Glutton, Drunkard & Lord ~ Luke 5:27-32

²⁷ After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” ²⁸ And he got up, left everything, and followed him.²⁹ Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house; and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others reclining at the table with them. ³⁰ The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” ³¹ Jesus answered, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; ³² I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.” ~ Luke 5:27-32

My parents believed in the discipline of eating together. This was put to the test when my father took a job which required of him an hour commute one-way meaning breakfast began at 6 am sharp. But they remain resolved – family eats together. My mom, however, did allow for one concession. You didn’t have to be presentable; you only had to be present. Looking back, I think quite fondly of those morning meals. It’s interesting to consider eating together to be a discipline, even a spiritual one. It hardly makes it in the typical books on the topic. And yet Jesus’ constant eating with others, particularly those who were outcasts, was a critical part of his ministry and spirituality. So as we enter the new year we need to recover the spiritual significance of Christian eating. Okay, let’s dig in.

          

          1.    Everyone hungers for with. (vss. 29 & 30)

Everyone needs to eat – there is no circumventing it. Eating is both a delight for many but also a source of fear for others. For most of us, food is so plentiful that we don’t even think about it until we miss a meal. Then, look out! In our family we use a word for someone who is angry because they are hungry – “hangry.” Eating reminds us of our needs.

We eat to live, of course. But we also eat to meet many hungers: the hungers of our body, the hungers of our memory, our hunger for community, and our hunger for home. Food and hunger are great equalizers – everyone has them. And yet, not everyone experiences these the same way. Not everyone eats with.

Who does Jesus eat with? “tax collectors & sinners”

Tax collectors: In the Roman Empire, local residents were subjected to a wide array of taxes: road and bridge tolls, taxes on merchandise, and property taxes. The task of collecting them was usually given to someone in a geographic area who was not a native. The system allowed for extra taxes to also be collected to supplement the tax collector’s income inviting an enormous amount of corruption and abuse. Add to such financial oppression the ceremonial impurity of having to interact with Gentiles, not to forget the element of treason for helping a foreign power, and you begin to get a sense of the immense social and cultural toll the activity had on an individual.

Sinners: As for “sinner” this was not simply a personal opinion about someone’s lifestyle; it was a term for those whose breach of the Mosaic law was known in the community, which excluded them from the synagogue.

Both kinds were excluded. And we know who these people are in our world as well. We also know what such exclusion feels like - it's gut-wrenchingly painful. I recently read of an impressive set of studies that demonstrate why people experience social exclusion as painful. Both physical pain and the pain of being left out are processed in the same part of the brain. Emotional pain, in other words, triggers that part of the brain that processes physical pain.


The first act of the gospel, the first act of a loving God is to come, recline, and eat with the excluded, the outcast, the immoral – those who long for a “with.” Notice that Jesus eats first and then calls for repentance. This is both theological as well as pastoral- Romans 2:4 tells us that God’s kindness aims to lead us to repentance. Radical love invites and accepts first –apart from even knowing people. There is an important cultural piece to all of this – to recline, to eat with someone both demonstrated and created a real bond between diners – both ethically and socially. So Jesus bonds with before he does anything else.


And yet there is another implicit message present in all of this. While all of us hunger for a “with,” all of us are also sinners. Jesus is being sarcastic when he tells the Pharisees that he has not come for the righteous– there aren’t any righteous. The Pharisees’ own failure to understand him, to eat with him, are proof of that.

          2.    Religious People often Suffer from an Eating Disorder (vs. 30)

For Jesus – eating with political, social and moral outcasts was the prophetic ministry of the kingdom – a radical inclusiveness. He was addressing the eating disorder often found among religious people. It wasn’t about being nice but displaying God’s kingdom and true feelings by protesting the eating disorder tradition and exclusive policies of the Pharisees. Policies that were based on scripture! Many of us devour the Scriptures only to later purge ourselves – to fail to ingest them properly – to remember that they point to Jesus who digested the Scriptures properly.


