I couldn't decide whether to label this post as a blog post or a devotion. I've just been rather burdened by something I have noticed even more lately as the blame game seems to be everyone's favorite pass-time. We're so consumed with what China did or didn't do, how the government is or isn't trying to control our lives, and if Ahmaud's brutal slaughter was justified or not. In all of this, we are forgetting something essential to the kind of world we all claim to be working towards.
Tragically, humanity seems to become more divided as time goes on. We let disagreements and division deceive us into thinking the person across the table is the enemy. Our opinions and self-righteous pursuits of being on the right side of the battle lead us to be vicious and heartbreakingly evil towards other people. We look at those who have opposing viewpoints and vilify them to the point that we cannot see the good they might be trying to do. We just write them off as ignorant and corrupt.
In this passage, Jesus calls Matthew, a tax collector, to follow Him. Tax collectors were notorious for being corrupt and manipulative, ripping people off of their well-earned livelihoods. After Matthew drops everything to follow Jesus, he invites his new teacher and the other disciples to his house as dinner guests, along with many "other disreputable sinners" (v. 11). To this, the Pharisees asked, "Why does your teacher eat with such scum?"
If your heart doesn't break at the fact that these men who claimed to know God could look upon someone and call them "scum," you are missing the whole message of the Gospel. If Jesus were here in person today, what group would you ask this question about if He were to do this? What would you say if He were to have dinner with Dr. Anthony Fauci? Donald Trump? Ahmaud Arbery? Barack Obama? A group of Democrats? A group of Republicans?
If you would have this response to Jesus communing with whoever your perceived enemy is, you do not truly know the heart of Jesus.
Furthermore, many people don't even realize they have these prejudices. For example, I have heard way too many times, "I'm not racist, but . . ." If you have to say "but," after a sentence like that, something isn't right.
If we are so blind to our own prejudice that we have convinced ourselves we don't have any, we are in grave danger of missing Jesus when He comes back. We saw what happened when the Pharisees met Jesus and didn't recognize Him as the one they had been waiting for. And unfortunately, this is going to be true for many of us. He is going to come back, and if we aren't willing to admit that we are all in just as much need of grace as the people we are against, we are going to miss the One we have sworn to be serving all along. To those, He will say, "I never knew you" (Matthew 7:21-23).
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