things we feel we need to do. And I realized too that if we were going to get Christmas letters out to our friends and family that live far away that I was going to have to get rolling on it soon too—so I bought the stationery this week and hope to get it written and printed in the next week or so!

The Christmas season can be so busy, and all too easily we’ll miss the point, won’t we? But let’s not forget that we will celebrate Christmas with great anticipation because we as Christians believe in the Incarnation—that God became man in order to close enough to sinful people to feel the pain of their lost-ness and alienation from Him.

Getting close enough to people to feel the pain of their lost-ness was what Jesus spent His life doing! And this compassion for people took Jesus to the strangest of settings—often in defiance of what had become commonly accepted religious and social “rules” and expectations. And as we’ve noted in recent weeks, He often kept the wrong company.

And He’s at it again in the passage we’re going to look at this morning. We’re going to look at how Jesus embraced the wrong crowd in inviting Matthew to follow Him and in accepting Matthew’s invitation for dinner with all of Matthew’s old friends. For someone considered already by most a great teacher of noble character, Jesus blew them all away with the company that He kept!

Look with me at Luke 5:27-32—
[Read Luke 5:27-32, NIV]

So the succession of people on whom Jesus bestowed His grace and favor just keeps getting longer! As we read through the first few chapters of the Gospel of Luke, we see Jesus’ grace to individuals possessed by evil spirits, to persons with leprosy, and to a man who was paralyzed—bringing healing and wholeness to each one. Jesus liberates people suffering from the personal pain of pervasive evil darkness, physical handicaps and being social outcasts. And, of course, the antagonists—the Pharisees and the teachers of the law—continue to be on the scene.

The man identified by Luke as “Levi” is identified by the name of “Matthew” in Matthew’s Gospel (9:9). He’s the tax collector who became one of the 12 Disciples of Jesus. I’m going to call him “Matthew” this morning, because that’s how most of us have known him. Matthew might have had two names or he might have been given a new name by Jesus—as Simon was called Peter by Jesus. We’re really not sure. But we do know that the Levi spoken of in Luke 5 is the same man as the one called Matthew in other parts of the New Testament.

As I said a moment ago, Matthew was a tax collector—and so he had incurred the scorn of those who looked on such officials as crooked—and there seems to be little doubt that the vast majority of those in such positions enriched themselves through extortion and oppression. We honestly have no reason to believe that Matthew was any different. The Jews particularly despised any of their own people who consented to work for the Roman government who had usurped power over the Jews. And so the tax collectors were also considered traitors to their own people. So, while Matthew may have been a wealthy man, he was clearly ostracized by his own people, the Jews. And yet it was to people like Matthew that Jesus chose to go.

Jesus called Matthew to follow Him—and Matthew did! Matthew walked away from everything and went with Jesus. And we need to think through that Matthew paid a high price for following Jesus—perhaps a higher price than most of the other disciples! He gave up his wealth and privilege and position—and did so gladly to follow Jesus. You couldn’t give up tax collecting for the Roman government on a whim and ever expect to return to it. The fishermen who became disciples of Jesus were more like middle-class businessmen—if this gig of following Jesus ever fell through they could go back to fishing, but for Matthew there was no turning back.

But it didn’t seem to matter to Matthew. He was so elated about this opportunity that he wanted to celebrate. He threw a huge party and invited all his tax-collector friends and their friends. It was evidently quite a feast! He had found something of great price, and he wanted to share it with his old friends and colleagues. And in taking this opportunity to introduce them all to Jesus, he was committing himself publicly and irrevocably to this new way of life. Matthew didn’t try to sneak into being a follower of Christ—and I don’t believe any of us can!

The Pharisee neighbors, watching this party from across their fences, were immediately up in arms! They were upset because, in their times and pretty much still today, table fellowship meant full acceptance—mutual acceptance. To eat with someone is to say, “We are one. I have no qualms about you. You are welcomed in my home!” And the Pharisees were concluding what was exactly true—Jesus considered these sinners His friends!
We might liken Jesus going to eat with Matthew and his friends to someone like us inviting a Nazi collaborator over to our house during World War II.

