The Doctor is In
The Rev. Dr. John Judson
January 23, 2011
Have you ever been sick? And when I say sick I don’t just mean you feel bad, but that you are so sick that you can’t remember what being well feels like? And have you ever been sick such that you were contagious and had to be isolated from family and friends? I have to say that this is for me the worst kind of sickness there is. It is the worst for two reasons. The first is that it means not only do you feel bad but that you are alone. There is no one who can come over and commiserate with you; no one who can help you pass the time make you feel better by their presence. It is also the worst because even when you feel better and want to get back into the swing of things with others, you can’t. One of my childhood memories was of coming down with chicken pox in the middle of Little League baseball season. And even after I was feeling good I was not allowed to go and play because I was still contagious…though my mother did make sure I played with my younger siblings so they would get it and get the disease over with. Any of you ever been there?
Well if you have then can begin to appreciate the difficult position of some of the people in our morning’s story. In the story there are those who are referred to as “sinners and tax collectors.” Chances are that while many of us have heard the phrase before it does not mean much of anything. But here is what it meant to those who were referred to in that way. It meant that the Jewish society in which they lived thought of them as contagious and avoided them at all costs. Now when I say that they are contagious I do not mean they had some physical disease. Instead they were spiritually and morally sick. They were those who did not live as God wanted them to live. They were those who lied, cheated and stole. They were those who were traitors to their nation, religion and people. They were not the kind of people that you wanted to hang out with because by so doing people would either assume you were like them, or you would ultimately give in to their way of life and become like them. People believed that their way of life was not only contagious but was deadly to living the kind of life God desired of God’s people. So people isolated and avoided them.
Needless to say then it came as a shock to everyone in and around Jesus when he not only asked one of those kind of people to be a disciples but Jesus actually went and ate with them. In the time of Jesus there was no more intimate and loving setting than having a meal together. So the “sinners and tax collectors” were shocked that this holy man, this powerful teacher would want to come and have a meal with them. This was unheard of because they had come to believe that they were so unlovable and lost that no godly person would have anything to do with them. The other people who were shocked were the religious people. By eating with the “sinners and tax collectors” Jesus was risking being contaminated. He was risking becoming sick like those people were sick. It was as if he were saying that their spiritual and moral sickness was not real and that they should not be isolated, thus ricking the spiritual and moral health of the nation. As I said last week, hanging out with Jesus is trouble with a capital T. So they ask Jesus’ disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with sinners and tax collectors?”
Jesus’ response was direct and to the point. Jesus reminded the religious people that he had come as a doctor to help heal those who are sick; sick not only physically but sick morally and spiritually. He also reminded them that the religious didn’t need him because they were already well. They already knew what it was that God desired of them and were trying to live out that kind of God-honoring life. Jesus’ response is one I hope we can appreciate. I hope we can appreciate first because we know we need our doctors when we are ill and not necessarily when we are well. They are there to help heal us. Secondly I hope we appreciate it because of what it tells us about God. Jesus’ words remind us that God wants us to be well and that God makes house calls. As we all know there are two ways of dealing with sickness. We can wait it out and see if we or someone else gets better. Or we can see of the doctor will see us. Judaism in the time of Jesus believed that God waited for people to get better on their own. Jesus reminded those around him that God was not willing to wait…that God always took the initiative. In other words Jesus had come to make a house call on sinners and tax collectors in order that they might be healed. He had come, as he put it, to save sinners.
This helps us make sense then of his cryptic comment about God desiring mercy and not sacrifice. God wants God’s people to initiate the contact…to show mercy to those who are broken, rather than waiting for those hurting people to initiate the relationship through the religious sacrificial system. So what does this mean for us at First Presbyterian Church? I think it calls upon us to rethink our understanding of who we are and why we are here. It has been said that a church has to decide if it is a hotel for saints or a hospital for sinners. I think that Jesus pushes us to take the image even further, for a hospital waits for people to come to them. My impression is that Jesus would have us be Doctors Without Borders for the spiritually and morally struggling. We are called not to wait for someone to come to us seeking help in getting their lives together but that we are to go to those around us who are in need. We are to offer the love and grace and mercy of God in such a way that they will know that God’s healing love is available for them. I realize that this is not an easy mission to undertake. By working with people whose lives are not “all together” we are reminded of those moments when our lives were or perhaps, are not, altogether as well. Yet this is what we are being called to do.
Our challenge then is to ask ourselves this question, “Am I willing to reach out in the name of Jesus Christ offering God’s love and healing to all persons in order that they might discover the joy of leading a God honoring life.”
