How could Jesus possibly associate with “those people”? In our increasingly polarized society, the question is becoming increasingly common. Some might point to the January 6 protesters or to those who espouse racist views as especially worthy of condemnation. Others might point to some of the 7 million able-bodied, working-age American men who aren’t even looking for a job, or to the “drag queens” who want to read stories to school children.

And the Pharisees in today’s passage were no different. They objected to the tax-collectors, Jewish people who contracted with the occupying Roman forces to provide an assigned amount of revenue from a certain area – and conveniently keeping for themselves anything they collected in excess of the agreed-upon sum. The Pharisees also looked down on other “sinners,” those who neglected to keep the Law of Moses as scrupulously as they themselves did.

But how did Jesus respond to such legalists? He simply said that he hadn’t come to save people like them, people who pride themselves on what they believe or how they live, people who don’t think they need any help in order to live a good life. Instead, Jesus said that He came to call sinners to repentance.

So it turns out that the most important question isn’t how we see “those people,” but how we see ourselves. For if we go on imagining that our social respectability or our sobriety or our work ethic makes us superior to “those people,” if we think that we are righteous by our own efforts, then the sad truth is that we aren’t among those Jesus came to call.

But if we truly understand that, regardless of our outward appearance, we are nothing more than rebels against the righteous rule of our God and King, we’ll appreciate the unconditional and self-sacrificial love that Jesus has shown to us. And we’ll be much more likely to show the same kind of love and grace to others, even to “those people” that we can’t stand. For when you come right down to it, in God’s eyes are they really any worse, any more guilty than we are?

Mark 2:13-17 (NASB)

13 And He went out again by the seashore; and all the people were coming to Him, and He was teaching them. 14 As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting in the tax office, and He said to him, “Follow Me!” And he got up and followed Him. 15 And it happened that He was reclining at the table in his house, and many tax collectors and sinners were dining with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many of them, and they were following Him. 16 When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that He was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they said to His disciples, “Why is He eating with tax collectors and sinners?” 17 And hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”