Luke 5:30

But the scribes and Pharisees murmur

The Friend of sinners

We cannot wonder at the scribes and Pharisees asking this question.

I think that we should most of us ask it now, if we saw the Lord Jesus going out of His way to eat and drink with publicans and sinners. Make merry with them He could not, but He certainly so behaved to them that they were glad to have Him among them, though He was so unlike them in thought, and word, and look, and action. And why? Because, though He was so unlike them in many things, He was like them at least in one thing. If He could do nothing else in common with them, He could at least eat and drink as they did, and eat and drink with them too. Yes. He was the Son of Man, the man of all men, and what He wanted to make them understand was that, fallen low as they were, they were men and women still, who were made at first in God’s likeness, and who could be redeemed back into God’s likeness again. The only way to do that was to begin with them in the very simplest way--to meet them on common human ground. Self-respect would begin to rise in those poor sinners’ hearts when our Lord came to them and ate and drank with them. (Charles Kingsley.)

Practical sympathy

A city missionary was one day visiting one of the lowest and most degraded courts in London, and a woman said something like this to him:--“You say you care for us, and are anxious about us; but it is a very easy thing for you to come from your clean, quiet home just to visit us. Would you come and bring your family, and live in this court, expose yourself to all these evils day by day, in order to lift us up?” The missionary felt he had hardly enough love for that: but Jesus dwelt with sinners, ate and drank with them as well as died to save them. (Biblical Treasury.)

Sympathetic help

A Boston minister a short time ago had occasion to look up a very poor family, and climbed up four flights of stairs in a noisome tenement house on his errand. His tap at the door was answered by Dr. Phillips Brooks, with a baby in his arms. Inquiry revealed the fact that the woman had been very lit, and sorely needed fresh air, but had no one with whom to leave her little baby. Phillips Brooks found her out, gave her tickets for a tram-car ride, and was staying tending the baby while she enjoyed it. Only from a large heart filled with the spirit of Christ could such an act of real kindness have sprung. (American Paper.)

Frigid selfishness

A great poet has represented the souls of thoroughly selfish men as encased in ice, alternately shivering and benumbed, with only enough of life to be conscious of the surrounding all-pervading death. This supreme selfishness, or rather indifference--this insensibility to What is generous and lofty, this prudent self-complacent, self-indulgent regard for one’s own interests, is what our modern civilization, with its wonderful development of material wealth, has been drifting towards. And nothing can be more fatal to the highest interests and happiness of man. A splendid frost-work of society-sparkling like what we sometimes see around us after snow or rain on a winter’s day--as beautiful, but also as cold and as fatal to all spontaneous outgushing of warm and generous life. (J. H.Thompson.)

Christ in the company of social outcasts

The Jews and Egyptians, and indeed other peoples, were very scrupulous with whom they ate, much as are the Hindoos to the present day. It will be remembered that Joseph Genesis 43:32) ate with his brethren apart, and the Egyptians by themselves, for it was an abomination to the latter to eat with Hebrews. And so the old Tobias, during the Assyrian captivity, exhorted his son not to eat and drink with sinners. Christ, by sitting down to table with these despised and excommunicate publicans, add with heathen, broke through the caste rules, of which separation at table was the most conspicuous symbol. He showed that this holding aloof from others, whether it were national or individual, was contrary to the principles of the gospel, against the fundamental laws of His Church. (S. Baring-Gould, M. A.)

The Saviour and the publicans

This question was asked partly in ignorance and partly in ill-will. Our Lord would not leave to His simple and timid disciples the task of answering the critics. First, He rebukes with stern irony the self-righteousness of the questioners, and then He explains.

I. THE ANSWER SET FORTH THE GLORY OF OUR DIVINE SAVIOUR. “The Friend of sinners” is one of our Lord’s most glorious titles. God’s condescensions reveal His glory more completely than His magnificence.

1. The glory of His work-”To call Sinners to repentance.”

2. The glory of His character--‘, Which of you convinceth Me of sin?”

II. A COMMENT ON THE ACTION AND HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. Like her Lord, the Church of Christ has entered into the life of sinful humanity to purify and elevate it. She may not cease to eat and drink with publicans and sinners.

III. SUGGESTIVE AS TO THE DUTY AND CONDUCT OF PRIVATE CHRISTIANS. In consorting with those who openly deny the truth of religion, or who live in flagrant violation of its precepts, there are two dangers to be guarded against.

1. We must keep clear of Pharisaism, that rank weed which so soon springs up in the souls of believers.

2. We must not voluntarily expose our souls to risks which are palpable and overwhelming, when no good can be done for the souls of others. Let us endeavour, when we arc thrown with others, be they who they may, to think of our Lord at Matthew’s feast, and pray Him for His gracious help that we too, sinners though we be, may speak a word in season to him that is weary. (Canon Liddon.)