And we really dare not be too hard on the Pharisees because they were just living out what they had devoted their lives to do—what they thought was the right thing, though it was clearly so twisted. They were fiercely dedicated to upholding the purity of their Jewish faith and life. Implicit in their teaching was strict adherence to both law and tradition, including necessary rites of purification and separation from all whose moral or ritual purity might be in question. The Pharisees refused themselves to eat with tax collectors and other sinners, or even to go into their houses, believing that this would defile them. And, of course, they expected Jesus, as a rabbi or teacher, to do the same. But Jesus’ actions defied their rules and regulations and exposed the reality that the Pharisees had been misled. He shattered their religious and social norms by eating with sinners and rubbing shoulders with them—getting close enough to feel their pain!

The Pharisees were apparently not ready to argue directly with Jesus about this, so they directed their question to Jesus’ disciples—“Why do you eat and drink with such scum?” They were doing what counselors often call “triangulating”—one person that has a problem with a second person but instead of going to that second person goes to a third person with the problem, thinking they are dealing with the problem when, in fact, it is not being dealt with directly at all! Jesus cut through that pitiful approach and answered their questions directly.

He said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:31) Jesus took the perspective of a doctor—Dr. Jesus—and responded that, like a doctor, His mission was to work with sick people, not those who are already healthy. His mission was to go to those who recognized their spiritual need for God’s grace and healing—rather than to those who were so convinced that they didn’t need God’s grace. His mission was to outsiders, not insiders.

This was not an admission by Jesus that the Pharisees were healthy spiritually, for their lack of spiritual wholeness was the scandal of the day! They had become a self-righteous lot, failing miserably to see their own desperate need for God’s grace and His transformation. They were so good at living by rules, but they had missed the heart of faith in God. Jesus was evidently implying that the Pharisees only thought they were healthy spiritually—and it just makes sense that we have to first acknowledge our sin before we can genuinely respond to the call to repentance.

It was sort of like medical triage—you know, the process of determining the priority of the severity of cases so that medical attention is given first to those that have the most serious risks. If you ever watched MASH on TV, they showed how medical teams in war did triage. And it happens every day in hospital emergency rooms—because it simply wouldn’t be wise to make someone in cardiac arrest wait while someone with a fairly minor cut on their finger is taken care of. By the way, if you ever want to get quick attention in an ER, just tell them you’re feeling pressure in your chest and that you have a history of heart disease. I’ve done that—because it was true—and they quickly wheeled me into a room (against my protests that I was fully capable of walking there!) and within 30 seconds had six or seven people working on me! And, thank the Lord, it ended up being all over nothing…but I was amazed at how effective their triage was!

Jesus was committed to giving Himself to those who needed Him the most and were most receptive to what He had to offer. It was the glory of our Lord Jesus that He came to heal the moral and spiritual sickness consuming people—and the Pharisees themselves were included in this if they had only been able to understand and embrace it!

So it was once again that Jesus’ compassion for people took Him to the most surprising setting! Contrary to the traditional teachings of the religious folk, Jesus knew that His mission was to get to where the spiritually lost people were. Have you ever thought about who Jesus would invite to a party if He was hosting such an event today? Would it just be us church folk? Would it just be the most godly of the batch? Could it be that He’d invite to that party people with names like Hasan and Mohammed? Wouldn’t He also invite people with criminal records—felons, even child-molesters and murderers—and maybe the latest recruits to AA? I wonder, if this party cut across the barriers of time, if He might have included some men like Hitler and Mussolini. I’m confident He’d include the regulars at the local bars and the girls who make their living dancing at places most of us wouldn’t go near.

Why would Jesus invite people like these folk to a party? Why? Because they are why He came! Those who are healthy don’t need to see the doctor—just those who are sick. Jesus was often criticized and misunderstood for deliberately associating with people who were suspect in the eyes of the religious elite. But there was a reason for Jesus’ actions! His mission was to outsiders! His triage reflected His priority and His calling! He wasn’t doing what He did in order to gain a following and He certainly wasn’t doing it to be “weird” or bizarre or even hip! Jesus came to redeem the enslaved, to find the lost, to mend the broken, and reclaim sinners.

