Luke 5:27-32

  Luke 5:27-32

It would be hard to imagine the hatred the Jews had for tax collectors. Someone once said, “Everyone hates crooked politicians and corrupt cops.”  Tax collectors were both. Their authority was not clearly defined so they could get away with almost anything.  For example, they could stop merchants on the road, tax them for using the road, tax the merchandise on the cart, tax the animal pulling the cart, tax the cart itself, and tax each wheel of the cart. The income to be made by tax collectors from sales tax of merchandise, other taxes,  and for the privilege of being in the Roman Empire was immense. If the merchant didn't have the money, the tax collector could lend the money at an interest rate that would embarrass an organized crime loan shark. While many people barely survived, the Jews who collaborated with the Romans as tax collectors lived in luxury. In our society we may have no class of people hated, as were the tax collectors among the Jews.  Jesus was in the habit of keeping company with the dregs of His society, including tax collectors. 

The church today seems to have fallen into one of two errors. Some churches have lost any sense of right or wrong.  They cannot bear to call anything sin.  The other error is our separation from sinful people. Often the church has withdrawn from society into the cloistered walls of its sanctuary. Most of what the church does is focused on serving the membership of the church. We allow sinners to come to our events, but for the most part we are hosting events for the church people, at the church building, and hoping outsiders might come to us. 

Try this experiment: take several weeks worth of your church’s bulletins and count how many announcements are about events where your church specifically goes to the world outside of the church building. Then count the events for the members in which the world is allowed to attend. An honest examination of this sort is likely to reveal why most churches are stagnant or in decline.  This passage is an invitation, by example, for believers to move the focus out of their buildings and into the world.

“Lord, help me to become friends with disreputable people so I can lead them to Christ.  AMEN”