The Leaping Rabbit

Hi all. I recently dug up this article I once wrote for a church newsletter. Although I wrote it several years ago, I think it’s still pertinent, so I thought I’d share it. As always, thanks for reading!

Rembrandt's "Return of the Prodigal Son"

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, NIV

I’ve always been a good person – a rule follower, and like the Pharisees, I struggle with arrogance and hypocrisy and with thinking I can do it on my own. So I must admit that it’s easier for me to identify with the Pharisees in this story than with the tax collectors and “sinners.” For that reason, Jesus’ statement here always used to bother me. It seemed to me that Jesus was telling the Pharisees, “Back off! I’m here for these people you call ‘sinners;’ I’m not here for you.” As someone who identified with the Pharisees, I found this disturbing.

It was an encounter with another gospel story that helped me come to grips with what Jesus was saying here. One Monday morning during my junior year of college, my creative writing professor decided to open class with a story. From her King James Bible, she read us the parable of the prodigal son, and she told us, “I’ve always identified with the older brother in this story, but I recently realized something that I’d always known but never really assented to; I realized I am the prodigal son.”

“I am the prodigal son.” I too have known this all my life, but just as I had always identified with the Pharisees, I had also seen myself in the role of the obedient, yet unhappy older brother in the story of the prodigal son. But the truth is, as a sinner saved by grace, I am the prodigal son. I am the one who has been forgiven much. I was dead in my sin until Christ saved me.

Only when we realize the depth of our need and the extent of our own sinfulness are we able to experience the joy that comes from grace. When Jesus told the Pharisees that he had “not come to call the righteous, but sinners,” he was not telling the Pharisees that they were excluded from salvation; he was challenging them to recognize their own sinfulness in order that they too could be saved. Jesus is a friend of sinners, and that includes not only those who are guilty of murder and adultery, but also those who are guilty of hypocrisy, arrogance, and cowardice. The Pharisees’ problem was not that their sins were the wrong kind of sins for Jesus to forgive; their problem was that they never sought forgiveness.

It is a humbling experience to discover our true role in the story of salvation. We were dead in our sin, and because of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, we have been given life. Even those of us who are like the Pharisees or the prodigal son’s older brother – rule-following church-goers, not outwardly rebellious – are sinners saved only by grace. God’s grace is the one thing that can transform people who are spiritually dead into living heirs of God.

The good news is this: Christ died to save sinners, and as fallen human beings, you and I fit that category perfectly. Your sin is neither too great nor too small to be forgiven. So, whether you are a Pharisee or a “sinner,” if you humbly confess your sins to Christ, you can take joy in the knowledge that you are forgiven much.