Mark 2:13-17: Sin-Sick or Self-Diagnosed

The Gospel of Mark  •  Sermon  •  Submitted
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Jesus comes to call citizen-disciples out of the sin-sick population, but our own rightousness keeps us from hearing the call

Notes
Transcript

Introduction

Good morning, today we will be looking at . Which if you didn’t bring a Bible is on page ### in the Bible’s under the chair in front of you. In this passage we find ourselves confronted. Jesus asks us about our state of being, our health as it were. If you have been with us through these first two chapters of the Gospel of Mark then you have encountered several passages that show Jesus to be a physician of sorts. Offering healing and restoration to the body. Here he has something different in mind. Like our passage last week with the paralytic, Jesus is not concerned first with the body, but as a diagnostician he is concerned with the overriding sickness. Jesus asks us if we are humble enough and aware enough to see that we are sick and needy. And we have a sort of choice to accept his or to declare our own self-diagnosis of health and righteousness. His original hearers would have shocked by the turning of the tables to find themselves in the sick bed. But if we will accept it and admitted it, we will find that Jesus has compassionately come for us. With the instruments of healing in his own person. Let’s take a look:

Read the Passage

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[13] He went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them. [14] And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him.

13 HE WENT OUT ?AGAIN BESIDE THE SEA, and all the crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them. 14 And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth?, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him.

15 And as he? reclined? at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners? were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw? that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 17 And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Jesus Calls Levi
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[15] And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. [16] And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” [17] And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” (ESV)
[13] He went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them. [14] And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him.
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[15] And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. [16] And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” [17] And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” (ESV)

Preliminary Notes

Preliminary Notes

As we begin our passage today it is helpful to see that this passage is linked geographically to our passage from last week. Last week, in we saw that Jesus returned to his adopted home town of Capernaum and word began to spread that he was their. And because there was a home so closely associated with Jesus as to be understood as his own everyone new where to find him. In that passage, we encountered some minor demolition work (as four guys dug through the roof in order to get their paralytic friend in front of Jesus) and major theological work (as we found Jesus is not only capable of healing a paralysis, but also has the authority to forgive sins).

Continued Setting

Continued Setting

Now in this passage we read that Jesus “went out again beside the sea.” Chronologically Mark doesn’t seem especially concerned with telling us how far apart these two events were, but it doesn’t seem to be long. And geographically we see that he is beside the sea, still in the fishing town of Capernaum. Since Jesus told us that he has come to preach the coming of the Kingdom of God in a variety of towns, maybe he is on a bit of a furlough in his adopted hometown before heading back out to preach among the other towns and cities of Israel.

Continued Teaching

Whatever the reason, Jesus does not break from his mission of teaching. Thus Mark tells us that as a crowd began to gather to him, “he was teaching them.” Not to get too inside baseball, but the Greek construction here is referred to as a “Customary Clause” which tells us not simply that Jesus decided to teach this crowd on this occasion, but that Jesus was in the habit or had established the custom that when people gathered to him he taught them.
If you have been with us throughout this series then you have heard us beat the drum that Jesus is not a miracle worker with high charisma and a few interesting things to say. He is primarily a man with a message. A message about God, the cosmos, his own divinity and cosmic-royalty, and our brokenness and neediness. Yes Jesus does mind-boggling things that are often hard to believe, but those are confirmations of the message, not the main event. Thus you can basically guarantee that if a crowd gathers Jesus is teaching, he might not necessarily be doing a miracle.

Calling a Tax Collector

It is unclear whether Jesus is teaching on the move or if he had been stationary teaching and now, having finished his teaching he take a leisurely seaside stroll. What we do know is while walking Jesus spots someone: Levi the son of Alphaeus. Levi is sitting at a tax booth. Why? Because Levi is a tax collector.

