13 Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.
15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
-Mark 2:13-17
Do you find yourself judging others’ sin? Maybe you’ve looked at the behavior of some Christians and you thought, “Why would they do this?” Maybe there’s someone at church that you feel don’t belong there. Maybe there’s people at Harvesters that you wonder, “Why do they even come to Harvesters? The way they live their lifestyle is so far from God!”
That’s what the Pharisees—the religious leaders of the day—were doing to others. Levi and his tax collector friends were considered to be traitors to the Jewish people because they were working for the oppressive Roman government collecting taxes on their behalf. People judged them for their messed up lifestyle.
But in this passage, which contains one of my favorite lines in the Bible, Jesus says that he’s come not for the healthy but the sick. He wasn’t just talking about physical healing, he meant spiritual healing.
See at the end of the day, we’re ALL spiritually sick. All of us have turned away from God. It’s not just people who party and get drunk all the time, but it’s also people who lead Bible studies and are leaders at church or in AYL or at Harvesters. ALL of us have done something or thought something today that goes against God. That’s sin! That’s enough. We’re all sinking in the same spiritual boat so we shouldn’t compare who’s sinking faster!
My mom’s cancer diagnosis is currently considered to be “favorable” since her cancer is not that aggressive and fairly treatable. If someone else has a more serious cancer problem, we don’t look down at them and say, “Why is your cancer so messed up?” No, instead we often have compassion to those who are sick. We pray for them. We hope that doctors can eventually heal them.
That’s the same way we need to look at sin which is really just spiritual cancer. If someone’s spiritual cancer is worse than yours, you don’t bash on them. No, instead you show compassion. You pray for them. You help them to find the only doctor who can heal them of their spiritual cancer—Jesus.
Are you bashing people for their spiritual cancer or are you helping people with their spiritual cancer? As you pray and read the Scriptures, may God heal you of YOUR spiritual cancer. May He take away your judgmental attitude toward other sinners and replace it with compassion.
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