Lent 2008 – The Gospel According to Jesus' Enemies

"This Man Receives Sinners and Eats with Them"

Text: Mark 2:15-17

Alas, my God, my sins are great, my conscience doth upbraid me;

And now I find that in my strait no man has pow'r to aid me.

Lord, Thee I seek. I merit naught; yet pity and restore me.

Just God, be not Thy wrath my lot; Thy Son hath suffered for me. Amen. (TLH 317)

Dear Fellow Recipients of Jesus' Last Will and Testament – the great gift of Holy Communion:

The theme for our meditations this Lenten season has been "The Gospel According to Jesus' Enemies." This evening we conclude our exploration of that theme by examining one final bit of "malicious truth" spoken against Jesus by his enemies: "This man receives sinners and eats with them." The text that will form the basis for our meditation this evening is found in the 15^th Chapter of Luke's Gospel:

Luke 15:1-2 Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him. ² And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, "This Man receives sinners and eats with them."

These are the verbally inspired words of our God. Confident that our God will bless us through the study of these holy words, so we ask him for that very blessing when we pray, “Sanctify us through your truth, O Lord. Your word is truth.” Amen.

Privilege always arrives with baggage in hand. As Americans living in a ridiculously prosperous and relatively free country, we are indeed privileged. More often than not we fail to adequately account for the consequences that always accompany such privilege, and the results are always bad.

Permit a partial listing by way of illustration. The fact that none of us ever goes hungry makes it difficult for us to remain appreciative of our daily bread. The fact that we can freely and openly attend any sort of worship that we desire encourages us to despise that privilege by staying home. We have the privilege of electing and deposing our own leaders, but a majority of citizens almost never bother to vote. Our full closets have made us picky and thankless about our wardrobes; our 500 channel televisions have helped to make us lethargic and apathetic; and our financial wealth encourages us to be faithless. In short, God's lavish largess always carries the illusion that God is optional, even expendable.

The fact is such thought (imaging that we no longer need God because God has already blessed us so amply) is like deciding to disconnect the engines from the wings of the plane because we are already traveling high enough and fast enough.

The specific "privilege problem" that we address this evening is the fact that our American sense of entitlement works against our ongoing appreciation for many of the most amazing spiritual gifts regularly received from our God. This evening, in particular, we acknowledge our natural disconnect from the sentiments expressed by the Jews in our text.

As Americans we find it difficult, if not impossible, to come to terms with the stratification of Jewish society at the time of Jesus. In other words, since we tend to assume that we are just as good as everyone else (better even) we simply cannot relate to any sort of system where we would be excluded or underprivileged.

This is a relatively new problem. In fact it really began with the "Great American Experiment" – the name applied to our class-free society. Throughout the rest of the course of history, every single society has always had its "have's" and "have not's," its lords and its servants. Your station was assigned at birth based on your lineage or family tree. Unless you were born to the right parents, you were doomed to life as an underprivileged outsider. That's just the way it was, and all members of those previous societies "knew their place." Now imagine such a system that also included spiritual and eternal benefits, and you can begin to understand the situation described in our text.

The "have's" in Jewish society of Jesus' day were the scribes and Pharisees. While the tax collectors might well have had more money, they were still excluded from the circles of social and spiritual privilege. In fact they were lumped together with the rest of the "sinners," like prostitutes, adulterers, murderers, and the like. The result in Jewish society was not only that you were excluded from high society, all such were also excluded from high society in the hereafter – damned on earth and damned eternally, with no chance to switch sides.

This was the mindset behind the ironic truth we examine this evening: "This Man receives sinners and eats with them." A "sinner" in the estimation of the Jews, had no chance and was to be given no chance. It was the spiritual equivalent of being refused admittance to a hospital simply because you happened to be sick or injured.

Obviously the Jews leveled this change against Jesus as an obvious and serious condemnation of both his status and his character. "Good" people just did not do what Jesus was doing. Here is where we see the obvious irony in what they were saying. Were their words or their accusations true? Of course they were. The irony is that they saw what Jesus was doing as bad, while we recognize it not only as the ultimate good, but as the only hope any of us would ever have of escaping God's condemnation at the Final Judgment.

