Photo by: New York YMCA Camp
Some of us feel story-challenged. If we believed in Christ early in life, without ever doing drugs, time, or the prodigal thing, we tend to feel at a loss for what used to be called “a testimony.”
We may even have felt spiritually deprived the first time we heard the principle that those who are forgiven much love much. But those who are forgiven little love little (Luke 7:47).
But let’s not forget that Jesus had a way of turning everything upside down, and inside out.
So let’s start with what we think we know about that privileged relationship Jesus had with those who had a better bad story than we do. It’s true. Jesus was known as “the friend of sinners.” He seemed so predisposed to prefer their company that religious people tried to make a case of guilt by association against him. Reputable men could see that dangerously bad people were disproportionately attracted to him.
Jesus didn’t deny that he loved those others hated. He admitted that he didn’t leave heaven to hang out at the club, or even in the sanctuary. He seemed to honestly like messed up people and seemed to want to bring them all home to his Father (Mark 2:16).
Good people also resented the fact that Jesus told so many stories at their expense. Even in his famous telling of The Prodigal, it was the “good ol’ boy” who seemed to get under his skin far more than the kid who had been in the pig pen (Luke15:11-32).
He used such parables like a subtle form of Marshal Arts (whoops I mean martial arts :-). By simple, down to earth stories the Teacher took the supposed strengths of those who had an excessively high opinion of themselves and flipped them on their backs.
Some good people, therefore, ended up with a completely different view of themselves after meeting Jesus. One of them later wrote a letter in which he described himself as having been a former best of the best (Philip 3:4-8). After meeting Jesus, he gratefully called himself the worst of the worst (1Tim 1:15).
In another letter he set a trap for the good people he used to run with. First he cataloged the bad habits of irreligious, immoral, pagans. His list reads like a “who’s who” of the “worst people in the world” (Romans 1:18-32). According to this former Pharisee we know as Paul, “Although they [these awful sinners] know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. Therefore you are without excuse, every man of you who passes judgment, for in that you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things. (Romans 1:32; 2:1).
Talk about [martial arts]. Without the chapter and verse numbers that we usually see in the above, the push-pull catches good readers off balance.
But what gives Paul the right to set such a trap? How could he write with such moral certainty about his readers? Well, maybe if we could talk to him now, he might tell us that it takes one to know one, and that everything changed for him after meeting someone who not only knew his heart, but the hearts of all who compare themselves among themselves and measure themselves by themselves (2Cor 10:12).
Is it possible that those of us who have believed in Christ ever since we were children … could be among those who are the most guilty of resisting the Spirit of Jesus as he moves among us today?
You may not agree. But we might all benefit by asking ourselves the question and then thinking about whether our view of others lines up with what we know about our Lord’s opinion of others. My guess is that if all of us could spend a day seeing our hearts in the unmasked presence of Jesus, none of us would come away without a story.
It might even turn out that those who, from our point of view, seem to have the best story of rescue might now realize that, in some ways, our worst sins weren’t committed until after coming to the light. It was Jesus himself who taught us, “to whom much is given, much shall be required” (Luke 12:48).
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