PODCAST

A Friend of Sinners

February 29th, 2012

RG AUDIO 022912Mark 2:13-17

Jesus was always hanging with the wrong people. He didn’t choose his disciples from among the smart and influential. He seemed to avoid the centers of authority and power. He was accused of consorting with prostitutes, drunks, and various sinners. He even called a tax collector to be one of his disciples.

In that day those considered lowlifes by others could look down on tax collectors. They squeezed the last coin of revenue out of their own people for the occupying Roman authority and their puppet kings. They were collaborators and traitors. They were the scum of the earth, and Jesus chose one of them.

Jesus had a radical understanding of what holiness was all about. In that day many understood holiness solely as separation, particularly from “those people.” Jesus’ holiness and sense of mission compelled him to engage with the socially unacceptable. He wasn’t a physician for the healthy but the sick.

His mission was to engage the lowest of sinners.