What Was a Tax Collector

What is about to happen, the exchange that is about to take place, will not make sense unless we understand that Levi does not work for our IRS. You see no one is particularly fond of the organization that collects taxes. But what we experience today is completely different than first century Israel. For us today we understand taxes to be something of a necessary discomfort, it is quite clear that our founders envisioned a nation in which taxes were collected in order to fund a healthy and functional society. For Jesus and those gathered to him, though, tax collection would be associated with oppression, excommunication, and corruption.

Oppression

The first thing to note is that Israel is not a sovereign nation at this point in history. Israel is under Roman rule. They are a part of the Empire. And Rome was good at many things, one thing they didn’t care much for was the nitty gritty of local government. So they outsourced it. The man they outsourced it to was Herod Antipas (there are a few Herod’s in the Bible so don’t get confused with his Father who sought to kill Jesus as a baby). Antipas hailed from a family and political class of cut-throat ladder climbers. He did some great things for the Jews and some sinister things. The only rhyme or reason that historians can note appears to be a desire to impress Rome for political gain.
All of this is important because all Rome really cares about is that there is no rebellion and that the taxes get collected to fund the lifestyle of Roman elites and the military advance of their standing armies both in battle and in barracks all over their empire.
All of this is important because all Rome really cares about is that there is no rebellion and that the taxes get collected to fund the lifestyle of Roman elites and the military advance of their standing armies both in battle and in barracks all over their empire.
In short, what are taxes being collected for? The funding of the conquered peoples own oppression.

Excommunication

As if that wasn’t bad enough, people in Antipas’ position usually see themselves above the the dirty work of the extortion of the Roman tax. So these governors hire out to people in the various communities under them to collect the tax. Which means the people being hired to collect the tax came from among the people. Hence Levi’s name. He works for the oppressive government, but he has a Jewish name! Further we see he is identified by his father. “Son of Alpheaus.” Implying that his family is known in the community.
One commentator notes:

Tax collectors were despised by the Jews because they were considered traitors and because they often were, in fact, extortioners

As such tax collectors are often grouped with “sinners” as they are in our passage to indicate two groups of people unwelcome in circles of pious Jews. Tax collectors (along with prostitutes and others with no regard for Jewish law) were ostracized, excommunicated from the civil society of Israel.
In fact, the view of tax collectors was so intense that the Mishnah (a text of Jewish oral traditions adhered to by conservative sects of Judaism in Jesus’ day) prohibited receiving alms (or financial giving) from tax collectors because it was assumed that a tax collector’s money was gained dishonestly. This leads to corruption.

Corruption

Scholars note:
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The NIV Application Commentary: Mark The Call of Levi the Tax Collector and Dinner in His House (2:13–17)

Toll collectors were renowned for their dishonesty and extortion. They habitually collected more than they were due, did not always post up the regulations, and made false valuations and accusations (see Luke 3:12–13). Tax officials were hardly choice candidates for discipleship since most Jews in Jesus’ day would dismiss them as those who craved money more than respectability or righteousness.

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Here is how we believe this happened. Rome passes on to Antipas how much Tribute tax they require. Antipas adds to that how much domestic tax he requires for his various projects. The tax collectors are then tasked with exacting a certain percentage of that sum from the community they collect from. Since the amount they are required to collect is only known to them, they can then collect above and beyond what is required in order to line their own pockets.

What’s in a Name?

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As if that wasn’t bad enough, people in Antipas’ position usually see themselves above the the dirty extortion of the Roman tax. So these governors hire out to people in the various communities under them to collect the tax. Which means
Tax collectors were then symbols of oppression, excommunication, and corruption. But I want to add to this an interesting tidbit about the particular tax collector we are looking at here: Levi son of Alphaeus

What’s in a Name?