And ingested Scripture meant that in Jesus’ ministry tables become platforms for prophetic protest. On February 1, 1960, four African American college students sat down at a lunch counter at Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina, and politely asked for service. Their request was refused. When asked to leave, they remained in their seats. Their passive resistance helped ignite a youth-led movement to challenge racial inequality throughout the South. Over 70,000 people took part in the sit-ins. They even spread to northern states such as Ohio and Nevada and began to address segregated swimming pools, lunch counters, libraries, transport facilities, museums, art galleries, parks and beaches. By facing our own country’s horrible eating disorder of segregation and exclusion the students played a significant part in the history of the civil rights movement.

Eating with social and moral outcasts is so important to Jesus’ ministry that he will risk its harm to his reputation – perhaps, like the four African American students at Woolworth’s, even its violence. Luke 7:34 has people calling Jesus a “glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” More than mere harm to his reputation, Deuteronomy used this phrase to designate a “rebellious son” and how one should deal with such a character:

¹⁸ If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, ¹⁹ his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. ²⁰ They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” ²¹ Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid. ~ Deuteronomy 21:18-21


Notice that the criticism of Jesus is directed toward Jesus’ disciples not Jesus himself (vs. 30). Friends, it strikes me that this doesn’t often happen anymore. Oh, it’s true that Jesus is still painted with that brush but the church, his followers, are rarely criticized for welcoming and eating with outcasts. Where are our lunch counters in today’s world? They’re still out there. Maybe we need to care about our reputation a little bit less and notice our frail physique. Our own desire to look good which is slowly starving us to death. Maybe we need to be a bit more rebellious. Maybe our role isn’t to always play the good citizen but to actually be “friends of sinners.”

          3.    Let your table be the church.

In the famous sitcom, Seinfeld, we are introduced to the very broken, if not entertaining, Costanza family. In one episode, the elder Costanza talks about a holiday that he invented to challenge the commercialism of Christmas. It’s called Festivus – and hailed by the slogan, “A Festivus for the rest of us.” The odd celebration contains a bare aluminum pole instead of a Christmas tree and “feats of strength” in which everyone has to wrestle the head of the household. The celebration, however, begins with the “Airing of Grievances”, which takes place immediately after the Festivus dinner has been served. In the television episode, Frank Costanza begins the meal, “I got a lotta problems with you people, and now you're going to hear about it!”


Jesus wasn’t just eating with sinners – a condescension of the cool kid hanging out with losers. His eating had a purpose. He aimed to heal them. He aimed to have church!

What might it mean that the table is our place for healing? In Jesus’ ministry the table actually reflected the work of the temple – welcome, forgiveness, healing, and hope. When Jesus himself wanted to explain to his disciples what his forthcoming death was all about, he didn’t give them a theory, he gave them a meal. And not just any meal – the most liberating meal in all of Scripture. The Gospel message of Jesus, his radical act of reaching out to sinners, is not mere spiritual metaphor. Redemption, the coming of the kingdom of God, isn’t simply like a meal – it IS a meal. Jesus’ meals, in other words, belong side-by-side with exorcisms, miracles, preaching, and acts of divine healing. And repentance is not the berating of sinners, the shaming of others, or the stern talking to that a parent might say to a child, “Sit up straight. Stop playing with your food.” It’s an invitation to a banquet. The word “repentance” comes from two Greek words, meta (beyond) and nous (mind or spirit), and thus, in its most basic form, it means something like “go beyond the mind that you have.” Jesus, in other words, is urging his banquet friends to change their way of knowing, their way of seeing and grasping who God really is. It meant seeing Jesus as the great physician come to heal us of all our wounds.


Jesus flipped conventional wisdom on its head. The traditional view of the Pharisees was that uncleanness was contagious, but Jesus regarded holiness/wholeness as contagious. Holiness was not something that needed to be protected; rather it was a gift from God – a miraculous power to transform individuals.


In this way, maybe evangelism and salvation are much more like friendship and a party than preaching and worship. Maybe, the love of Christ is to let the other be strange and not reject him or her, to be enfolded in God’s love.


I’d like to end with another feeding story. In Mark 6, we have the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000.  


³⁴ When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.³⁵ By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. “This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late. ³⁶ Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” ³⁷ But he answered, “You give them something to eat.”


This job of feeding is not the purview of pastor’s solely nor merely the miraculous activity of Jesus – I’m a disciple just like you. It’s for all of us. And so now having heard about the prophetic ministry of the gospel, “You give others something to eat.”

