Mark 2:13-17
“Bad Company”
March 4, 2012 - Second Sunday in Lent

         Homer Simpson goes to college. In an episode of the popular cartoon, the beer-guzzling goofball heads off to ivy-covered halls with visions of academic life culled from Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds. Homer meets and corrupts the dull, studious habits of a trio of nerds. He buys them loads of beer, leads tasteless pranks, and takes them on stupid road trips. In general, he exerts a less than positive influence on their lives.

         I doubt you want your child to make friends with Homer Simpson. Your vision of their college friends is more like clean-cut studious young people at a dormitory Bible study. You want his friends to reinforce what is good in your son. You don’t want your daughter to hang out with people who bring forth the worst in her. You don’t want them to meet Homer. You hope for someone like his straight-laced neighbor, Ned Flanders, to befriend your child.

         It’s proverbial truth that good company is preferred to bad. In Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Falstaff says “Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me.” In Don Quixote, Cervantes writes “Tell me thy company, and I’ll tell thee what thou art.” In George Herbert’s collection of proverbs we read “He who lies down with dogs rises with fleas.” Discussing the philosophy of friendship, Aristotle argues that true friendship can only exist between good people.

         It’s in the Bible too. Proverbs 24:1 says, “Do not envy wicked men, do not desire their company.” In the New Testament, Paul quotes a Greek poet in I Corinthians 15:33 to say, “Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’”

         Like me, you may have had a time in your life when you “ran with the wrong crowd” or “hung out with some bad dudes.” With a sigh of relief you look back, as I do, and thank God that you found other friends and became part of a better circle. You imagine what a disaster your life would be if you had stayed in bad company.

         If this wisdom is so widely accepted; if you and I want good company for ourselves; and especially if we want our sons and daughters to associate with decent people, why does God have lower standards for His own Son? That question irked those Pharisees who taught the law in Capernaum. If Jesus really was a man sent by God to teach us the way of goodness and light, why was He hanging out with such awful people?

         Jesus not only sought the companionship of one bad character, Levi the tax collector, He went on to a dinner party with more tax collectors and other as­sorted sinners. By the standards of his culture, He associated with the very worst company He could find.

         Tax collectors were despised because they were Jews who worked for the Romans. They profited by gouging their own people. They got appointed by bidding on the amount of taxes they could collect. The collector who promised to squeeze more out of people got the job. Their own salaries consisted in whatever they were able to collect over and above the taxes they had bid. It was an arrangement designed for corruption.

         When a Jew became a tax collector, he was regarded as an outcast from decent so­ciety. He could not be a witness in court, he was excommunicated from the synagogue and, in the eyes of society, his disgrace extended to his whole family. It was the most vile of occupations, something akin to how we regard a drug dealer or a pimp.

         Levi, who was also called Matthew, probably worked for Herod Antipas. He collected tolls on goods being transported into Galilee. That is why his tax booth was near the sea, along the main coastal highway leading north. Levi may have collected a duty on fish being caught in the Sea of Galilee and then transported inland. Taxing poor, honest, hard-working fishermen makes him despicable.

         Jesus specifically, deliberately called Levi to be his disciple. He chose him instead of other seemingly better candidates. A rabbi with Jesus’ reputation could have had his pick of willing followers among the respectable and righteous. But He chose a tax collector.

         Jesus took a step further. He not only invited Levi to follow Him, He fol­lowed Levi. He went home with him for a meal to which not only tax collectors but other “sinners” were invited. “Sinners” is in quotes to show that it designates a particular class of unsavory people. It included prostitutes, adulterers, those who committed fraud, and those who did not live by God’s law. To eat with sinners stained one’s own character. It was, in Herbert’s words, to “lie down with dogs.” The Pharisees responded to Jesus like He had fleas.

         They were offended by Jesus’ company. Pharisees saw them­selves as guardians of all that was good and holy among God’s people. They believed rabbis should refrain from associating with sinners. Those who taught Scripture must, of all people, be most free from im­proper associations. Eating with someone had deep significance. A dining table was like a miniature temple. Those you sat with were your companions before God. To eat with someone sinful and unclean im­plied that their character was also your own.

         Like backbiters still do, the Pharisees did not complain directly to Jesus, but to His disciples. They wanted to know “Why?” Why would this seemingly holy and blessed man who does miracles in God’s name choose to soil Himself with the company of those who gathered in Levi’s house that evening? The thing is, they didn’t want any more of Jesus than you and I would want for our own children. Why would He associate with bad company?

         Jesus either overheard or was told what they asked.  In verse 17, He responds with a “mini-parable,” a brief analogy. Sick people need a doctor, not those who are healthy. And sickness is relative. In an emergency room or a battlefield MASH unit, medical personnel work by triage. Patients are pri­oritized according to the extent of their injury or illness. When everyone can’t be treated at once, those with the greatest need and greatest expectation of benefit are cared for first. You may sit with your broken arm or cough for a couple hours, while doctors and nurses keep other people from dying. But if you have abdominal pain that sounds like appendicitis you get treated immedi­ately.