In first century Israel and in the Jewish tradition, names were extremely important. They functioned as a sort of resume. If I knew your name I knew something about you. If we take a look at the other gospels the name Levi doesn’t show up, it appears Levi’s primary name was Matthew, but here he is referred to by a secondary name or middle name because this name heightens the tension as it connects him to the tribe of Levi or the Levites.
The Levites were the descendants of those who, throughout the book of Exodus, are tasked with caring for and transporting the Tabernacle. A large tent-like structure which served as a make shift temple until King Solomon built the Temple of God. At that point the Levites served various roles in the Temple.
Here is what this means. The father of this tax collector was likely a deeply religious man who desired a vocation of religious service for his son. Instead he is a professional racketeer for an oppressive and pagan government.
It is to this man that Jesus calls out “Follow me.”

Follow Me

Remember this is not an invitation to simply hang out or a request to literally follow (though many do). This is an invitation in to the relationship of master and pupil. To learn from Jesus how to live in accordance with reality. To become a disciple, to fish for men, and to proclaim the Kingdom.
To follow Jesus was not to simply join a movement or register with a new party:

There was much at stake for Levi in accepting Jesus’ challenge. Fishermen could easily go back to fishing (as some of the disciples did after Jesus’ crucifixion), but for Levi there would be little possibility of his returning to his occupation. Tax collector jobs were greatly sought after as a sure way to get rich quickly

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This call to follow is a point of no return.

Why He Eats with Sinners

The Message of Mark 7. Jesus Calls a Tax Collector (2:13–17)

Levi evidently got up and followed at once. This is, of course, Mark’s style. But it also says something about Levi. He may already have heard Jesus, and almost certainly had heard about him. But he must in any case have been a person willing to take hard decisions and live by them—his job involved that. Jesus met him where he was, and challenged him along an avenue with which he was familiar. ‘Take a risk, make your mind up now, and come.’ Levi did.

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Why He Eats with Sinners

Our scene then shifts quickly. Jesus had been teaching and strolling along the seashore, but now he is in Levi’s house at a dinner party. We are told that Levi and “many tax collectors and sinners” were reclining with Jesus and his disciples.
The reference “reclined at table” tells us that this a meal. In the days of corporate lunches, fast food, and such we might not realize how controversial this is. But notice what the scribes and pharisees say
We know that it is a formal meal based gathering because we are told that “he
[16] And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (ESV)
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The emphasis is on the act of eating.
[16] And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (ESV)
This was called Table Fellowship.

Jesus In the ancient world, dining together was a primary expression of identity and belonging. For tax collectors and sinners to seek out table fellowship with Jesus implies they were interested in the kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed (1:15).

In the ancient world, dining together was a primary expression of identity and belonging. For tax collectors and sinners to seek out table fellowship with Jesus implies they were interested in the kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed (1:15).

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Further it implied something about Jesus:
The NIV Application Commentary: Mark The Call of Levi the Tax Collector and Dinner in His House (2:13–17)

In other words, Jesus does more than preach repentance to sinners; he befriends them.

To think of this merely in terms of a party is to underplay Jesus’s intentions:
The NIV Application Commentary: Mark The Call of Levi the Tax Collector and Dinner in His House (2:13–17)

His goal in reaching out to the sick is to bring about healing and transformation in their lives, not to gather them together for a fun time.

How He Eats with Sinners

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How He Eats with Sinners

Why He Eats with Sinners

As with other parts of the book of Mark, I find that I am challenged here. I find that myself reflecting much more of the pharisees than of Jesus often.
The Pharisees were:

One of the three Jewish schools of thought in Palestine at the time of Jesus according to the Jewish historian Josephus. While the extent of their influence is unclear, the Pharisees apparently had some influence in political, religious and social spheres in Jewish Palestine. The Pharisees were known for their skill at interpreting the Law of Moses, and they held strict views on what was appropriate behavior for a righteous person. In Mark, Jesus criticizes the Pharisees for holding to traditions rather than obeying God’s commands (7:6–13). In ch. 2, they condemn Jesus’ choice to eat with those they viewed as unrighteous and unworthy, but Jesus is not interested in their rules about who is worthy of His attention.

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How often do I ask whether people are worthy of my time rather than whether they simply need my time? How often do I feel burdened by my obligations to those who are socially below me in age, income, education, etc.)? How often do I assess someones social cleanliness before I associate with them?
Thankfully I get an answer to the question and correction to my disposition. Jesus responds:
[17b] “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” (ESV)
The Message of Mark 7. Jesus Calls a Tax Collector (2:13–17)

Jesus’ reply requires time to digest (17). Put bluntly, Jesus is saying that you would expect to find a saviour among those who need to be saved. You would not look for a doctor among the well but among the ill.

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And in this correction I hear the tune of the Gospel that is resonates throughout the Bible. And this cord sounds to me like the one Paul plays in :

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

[17] And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” (ESV)
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Why does Jesus eat with tax collectors and sinners? The answering cord is played again in Ephesians:

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

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We think like the Pharisees when we forget that we too were sin-sick in need of a physician. We saw the symptoms of sin and self-diagnosed the illness, we prescribed the cure. And we tried to medicate our ails with drink and drug, sex and society, politics and legislation, achievement and ambition, money and matrimony. We were sick and we often, like many of our friends and neighbors still do, sought false cures telling ourselves that the fever would soon break. But, like the paralytic we met in last week’s text, we could not see the true need. We were sin-sick. This is the bad news that proceeds the good ():

6 For while we were still WEAK, at the right time Christ died for the UNGODLY.

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How He Eats with Sinners

I find the correction of the gospel re-order the question. If I am to follow Jesus, to love like Jesus, to proclaim the gospel of Jesus, then I must ask not only why Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners, but also how he eats with tax collectors and sinners.
You see this is dangerous work often. Every parent understands this. You want your children to be bold with the gospel? How do you feel with them spending time with the less savory members of their high school class? You want your child to proclaim the work of Christ? How do you feel about them attending a secular and antagonistic university? You want your child to be the hands and feet of Christ? How do you feel about them entering into areas of sickness and disease in order to minster to the outcast? For parents this may be especially harrowing, but similar questions could be put to each of us in each of our varied positions, roles, and stages of life.
How do we love the lost without losing the way ourselves? The answer to this question is provided by zooming out and rewinding a bit. You see at this point in Mark we find ourselves in a string of three interactions where Jesus extends himself to various social outcasts.
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Are We Sin-Sick or Self-Diagnosed Healthy?

In Jesus meets a leper. A man who by Jewish law was ritually unclean and whom could make you unclean if you came in contact with him. As such he would have been a pariah. This leper calls out to Jesus. And Jesus could have healed him with a word, but he touches him. When was the last time this leper felt compassion through human touch? Jesus extends himself to the ritual outcast.
In Jesus meets a paralytic. Someone who was at the mercy of others in order to survive. He could not participate in much of life. He was a medical outcast. And Jesus healed him such that he can rise pick up a mattress and walk. Each of those activities not only requires functional legs, but strength and memory within the muscles to do those activities with ease.
Here in Jesus meets a social outcast. A tax collector.
How can Jesus engage with these people? How should we engage with such people? I do not think it is an accident that preceeding these three interactions is the a passage of Jesus’ devotional life:
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[35] And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. (ESV)
Jesus has a habit of meeting God in the still and quiet moments of his day. In fact Jesus manufactures such moments by “rising very early while it [is] still dark.”
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I have had the opportunity to experience something like this. In the morning, I wake up early while it is still dark. I sit down at our dinning table Bible and coffee and after awhile (when it is still early) I hear the unmistakeable sound of small feet on hardwood. Out of his bedroom emerges my four year old son to climb into my lap and spend time with his papa before I head off to work.

