Reality "check please"

Luke 5:30-32

30 But the Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to His disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” 31 Jesus replied to them, “The healthy don’t need a doctor, but the sick do. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Jesus was confronted by the religious people of his day with the question - "why are you hanging out with these sinners?"

On its surface it sounds like a simple question. But let me rephrase it in a way that makes their assumptions more explicit. "(If you really are a righteous prophet) why are you hanging out with these sinners (instead of those of us who have dedicated our lives to righteousness)?"

Their question wasn't simply an indictment of the fact that these people were sinners (a point that Jesus didn't debate btw). Their question was an attack on the identity of Jesus. "If you hang out with sinners then you must really be a sinner, and certainly not a prophet."

Jesus responded in a magnificent way. Even hypothetically granting that if their assumption was true, they were still wrong to dissociate from sinners. Saying in effect "Let's agree that these people are indeed sinners. But shouldn't righteous people spend time with people who need righteousness, in the same way that doctors spend time with the sick?"

There was nothing more to be said. Jesus' point was irrefutable, there was no reasonable basis for the righteous to avoid sinners.

But there is another important point that can be drawn from the doctor patient metaphor. There is a subtext that Jesus leaves hanging in the air.

We've all known people who avoid doctors. You may be one yourself. Whether it's the fear of bad news, needles, cost, or simple inconvenience, many people would rather do anything else than seek the help of a doctor. But the reality is that we will all need the help of a healer at some point in our lives - whether we want to admit it or not. In other words - we are all sick.

To the religious Jesus said in effect - "I'm the healer come to help the sick - I'd help you too, but you won't admit your need for help."

Jesus wasn't rejecting the religious when he compared himself to a physician. They were rejecting their need of a physician.

Those of us who claim to know the living God must never place distance between ourselves and others, on the basis of our perceived spiritual healthiness. No matter how long you've known Jesus, you need his healing touch every bit as much as the worst sinner you can imagine. The distance between the best and the worst person in the world disappears when we look at  Jesus.