The Jews, of course, believed themselves to be entitled to God's favor – in time and in eternity. That's part of the reason they rejected Jesus and his message and ministry. People that recognize no danger and acknowledge no deficiency are offended at any sort of self-proclaimed savior. Jesus addressed their foolishly damning arrogance with his simple reply in Mark 2:17: "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick." Just to make sure that they did not misunderstand the picture that he was drawing for them, he also added: "I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."

The message of Jesus was, therefore, "Of course I associate with sinners. Associating with (and thereby saving) sinners is my life's work. It is what I came to earth to do." To which you and I at times add our rather lethargic endorsement – our ho-hum "Of course" – since that is the truth as it has always been taught to us: Jesus came to save sinners – like us, like me. Though as common as dirt, this is nevertheless a very bad habit or mindset into which we've fallen. To treat our Savior's self-sacrifice as an entitlement (something that he owed us) is to cheapen and degrade it. One of the greatest aspects of our Savior's service to mankind is the very fact that he was in no way obligated to do what he did for us. Though Jesus is certainly now glorified in heaven for the great victory he won for us, it is foolish and wrong for us to imagine that he lacked glory in heaven prior to his death and resurrection, or that heaven would just not be complete for him had he not won our salvation for us.

Jesus Christ did what he did for us, sinners, not for himself. He was in no way obligated, and we certainly were in no way entitled. Until we come to terms with these truths, we will never fully appreciate just what our Savior has done for us. The popular mindset of Jesus' day among the religious leaders was to bar the sinner's door to salvation for all time and eternity. Jesus, however, "received sinners and ate with them."

Which brings us to that special "eating and drinking with sinners" that we celebrate this evening – the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion. Just as we were in no way entitled to the salvation that our Savior nonetheless won for us, so also we ought to hold the same opinion of his gift of the Lord's Supper. It is neither an entitlement or an obligation; it is a gift. And what a gift.

Our Lord clearly knew us better than we knew ourselves. He knew that, though it should have been possible, we could not just be told the gospel once and that would be sufficient. He knew that Satan would use every imaginable scheme and every bit of his diabolical cunning to twist and pervert that simple message of life through faith in Jesus Christ. So it was that on that last night before his crucifixion, Jesus "received sinners and ate with them" one last time. But that last was no ordinary meal, for there Jesus established the meal that he would share with sinners of every age until the end of time. Jesus thereby gave a special gift that would continue to strengthen and comfort sinners in ways you and I will probably never even realize.

Think of it this way. Doctors and scientists routinely tell us that there are cancer cells and deadly viruses present in every human being at all times. What is more, we are constantly being bombarded with "bugs" of all kinds nearly every day of our lives. You and I remain largely ignorant of the battles that take place within our bodies every single day because our God equipped our bodies to ward off these attacks. It's called the immune system, and without it, most of us would be dead in a matter of weeks if not days. You and I can't really make that immune system function (God did that when he made us) but we can do things to make it work better and to make it malfunction. Diet, exercise, rest, and cleanliness all play a role.

Much the same takes place day by day in the spiritual realm. The attacks are all around us, and the majority of them are resisted without any conscious thought on our part. This is a result of the Holy Spirit, living and active within us. Yet just like with the body, so also you and I can do things that enhance or diminish our spiritual immune system. Starve yourself from the Word, deny your spirit the soul-rest it needs, and fill your heart and mind with spiritually unhealthy thoughts and ideas, and you will quickly suffer the inevitable consequences.

And this is, of course, where Holy Communion comes in. Jesus himself gave us this simple gift as a tremendous spiritual strengthener. Each time we receive the Lord's true body and blood in Holy Communion we are strengthened in our spirits in ways that we will never fully appreciate. We tend to take this great gift for granted in much the same way that we take our body's immune system for granted. Since we cannot always see the threats, we will never know how profoundly we were aided by regularly communing with our Savior at his Table.

The world, of course, will forever regard such sentiments as superstitious hocus-pocus. You and I will regularly be tempted to adopt their cynicism and doubt, for the power that is here offered defies our logic and takes place in a realm that we cannot see with our mortal eyes. Yet it is as true and certain as God himself – who is also unseen and accepted by faith.

So then once again this evening we are reminded of this gift that we have been given and of the ever-present danger of disparaging that gift or taking it for granted. Let it not be so among us. "This Man receives sinners and eats with them"? Absolutely! Thanks be to our Lord Jesus that he does just that. Amen.