In other words, the Pharisees represented an attitude that approached sin from the preventive side. They wanted to make and enforce rules that would safeguard people from becoming impure and immoral. Jesus represented an attitude that approached sin from the creative side, seeking to reclaim the impure and immoral. One could argue that the Pharisees’ attitude toward the people was defined by Ezekiel 44, which lays down rules about who may enter the sanctuary and priestly service, consisting of closed gates and signs saying “No admission.” Jesus’ attitude was defined by Ezekiel 34, which describes the shepherd who seeks out the weak, the sick, and the lost sheep and feeds them in good pasture (34:4, 12, 16). Pharisaic piety required concrete evidence of repentance before it would permit contact with the flagrant sinner; Jesus did not. While the Pharisees may have looked down on sinners (Luke 18:18), Jesus looked for them (19:10). Meals defined social boundaries in terms of who was approvable and who was not. By eating with sinners Jesus gave them a concrete sign of God’s loving acceptance and conveyed that repentance comes by means of grace.

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Jesus similarly seeks to live the reality of his sonship to his divine Father, it is that which by the work of the Holy Spirit, empowers his evangelism and strengthens him to reach the outcast. This serves as an example for how we too might seek the lost without losing ourselves. We too must live the reality of our sonship to the Father in order to be empowered for ministry.

Final Things

I want to close with some final observations we can take away from this text:
I want to close with five final observations:
First, sinners do not need to clean themselves up before receiving God’s love:

They do not have to strive to become worthy and then apply with a glowing résumé to follow Jesus. One becomes worthy by responding to the call.

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…and having Christ’s life substituted for your own.
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(1) Sinners do not need to do something first to become worthy recipients of God’s love. They do not have to strive to become worthy and then apply with a glowing résumé to follow Jesus. One becomes worthy by responding to the call.

As one commentator said it:
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The new thing in Christianity is not the doctrine that God saves sinners. No Jew would have denied that. It is the assertion ‘that God loves and saves them as sinners.’ … This is the authentic and glorious doctrine of true Christianity in any age” (Hunter, pp. 40–41, emphasis his).

Put differently, a few weeks ago we sang a song with the following lyric:
Come, ye weary, heavy laden,
Lost and ruined by the fall;
Lost and ruined by the fall;
If you tarry till you’re better,
If you tarry till you’re better,
The Message of Mark 7. Jesus Calls a Tax Collector (2:13–17)

the very condition of their lives, will find that a more obvious thing to do than will others.

Putting these two together we can say:
You will never come at all.
You will never come at all.
I find in many conversations that this seems to be a struggle and false belief that can increase after coming to Jesus. We might fall into thinking that Jesus saves us, but we need to then clean ourselves us. If you feel burdened and weighed down and you barely made it here this morning. I am glad you came. This is where you belong. With the rest of sin-weary humanity calling on the one who saves and sanctifies.

A self-righteous man is incapable of recognizing that need, but a sinner can. “It would be true to say that this word of Jesus strikes the keynote of the Gospel. The new thing in Christianity is not the doctrine that God saves sinners. No Jew would have denied that. It is the assertion ‘that God loves and saves them as sinners.’ … This is the authentic and glorious doctrine of true Christianity in any age” (Hunter, pp. 40–41, emphasis his).

Second, by the very condition of some people’s lives they will find their need for Jesus to be a more or less obvious thing. Sometimes our self-diagnosis and the self-medication effectively masks the symptoms deceiving us about the dire situation of sin.
Second, by the very condition of some people’s lives they will find their need for Jesus to be a more or less obvious thing. Sometimes our self-diagnosis and the self-medication effectively masks the symptoms deceiving us about the dire situation of sin.
This is true of so many of our friends, family, and neighbors. The comfort and busyness of life acts as a therapeutic bandaid for the deep anxiety caused by the sinful man’s true place in the universe.
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We should pray for those near and dear to us, yet far from Christ. That God gently crack the malaise that keeps them from seeing themselves as they truly are and seeing Christ for who he truly is.
Third, building on the two previous, we ought to be prepared for when those God has providentially placed us by become aware of their need. If, by the grace of God, whatever the bandaid they have been holding things together with fails, we need to be prepared with open arms, open homes, open schedules, and open Bibles to receive them and proclaim Christ and his unshakeable kingdom.
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Fourth,

By eating with sinners, Jesus does not condone sinful lifestyles but attests that these persons and their lifestyles can be transformed.

