“The tax collectors and the sinners, meanwhile, were all seeking his company to hear what he had to say, and the Pharisees and the scribes complained, ‘This man,’ they said, ‘welcomes sinners and eats with them‘” [Luke 15:1-2].
Tissot, The Pharisees question Jesus.
Chapter 15 of Luke’s Gospel opens with the scribes and Pharisees bad-mouthing everyone. They knew Moses’ laws inside out and they held themselves up as the good, clean and holy ones and the rest of humanity as being below them. Occupying privileged positions, they could pontificate over others, even sneer at them. They were quite full of themselves. “None are so empty as those who are full of themselves”, wrote Benjamin Whichcote. The problem went deeper. Being so full of themselves, they were quite unable to respect and esteem others, to give them due recognition, to give credit where credit is due. They dismissed Jesus as equally unworthy as those unclean characters with whom he befriended and shared table-fellowship.
The rest of Luke 15 contains the essence of the gospel of Jesus. It carries three parables – the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son – by which Jesus teaches about the mercy of God, in response to the Pharisees. The central question Jesus poses in each of the stories is whether the Pharisees and legal experts will welcome such persons as tax collectors and sinners, join in the heavenly rejoicing at the finding of the lost, and celebrate their recovery at the banquet table. Christians today inherit the same question.
The New Testament tells of stories of Jesus’ table fellowship with all manners of people. These stories disclose an important aspect of Jesus’ public ministry – communion at the same table, regardless of rich or poor. Sharing a meal is a way of both taking care of our needs for daily meals and spending some time together amongst friends. Fellowship in this way has the potential of generating intimacy and creating group solidarity. When, however, we attach importance to what Jesus is trying to explain to the scribes and Pharisees in Luke 15, we begin to see that his table fellowship takes on a whole lot deeper meaning. It is a way by which Jesus evinces the generosity of God to the poor and marginalised especially, yet never excluding the rich, the famous and the powerful so long as they too were accepting of him. It is a way by which Jesus seeks to persuade people about God’s abundant mercy and love. And, it is a way by which Jesus facilitates everyone’s return to God – everyone who has ears to hear and hearts to change.
How successful is Jesus?
First, in some meal-episodes, notably among tax collectors and sinners, this association leads to happy results (see Luke 5:29-32). In other episodes, however, notably among scribes and Pharisees, table fellowship ends in protest and hostility (see Luke 7:36-50; 11:37-54). Not everyone has the open ears and ready hearts to receive Jesus and change, whatever their stations in life.
Second, instead of rejoicing with Jesus over the sinners with whom he eats, the scribes and Pharisees grumble against him. People likewise grumble when Jesus goes to dine in Zacchaeus’ house (Luke 19:7). And of course the same reaction is noted from the scribes and Pharisees when Jesus eats with sinners and tax collectors at Levi’s house (Luke 5:30). All these grumbling and complaining against Jesus in Luke are about his table-fellowship. Why?
It seems that amongst those considered “sinners” the good news is operative, whereas amongst the “righteous”, it is not. That’s one way of looking at it.
When we question why it is operative in one sector and not in another, the answer seems to have to do with how the various groups respond to Jesus’ presence and his message. In his own assessment, Jesus sees that sinners are repentant while the righteous are not aware of their need for the good news. The former realise their need for healing by the divine physician while the latter, considering themselves well, render the physician redundant. So Jesus replies to the question from the righteous about his associating with sinners: “It is not those who are well who need the doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the virtuous, but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:31-32). Evidently, grace is freely offered, but you have to seriously want it to tap into it, to encounter it, to experience it.
What is repentance?
If repentance is a valid issue, how do we understand repentance in this discussion of Jesus’ table-fellowship and the Pharisees’ complaints?
As far as the stories go, Jesus is not searching for and seeking the lost. The tax collectors and sinners are coming to him. He offers grace freely: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Luke 14:35).
