Pathways Press.com

Written by Michael A. Milton, a contemporary minister, author, and retired military chaplain. This is an excerpt from his work “Witnessing in a World Like Ours.”

Our age is “A Secular Age” as the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor put it. And it is becoming more so. How do we bear witness to Jesus Christ in a world like ours? … The Bible says that Jesus ate with sinners. Mark 2:15 tells not only of a suppertime gathering but an obvious feature of Jesus’ ministry: he kept company with scoundrels. Now, this became a problem for Jesus. For in the eyes of the Pharisees, Jesus’ choice of table companions was an endorsement of their sins and, thus, an indictment of Himself. Jesus had a problem with the religious ruling class. They had a problem with Jesus. If you are a paragon of piety which the Pharisees fancied themselves, Jesus just didn’t fit. The Lord’s association with “low life” characters cast suspicion on His piety. His dinner parties with undesirables placed Him in the same class as the tax collectors and the sinners… The Pharisees’ piety was such that It excluded other people. Their piety was something they (were convinced) had earned, something they had built, something they had cultivated. Their self-serving show of religion was, in a word, a sham. False piety can be weaponized to elevate self by diminishing others. Their piety was merely white-washed tombs. Jesus was with the common people of all backgrounds because He was for them. All of the disciples came out of some sort of quagmire of sinful behavior, doubt, unbelief, or despair. So did we. The Bible says that God sent His only begotten Son into the world to save because the world is already condemned. God is for us… The Pharisees weaponized their piety to put others down. How can we reveal our brokenness to lift others to God?

While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” [Mark 2:15-17]