besquared.org Blog

Today’s Text

I love this gospel. I keep waiting for the text that is lame and boring and doesn’t make we want to begin by saying, “This is a great text. There is so much great stuff to talk about.” This week isn’t is it. So let’s get started.

This is a great text. There is so much great stuff to talk about. First of all we have the calling of Levi. [To fully understand this text, you have to understand what tax collectors did (not the same as what they do today.) and just how hated they were by the general population and by devout Jews in particular. If you have any questions about this, then ask. You need to know.] There are lots of beautiful details but for now let’s notice this. Jesus came for sinners. We need to proclaim this truth and demonstrate it with our lives. Jesus is on the side of the sinners. He works to make sinners lives better. He is interested in the well-being of sinners.

If I walked up to you at a sporting event and asked, “Who ya for?” You would understand my question. You would either tell me that you don’t care or you would tell me which team you want to win.

Apparently, when Jesus sees sinners, and see all the horrible things that they do he thinks to himself, “I am for these people.” Liberation theologians talk about the preferential option for the poor, and to a large degree I agree with this principle. But even more than that, Jesus has a preferential option for the degenerate. Jesus is especially concerned about the fate of murderers and liars and cheats. Precisely the traits that make me want to stay away from someone apparently draw Jesus toward them.

Think of the most dramatically evil character on the world scene. [Depending on your political perspective, you might be thinking of Osama Bin Laden, Dick Cheney, Ceasar Chavez, or Hillary Clinton. Don't ask who I picked because I won't say.] Whoever you thought of, you can be sure that Jesus is especially concerned about them. That is right. They are especially why Jesus came. I do not share this trait. I wish I did but I rarely do. I think that I am not alone.

I think that when the forces of evil line up against the forces of truth, justice and the democratic/capitalist way. We are too quick to be for the “good” guys and against others. I think that when someone calls themselves my enemy or acts like my enemy, I am too quick to agree with them. Instead I think that we need to be like Jesus and be radically for them.(Feel free to try to talk some sense into me Alex, but I won’t go down without a fight.) (That was supposed to be humorous irony but somehow it doesn’t work in print.)

[Important note to avoid misinterpretation. To be "for" a sinner is certainly not to be in support of their sinful activity. Rather it is to be particularly committed to their good.]

Apparently Jesus practice of partying with tax collectors was part of a general posture of partying in general as we see in the little discussion of fasting. And then we get to a wonderful parable.

No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, ‘The old is better.’

Jesus is telling the Pharisees that they are still stuck with old wine. And more than that he is is telling them. Don’t try to fit my new teaching into your old worldview. Don’t think that I came just to patch a few holes in your old way of thinking. Notice the old clothes get torn and the old wineskins burst. Jesus new way cannot just be patched on to our default way of life. Jesus is not trying to fix up our current life but to provide us with a whole new life.

I need to confess that I have too often been content to help people tweak their lives and tweak their worldview. I think that is not sufficient. I think that much more is needed. [I am reminded of the argument about how the eye could not have evolved. Too many things have to come together at the same time. In the same way, I don't think that one evolves into loving your enemies.] Concerning the topic discussed above, I know that my attitude needs to be more than tweeked. It needs to be reborn. I want my life patched up because I want to pretend that for the most part my life is just fine.

-Ethan

[Here is possibly unrelated note. As we try to connect with our culture, I find it hard to know when we can try to fix and when we have no choice but to say, "Sorry, there is no way to patch this." We are used to overseas missionaries having to deal with this but I worry that in our own culture we are not as careful as we should be. As I think about the cultural epidemics of narcissism and individualism, hero worship, pleasure seeking, etc. I marvel at the difficulty of designing a culturally coherent worship service that still stands against these habits of our age that seem to me to be beyond patching.]