         Jesus eating with sinners was spiritual triage. It was not that He had no concern for more righteous people, but they were not in such dire need of His attention. He says, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” In God’s emergency room, it is sinners, not the righteous, who need His immediate care. So Jesus deliberately chose to be with bad company. That was what He came for. Bad company was the object of His mission.

         Does that mean there are people who are fine without Jesus, people who are really righteous without His help? No, there ought to be quotes around the word “righteous” in verse 17. Psalms 14 and 53 both say, “there is no one who does good.” There are no truly righteous people. By classifying themselves as righteous, the Pharisees distanced themselves from Jesus. Sinners would be His company, not them.

         Never push a parable too far. Jesus did not divide the world into two groups of people and then select the least likely as His favor­ites. He was countering the Pharisees’ false notion of the Messiah. They imagined the Messiah would be a member of their party. They expected Him to elevate the righteous and crush the sin­ners. If sinners repent, fine. But the Pharisees were already on the right side.

         Eating at Levi’s house, Jesus blew away preexisting ideas of the right side, the right party. If we think being on God’s side means joining a party, then we’ll always find Jesus on the other side. It is dangerous to imagine you are righteous and contending with people who are not. By sitting down to dine and converse with people who were obviously not righteous, Jesus meant to remind the Pharisees, and everyone of us who is tempted to be one, that He finds us all in the same situation. We are all sinners.

         Jesus eating with sinners is not some sort of backwards favoritism, a spiritual reverse discrimination. As Augustine put it, “Since no one is perfectly righteous, Christ has not come to call those who are not there, but the multitudes of sinners who are there.” In other words, if He came for the righteous, He wouldn’t find any. They aren’t there. By coming for sinners He came for everyone. There are plenty of us.

         Neither the tax collector nor the Pharisee stands outside of the friendship of Jesus. He ate with Pharisees too. He loved them all. Whether sinner or supposedly righteous, they were welcome in Jesus’ company. Some of the Pharisees accepted His love and grace, like Nicodemus in John chapter 3. The only way to get right with God was by grace, the grace that comes through faith in Jesus.

         Whatever we might think about how to fix our current medical care system, in Jesus’ spiritual hospital there are no paying customers. Everyone coming to the Great Physician is subsidized by the grace of God. The Pharisees thought they had paid for their treatment, but Jesus showed them that the price of God’s love was beyond anyone’s personal health plan.

         No one needs to sit in the waiting room. There are no truly righteous. Jesus did not seek good company, because there is none. We are all bad company. No one here today is outside of the grace and love of Jesus Christ because none of us deserve it. You can’t make yourself unacceptable to Him by being too sinful and you can’t keep Him from loving you by thinking you don’t need Him. The only thing you accomplish by staying away from Jesus is preventing yourself from enjoying His company. But He always wants your company.

         You and I are probably more like Pharisees than we are like sinners. Most of us think we are respect­able people. We pay taxes and uphold good values. We bring our children up to obey authority; work hard in school; stay away from drugs. We grieve over the moral corruption of our society. We are among the 15 or 20 percent of people in the Northwest who are in church this morning. If we admit it, we are the supposedly “right­eous.” But we are not saved by our righteousness. We are saved by the righteousness of Jesus Christ, the only completely good man who ever lived. If we are in God’s company, it is only by grace.

         What then, is our relationship toward all those not yet in Jesus’ company? If we are true companions of Jesus, how do we respond to the kind of people He made His companions while on earth? Where and when in our hardworking, busy schedules do we sitting down to eat a meal with unsavory and outcast people? Jesus was accused of being a friend of sinners. Would anyone make the same charge against us?

         Bad company can corrupt good people, but good company can do the reverse for bad people. My friend Jay did drugs in high school. He did LSD. When expecting their first child, he and his wife held their breath, praying the baby would have no birth defects because of Jay’s drug use. Jay’s life was turned around because of a Christian who befriended him while he was still a belligerent druggy. Bruce sat and listened to Jay and answered his questions. Someone not afraid to befriend a sinner changed Jay’s life.

         I’ve seen it happen here. Some of our church youth befriended bad kids. At least one of them I know is an active Christian today because other kids who loved Jesus weren’t afraid to be her friend. Jesus was a friend of sinners. Let’s hope and pray God will keep giving us the opportunity to be accused of such friendship.

         It is part of our mis­sion as a church to have bad company. Yes, a church is a place to meet good people, but more than anywhere else on earth, your church should be a place to meet bad people, other bad people like ourselves. It’s an opportunity to get to know and become friends with people you’d never hang out with for any other reason. We are here to enjoy bad company. Because Jesus did.

         Amen.

         Valley Covenant Church
         Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
         Copyright © 2012 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj