Jesus and the Righteous
Video: https://youtu.be/VtahXxY4t_c
We continue to go through the Gospel of Mark, so please feel free to open up your bibles and follow along.
Up until now in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus has mostly been doing things that no one could argue with and everyone would want. He was healing, exercising demons, teaching, and preaching. Okay, He did a few things that many people would struggle with. He called people to repentance, to a changed life. He called those 4 fishermen to give up their old life, to follow him and fish for people. He left when there were people in need to take time with God. He even touched a man with leprosy. Finally, at the end of last week's reading Mark 2 verse 5, He tipped the scale and challenged everyone’s beliefs and expectations as He forgave a man’s sins.
Today, many of us are used to this idea of forgiveness, because Jesus gave His closest followers (now usually priests) the privilege of forgiving in His stead, but to Jesus’ listeners this would have seemed like blasphemy. Sure each of us can forgive one another for the wrongs we do each other, but our sins are primarily what separates us from God and his goodness, so no one can forgive those but God alone. Yet, here Jesus was forgiving in place of God. The reason is obvious to us: Jesus is telling us that He can forgive because He has been given that authority by God, which we know is because He is God.
In today’s reading Jesus continues to challenge us and all of our assumptions in 4 different ways through our 4 stories. First, He challenges our assumptions of who we should associate with and who God welcomes. He challenges our assumptions about how we should celebrate and how we should control our desires. He challenges our assumptions about what rest, relaxation and holiness looks like. Finally, He challenged our assumptions of what we should be doing and how we should be living.
So our reading begins at Mark chapter 2 verse 13, when Jesus goes and walks by the Lake. As this huge crowd is following Him, He looks through the crowd and sees this lonely man, Levi the Tax Collector. Sure Levi had money all around him, was probably very wealthy and probably even had armed Roman guards, but Jesus for a moment ignored the crowd to reach out to this man, knowing that Levi needed Jesus and that he would be willing to literally step away from all of that wealth and protection for the chance to find something even greater.
The thing was that many people following Jesus weren’t following him, because they were willing to give things up or willing to be changed or because they even wanted to know Jesus. Many were there because they wanted to see miracles (Mark 8:11). Many were there because they just heard about the spectacle (as we will hear about next week). In John 6:66 we hear about many that would turn away the minute Jesus gives them a difficult teaching, but today we see how easily people will vilify Jesus or turn against Him, or even plan to kill Him, just because He challenged their authority, the status quo and what they think is important.
That is what we begin to see as Jesus eats at Levi’s house in verse 15. Here Jesus is. He has attracted many followers from every sphere of life and now as He eats with Levi, Levi has invited some of his tax collector friends, the poor, the prostitutes, the sick, the criminals and who knows who else have all showed up and are welcomed. This would be a strange thing for anyone to walk into, even today. Our sensibilities would probably be challenged too. Are we willing to sit with, invite and welcome, those who we see as the worst of the worst? They question, if Jesus is truly good, why does He associate with such evil sinners?
Jesus replies, “It is the sick who need a doctor, not the healthy. I have come to call sinners, not the righteous”. First, this is a reminder of what Jesus showed us last week. He has come to take our hands and lift us up. If we believe that we are good unto ourselves, that we don’t need forgiveness, or a better way, or healing, or Jesus then how is He ever going to lift us up. Instead we will stubbornly sit in the hole we have dug.
This phrase of Jesus in vs 17, would have immediately reminded the teachers of the law, that all have sinned, no one is righteous as it says numerous times in Scripture: in Ecclesiastes 7, Genesis 6, Psalms 14 and 53, 1 Kings 8 and so many other places. This would have immediately challenged their outlook on themselves and these others. Everyone of us is sick in need of healing, sinners in need of forgiveness, repentance and redemption.
Here Jesus is also telling us something really special. The kingdom He is building, which would become the church, is going to be built, spread and composed of those who are not perfect, who have fallen terribly short, but who are being healed and transformed by the presence and calling of Jesus Christ. We see this throughout the gospels and this tells us who we are meant to invite, welcome and help God to lift up.
But of course, if Jesus is going to challenge their righteousness, they are going to challenge Jesus’. First they challenge Jesus’ pattern of feasting and dining in vs 18. The Pharisees and John’s disciples rightly know that self control, prudence and fasting from food, entertainment and many things are very important to a healthy life, to healthy emotions, a healthy body and a healthy spirit. We also know that self control and fasting is very important, even if we don’t always listen to sound advice. Jesus shows them just as at a wedding it is inappropriate to fast, or to mourn, so it is inappropriate to expect someone not to celebrate when they meet forgiveness, when they meet their Lord and Savior, when they find the joy of God. Rather this celebrating and feasting is only fitting to something that truly deserves celebration and rejoicing. Fasting and self-control is necessary and will come, but you do not start there. That would rather destroy someone or push them away or weaken their faith.
Next, they begin to start challenging Jesus because His disciples are picking grain on the Sabbath. The Sabbath is meant to be a protected day of rest, where we take time to honour God. I think in today’s world of business and never having enough time for God, we could all do with a Sabbath, but that is another sermon. Just like with fast, Jesus once again does not overthrow the Sabbath, instead He redirects it. He shows that King David, once took what was “unlawful” for him to eat, but because his soldiers needed it. He says to us, you see the Sabbath, the law, God’s commands were all made for us. They were all meant to guide us, to take care of us, to lift us up, not to imprison us. Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. He is not saying that they should do whatever they want, but instead He is saying let me show you what is truly Holy, what is truly good, what is truly rest.
We come to our last story of the day. In chapter 3 vs 2, we see many people are now watching Jesus trying to find some reason to accuse Him. They are fed up with Him challenging their righteousness, their opinion of themselves and their way of life, so they want to overthrow Jesus’ life changing love. Jesus knows this full well. He knows they aren’t going to like Him healing a man on the Sabbath, but that doesn’t matter to Him. He has come to do God’s will, but first He asks them a simple and obvious question: “Which is lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save a life or to kill?” As the Sabbath is a Holy day, this would have been as evident to them as it is to us, but they remain silent because they knew the consequence of the answer. They were stubborn, unwilling to see where their self-righteousness had got them, to cold, unfeeling, and unseeing hearts. Jesus heals the man and now Jesus’ opposition have a choice, they can humble themselves before the obvious good that is in front of them, showing them another way, or they can harden their hearts, stick to their pride and keep following their own way. We know people, we have been those people. They choose war instead of humility.
As we listened and read through these stories, it might have been easy for us to dissociate with the legalistic tendencies of those around Jesus, but even the most liberal of us have habits of creating expectations and rules for ourselves and others. We can and often are self-righteous in a way that casts out or refuses others. Yet, we all need healing. We all need to celebrate God more and practice self-control. In our weeks and days, we all need to find true rest in Christ and seek first what we truly need, not just what we want. In our attitudes, we all need to change, to deny our ego and humbly follow Jesus so that we might do what is good, right and Holy. Our whole lives need to be transformed, not by laws, but by the grace and love of Jesus.