The Gospel According to Whom . . .? ~ Luke 2:8-18

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: ¹¹ to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” ¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” ¹⁵ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” ¹⁶ So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. ¹⁷ When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; ¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. ~ Luke 2:8-18

“Good news of great joy for all people.” Our world seems in short supply, right? In fact, the holidays for many seem to be much more about stress, running around, getting into debt, more than anything we might call “good.” So our passage today struggles. Not because it isn’t true but because we’ve lost the ability to hear it, to find the world filled with angels and to discover that God is good. So to re-inhabit the story, the drama of it, I’d like to do something a bit different this morning. I am going to offer an imaginative perspective of three angels who are supposedly auditioning to be the arch-angel who will lead “the heavenly host” to the shepherds. In Galatians 1:8, Paul mentions that we should not listen to angels who preach another gospel. Apparently, angels, like humans, can misunderstand, misrepresent, simply miss God. So what follows is my own dramatization of how many of us get the gospel wrong – in ways that are all too familiar in our world, even in the church. So keep your Bible open to Luke 2:8-18 and listen critically. But first an apology for my acting – let grace and forgiveness abound, for this I am truly sorry, and second a disclaimer.  

DISCLAIMER: The events, characters and entities depicted in this sermon are mostly fictional. Any resemblance or similarity to any actual events, entities, or persons, whether living or dead, is only sort of coincidental - except when the Gospel of Luke is quoted, which it is a lot. Okay, so this is kind of fictional, but nonetheless seeks to unmask that which seeks to portray itself as true. So it’s not truly fictional but it seeks to be fictionally true. 

Angel One: Okay – let’s see tone, message, and audience. How would God want me to do this? What’s my motivation? Okay, get into character – be angelic, majestic, perfect.  Oh I’ve made a few changes to the script. I hope that’s okay? This story felt a bit too rated R for my taste. Here we go. Ha! Be afraid, be very afraid! – yes, you should be afraid. Do you know who God truly is? And God knows, God knows everything! Every breath you take and every move you make. Every bond you break, every step you take, He’s watching you. For unto you is born this day – the One who’s coming to clean house – the pure one, the Almighty Smiter (that’s my own addition), do you hear what I’m saying? Now, I am bringing you God’s message of good news for some people – okay, you, you, not you, maybe you, and definitely not you. A king is born in the city of David – a city which, I might add, God could easily wipe off the face of the earth. And  . . .  And . . . Line? Oh yeah, oh yeah, “sign.” The sign? The sign is big, huge, uncontestable – it’s uh, me, I mean us – the angels! We are the sign – perfect, moral angels – white teeth, fresh breath, righteous anger, ready to do battle with a sinful world! “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth – this miserable planet filled with no-good sinners – peace for those whom God loves like . .  .Wait, who are you guys? Uh, there’s a problem – this is not the right audience. Shepherds are you kidding me? Their dirty and I don’t just mean their hands and faces. Who’s the script writer? Luke? Come on! I heard there was another version with “wise men” and proper gifts like gold and frankincense. Where are the priests? SPOILER ALERT: Priests will love him. What? I can’t change that? Okay, fine. But wash your hands you filthy animals and no, I’m not talking to the sheep.

We’ve heard angels one’s message. That God is a morally strict God – itching for vengeance, focused on strict rule following, and seeking starched white, religious people. What’s insidious about this message is that religious people constantly talk about trusting in God and knowing God but are constantly the ones in the gospel story who miss God and misunderstand Jesus’ words and actions. The only priest in the birth story is Zacharias and we all remember what happens to him – he’s the one made mute. And while many of Christians may not be committing notable sins, their hearts are increasingly filled with pride, self-righteousness, insecurity, envy and spite – making the world a miserable place to live in. A gospel like that simply makes outcast out of people who don’t live up to your standards – and the outcasts ARE the audience of the gospel. I’m reminded of the scene from the novel A Prayer for Owen Meany, when the main character, Owen, who is very small due to birth defects is forced to play the baby Jesus though he’s almost a teenager. Embarrassed – he forbids his parents to come to the Christmas play only to discover during it that they are sitting on the front row. When he sees them, he stands up in the manger, points at them and says, “Who let you in here?” How many churches sound like that? Yet the good news is that the gospel is not a moral tale and God is not some heavenly Santa with a naughty and nice list. We all need a savior and aren’t saved because we are good. But let’s return to the story and the second, messed up angel.