Some times we are afraid to engage our explicitly sinning neighbors for fear that we might be seen as accepting them. This does not seem to be a struggle Jesus had. Jesus’s presence is not a sign of acceptance, but of the possibility of redemption.

(2) By eating with sinners, Jesus does not condone sinful lifestyles but attests that these persons and their lifestyles can be transformed. Celsus, a vigorous pagan critic of Christianity in the late second century, was astounded that Christians deliberately appealed to sinners because he believed that it was impossible for people to undergo any radical moral transformation. These Christians were but following the pattern of their Lord, who conveyed God’s grace to sinners in ways that changed their lives. They were not to be snubbed or ignored no matter how vile or irredeemable they might seem. A self-righteous contempt for “sinners” does little to help them and may only compound their alienation and self-hatred.

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As we jump into this story it might be helpful to comment on where we have been. In Mark chapter one we are introduced through two prophecies to the concept of a forerunner to the Messiah. Someone who comes to prepare the way for the Messiah. We are, then, introduced to this forerunner in the ministry of John the Baptizer. A sense of spiritual dryness and discontent has settled over many people and John calls the people out of their relative comfort into the wilderness to confess their sins and return to faithfulness to the covenant with God. In the course of this ministry Jesus shows up at John’s wilderness revival meeting requesting to be baptized. To be immersed in the water where others have been symbolically washing their sins in order to identify with them. And as Jesus comes up out of the water the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus as a dove. Jesus is then led by the Holy Spirit deeper into the wilderness (since John was already in the wilderness (at the Jordan, where Israel entered into the promised land in Joshua)) to the place of trial and temptation (where the Israelites wandered for forty years). Jesus remains their for forty days, fasting. Toward the end of Jesus’ fast when he is weak and tired the Devil shows up to tempt him. Mark does not give us much by way of a temptation narrative, but he tells us the most important thing—Jesus wins. Jesus endures the temptation and returns back to society ready to being his ministry and preaching the arrival of the Kingdom of God.
I once heard a pastor comment that every pastor has a story about sharing the gospel on an elevator or with a guy on a plane.
Fifth,
Fifth,
Fifth,
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(3) Jesus makes no distinction between persons and spurns the whole system of ranking and classifying people—to the disadvantage of the Pharisees, who worked so hard to attain their status of sanctity (see Phil. 3:5–6). Jesus does not set up a table open to full members only (as at Qumran) but one open to all possible guests, wherever they may be gathered: in his house (or a toll collectors’ house), in the desert on both sides of the lake, at the home of a leper, and in an upper room.

Jesus does not fear being contaminated by lepers or sinners but instead contaminates them with God’s grace and power. He is not corrupted by sinners but transmits blessing on them. If the object of religious life is believed to be the preservation of purity, whether ritual or doctrinal, one tends to look at all others as potential polluters who will make one impure. Jesus rejects this perspective. He does not regard his holiness as something that needs to be safeguarded but as “God’s numinous transforming power,” which can turn tax collectors into disciples.

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(4) Jesus does not fear being contaminated by lepers or sinners but instead contaminates them with God’s grace and power. He is not corrupted by sinners but transmits blessing on them. If the object of religious life is believed to be the preservation of purity, whether ritual or doctrinal, one tends to look at all others as potential polluters who will make one impure. Jesus rejects this perspective. He does not regard his holiness as something that needs to be safeguarded but as “God’s numinous transforming power,” which can turn tax collectors into disciples.

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To do this we need to be saturated with God’s grace through the scriptures. We need to live out of our sonship understanding that in Christ we are accepted by God.

Prayer

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