Later in Luke’s Gospel we read Jesus’ parable about the prodigal son—it’s in Luke 15. It tells the story of a rebellious son who takes his inheritance early and squanders it all, leaving him desolate and without hope. He humbly returns to his father’s home, glad to take the role of a servant—knowing he doesn’t deserve better than that. But the father welcomes the son with open arms and throws a great party to celebrate the son’s return.

The older brother—who had stayed on the farm and continued working and been good and diligent all of his life—was angry that the father was throwing a party to celebrate the return of the prodigal son and he refused to go into the party. The father came out to him, saying, “My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (Luke 15:31-32). Jesus was saying that triage was necessary—He had to go seek the lost!

In Luke 19 we read about Jesus reaching out to another tax collector—this one high in the ranks of tax collectors—a “chief tax collector” named Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was the short man that perched himself up in a tree in order to see Jesus above the crowds who had flocked around him as Jesus entered into Zacchaeus’ town. The crowd wasn’t happy with Jesus that day either, because Jesus invited Himself over to dinner at Zacchaeus’ house that night—and Jesus made those arrangements in front of the crowd. Again, Jesus was doing triage—going where He was needed most.

And you know, somewhere down the road, a couple of thousand years after Jesus spotted Zacchaeus in the sycamore tree, the Lord saw me—and He recognized how greatly I needed Him. I was just a kid, but it didn’t matter. He saw that I needed what only He could offer. And He invited me to follow Him—and with a young and tender heart I began to follow Jesus. I’m older now—I know, some of you think I’m ancient! But I hope that it’s still with a tender heart that I follow Jesus.

And you too have been invited, because we’re all “Humpty Dumpties”—we’ve all had a great fall! Romans 3:23 tells us, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Some may have looked on you or me and wondered if Jesus hadn’t chosen the wrong company when He chose to call us, but for Jesus there is no wrong company to keep. He went where He was needed most and where people recognized how much they needed Him. It’s such a wonderful aspect of His grace in each of our lives. And Jesus went wherever He needed to in order to reach us, because He was driven by a compassion for people and He knew that His mission was to seek and find those who were spiritually lost.

There’s a corollary to this—and some of you may have already jumped ahead of me to it. Here’s the corollary: We as Christ’s Church must also demonstrate that same determination to reach those who are spiritually lost! We’ve got to do our triage, too.

Jesus took a lot of flack for His willingness to get close enough to sinful people to feel the pain of their lives, but He obviously chose His battles carefully and this was clearly worth taking the heat for! We’ve got to learn from that—and let the Lord challenge us in that. We need to be on our guard lest we ever opt for security in our acquaintances and avoid potentially messy relationship entanglements as we open our eyes to see the spiritually needy around us.

Could it be that we in the church are too often worried about placating those who are already saved and are occasionally fussy about how they want things in their church? And while Jesus’ mission was clearly to the outsiders, could it be that we as a church too easily find ourselves a church for insiders rather than for outsiders? And could it be that in lots of churches a lot of energy is sapped trying to appease religious folk whose “itched isn’t scratched” by their pastor or their church?

May the Lord pour out His Holy Spirit in a special way among us, gripping us with a deep concern about those who need most to experience a God who gets close enough to them to feel their pain—and may others experience that touch and that love through us, Christ’s Church. May the Lord help us to live with the same values—the same priorities of triage—with which Jesus lived and ministered, reaching first and foremost toward those outside of grace rather than catering to those who have already received it.

This morning we have the privilege of receiving together the Lord’s Supper. In doing so, we gather symbolically around the same table—and let’s just acknowledge that it’s about like Jesus having dinner with those tax collectors and sinners long ago. Oh, yes, we’ve been offered God’s grace, and I pray that each of you have received that grace and experienced the cleansing of your sins—but we gather at this table knowing that it’s only because of His love and grace that we could ever come before the Holy God. We come, in some ways, as needy as those who were gathered around Matthew’s table. And if, as we come to this part of the service, you feel yourself unworthy to get this close to Jesus…may I remind you that it’s for people just like you that Jesus came, and that He welcomes you to His table of grace this morning.