the friend of cheats and sinners

The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’

Luke 7:34

I wonder what we would accuse Jesus of today? He lives in His people, yet for the most part, the church seems to hardly bear His same reputation as Jesus described Himself in this passage. We gather together quite properly, with good intentions, but do we also go out into our lives to live among sinners as comfortably and as winsomely as Jesus has shown us by His life recorded in the gospels? Are we more known for our judgmental actions, our alliances with political causes, our quest for cultural power, then for our day to day lives among people who don’t know Jesus? We

Why aren’t we known for our acceptance, for are closeness to sinners so that they call us friends?

I have come to the conclusion that religion has destroyed the gospel witness of many a disciple of Jesus. And perhaps the best thing we can be to those who aren’t followers of Jesus is a friend and not in a “double agent” undercover sense of the word. We don’t foist our moral agendas on those who don’t know Jesus. Instead, we bring Jesus to their places and let the light of the gospel lovingly shine so that they may see Him, hear us speak of Him, crave the gospel they see in us, so that they may repent of sin, turn to their Savior, follow Him and call more sinners to repentance in that work. Jesus does all the changing. We are just there, naturally, with them as friends... true friends who enjoy the fun and compradarie of being together. But for Jesus to make that change, we must first be with them.

Christians must not isolate. And finding the right word to describe what we do is important. “Infiltrate” is not the right word. Jesus has the right word for us: “friend”. Christians, with Jesus leading them, must relate as friends with those who do not know Jesus. We must live our lives in the world, not away from it. We do not gather in worship on Sunday to stay cloistered. We gather to be strengthened as we scatter naturally into great friendships with others. We must love those who need Jesus, risking our souls in friendship, opening up and caring and being cared for by them. We need not fear and we must not judge. We must be friends with people, repenting with tears of our pretentious self-made, works-based religion. We must be like Jesus.