Repentance begins with acknowledging our “lostness”. We will then see the three stories in Luke 15 as suggesting to us that repentance is best defined as our acceptance of being found. The shepherd, the woman and the father all delight in seeing the lost found. In the third parable, that of the prodigal son, the message moves a step deeper. The prodigal, being a human person unlike the coin or even the sheep, suffered and wallowed in a state of lostness. And so in the case of the third parable, the joy of the father surpassed that of the shepherd and the woman in that he rejoiced over the termination of the condition of lostness of the son. He was happy for the son. God, we must understand, is for us, not against us. God does not want human beings to suffer. The father in the parable demonstrated costly and unexpected love. The son has to accept that love and learn to stop running away. That acceptance and discontinuance of running is repentance. Once that happens, the gospel tells us, heaven rejoices. The central question raised in 15:1-32 is whether the Pharisees and legal experts will welcome such persons as tax collectors and sinners, joining in the heavenly rejoicing at the finding of the lost, and celebrating their recovery at the banquet table. Now, the question Jesus poses to us all is, when heaven rejoices will there be rejoicing on earth?
We want to give a positive response to that question. To do that, we need to be intentional in seeking to grow in at least three areas.
First, we need to be part of a repentant Body.
We need to stop keeping joy out of heaven by being so self-righteous that repentance is unnecessary. When sinners fail to repent and “come home”, heavens have no cause for celebration. In the same light, stop being a kill-joy when other sinners come home.
Second, we need to know that the Body is incomplete.
The Body is incomplete when one is lost. If you like the numbers game, you may notice that out of the fullness of the figure 100, when one is lost, the remaining number 99 is incomplete. Hence the shepherd had to go search for the one that was lost. The same is true of the lost coin, whose loss renders the original full number of 10 now incomplete at 9. Like the prodigal son story, any family with a child missing is incomplete. The Body is incomplete. In any elderly parents who suffer from the death of a child, one cannot fail to see the pain that comes from an empty hole in their hearts.
This perspective of the incompleteness of the Body offers a useful angle from which to view the “lapsed” members of the Church or even the “unchurched”. It is an angle that no longer stays with the usual vision of seeing “them” as the “lost” and “we” as the “found”. It is an angle from which we tap into the gut-wrenching urgency in the stories as God’s deep concern for one sheep, one coin, one child. The Body, quite simply, is incomplete, and God is concerned. So must we. But are we concerned? Do we not overlook and trivialise their absence and our ecclesial incompleteness? How do we show our concern, if at all? Are we overly preoccupied with temporal concerns such as church properties and money when we should be more concerned about people, especially those who are missing? Do we expend time and energy in committee meetings and pastoral outreach to help God complete the Body and celebrate when one comes home? There are concerned and spirited groups in the United States who not only put up considerable sums of money to finance newspaper advertisements aimed at reaching out to those who are missing from the Body, but who also organise themselves so as to be prepared to accompany and walk with the returnees the journey home, which in some cases may be difficult and lengthy. The first two parables clearly provide a model for evangelism by which we actively go out in search of the missing members of the Body.
Third, we need to become a welcoming Body.
From Jesus’ happy table fellowship with the marginalised, and from the father throwing a banquet to welcome the prodigal home, we learn another model of evangelism. This model does not so much speak of an active going out in search of the ones missing, but instead elaborates on creating the conditions of possibility to facilitate the homecoming of the ones who are missing from the Body. Implicit in this model is the preparation of the heart on the part of those who stay at home, especially for charity, hospitality and forgiveness. And the message is somehow conveyed to the estranged portions of the Body that while we cannot and will not force and drag them home, they are missed, their presence is desired and prayed for, and that if ever they give an indication of their decision to return and make the first step to do so, we will come the rest of the way to fetch them. They will be welcomed with wide open arms. This model prescribes work in preparation to welcome and feed, not to lecture and warn and steadfastly exclude. It witnesses to the gift of compassion and an ability to love because God loved us first.
Today, we continue to struggle with who should be welcomed to the Lord’s Table. Does anyone really have to be acceptable to us before being acceptable to God? Recall that St Paul had to fight tooth and nail for the early Church to accept the Gentiles just as they were (see Acts 15). He insisted with the Jewish-Christian leaders of the time that the Gentiles did not have to first become Jews (that is, undergoing circumcision) before becoming Christians (that is, undergoing baptism)! May this Pauline spirit generate a more accommodating attitude in the Body, one that generously welcomes rather than legalistically excludes “sinners” from the Table of the Lord.
Copyright © Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh, February, 2011. All rights reserved.
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