Second angel: Okay, whoa that first angel needs decaf. I’ve also made a few changes to improve upon the script. Okay? Be all that you can be. Find success join Christianity! Hey no cowering, no cowering, it’s all good. Don’t worry be happy, right? What do you have to be afraid of, except Roman taxes? Am I right? Okay, fear those but for everything else, no problem. I’ve got good news for you – you can be a success, have it all, for unto you is born this day – in a city whose gdp is still very strong - is One I liked to call “the fixer, the Heavenly CEO, Success Guru for how to make friends and influence people. This will be a sign for you – no problems. No problems, no surprises, no mistakes, no headaches, no weepy phone calls in the middle of the night, no divorce or kids on drugs, or bad financial decisions, because, hey, we know why bad things happen, right? Poor planning, poor thinking, poor prayer and well, just being poor, if we’re honest. Remember what the Bible says, “God helps those who help themselves.” What? That’s not in the Bible? Well, it should be! The sign is that you will find the babe wrapped in . . . what? Lying in a what? Uh, what’s that sign of other than bad parenting? They had nine months to get the Bjorn crib. And can we do something about this audience? Why are we in Bethlehem anyway? I mean Rome is the real scene. Send me and the boys there and this baby will have proper care, I guarantee it.

Angel two’s message also resonates. It imagines that God is all about our hard work and the Gospel God’s assurance that, like Ben Franklin says, “Early to bed, early to rise, will make a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” Christianity then is about success and has no time for failure and little to say to those whose life doesn’t turn out like they plan. There’s no mystery and in the end no gift of grace. The gospel message becomes what we are able to simply do for ourselves and a source of shame for all of us who have failed. In the comedy Talladega nights – Will Ferrell displays this way of thinking for many Christians in an utterly ridiculous sort of way at a meal time prayer. His character – a famous race car driver – prays: Okay. Dear 8 pound, 6 ounce newborn infant Jesus, don’t even know a word yet, just a little infant and so cuddly, but still omnipotent, we just thank you for all the races I’ve won and the 21.2 million dollars – woo!– love that money, that I have accrued over this past season. Also, due to a binding endorsement contract that stipulates I mention Powerade at each grace, I just want to say that Powerade is delicious and it cools you off on a hot summer day. And we look forward to Powerade’s release of Mystic Mountain Blueberry. Thank you for all your power and your grace, dear baby God. Amen.

Now Angel Three – the one who gets it right: Don’t be afraid – oh, I know, I know, it’s hard to see why you shouldn’t be. Augustus is emperor – a military occupation of staggering proportions, the economic situation is dreadful, and no prophets have brought any word from God in a long time. But I am bringing good news of great joy. Right, great joy! Don’t you know that you were made for joy? That God created you because God thought you would enjoy it? And don’t worry because you can’t buy it, don’t have to manufacture it yourself, pretend to be happy, really do anything. God is doing it and doing it for everyone –good news of great joy for all people – rich and poor, young and old, women and men, the righteous, the not-so-righteous, the tattooed, the busy body, the slacker and even that irritating person who voted for the candidate that you did not. And this one who is born in the city of David – is savior, which means that there is something we ALL need saving from– is king, which means that we ALL need help ruling our own lives – is the Lord, which means that God is not distant or far removed from anyone. This will be a sign for you - you will find a child wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. Do you get it? That’s clever, amazing – that’s God. God with us – God in it, the thick of it, the bumps and bruises of it – every nook and cranny of our lives. God is not some abstract thought experiment to be believed or not believed  – God is a flesh and blood person. God is now someone you can see. God is now someone with whom you can share your life and receive his in return. I know I’m off script here but another writer will say, “in him the fullness of God dwelt.” We can look now and see who God truly is and what God really wants. So look at the baby in the stable and sing with us: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace. And I love that this comes to shepherds. Shepherds remind us of the shepherd King David (2 Sam. 7:8), but also because shepherds belong on God’s guest list for the kingdom: the poor, the maimed, the blind, the lame – the prophecy of Isaiah 61is fulfilled even in his birth. His birth truly reveals who God is and what God has come to do.