Hospital For The Sick

Jan 30, 2023

Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 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. 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. 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?” 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

In Mark 2, Jesus was caught between tax collectors and sinners: some of the most hated people within his community, and the well-respected religious leaders.

Jesus shared a meal with social outcasts - the people you would cringe at when they walked by - and the religious leaders were appalled. But Jesus makes his point clear with a simple metaphor: Doctors help sick people, not healthy ones. I have come to help the sinners and sufferers, not the righteous.

I love the leadership Jesus exemplifies here. The kind of leader that is available, even to the ones that seem like a mess. The kind of leader that doesn’t conform to societal standards, but sticks to what he knows is true. The kind of leader that isn’t afraid to do what’s socially unacceptable, in the name of helping the people he has come to lead.

When I read Mark 2, I love Jesus’ character, but I hate thinking about where I would fit in that story.

In a world full of societal pressures, it’s scary to ask myself: Where would I sit?

Would I seek out the outcasts and broken ones, who might have hurt me?
Or would I do all that I could to gain approval from the leaders that everyone respected?
Would I follow Jesus’ lead and stick to what was true?
Or conform to what would progress me forward societally?

Where would you sit?

In upper middle class, North County San DIego, I will be the first to admit that my sinfulness would make it really hard to decide. We live in a society of perfectly manicured lawns, brand name wardrobes, parking lots of Teslas and Audis, and a constant need to perform on every social media platform.

Now I’m not saying all of those things are bad - of course not - but it’s no secret that in our city, in our society, there is a deep pressure to perform. To fit in. To get ahead. To show that you have it figured out.

And yet there is a God who rewrites that script. A God who says (paraphrased):

Okay it’s fine that you can drive this car, or got that promotion, or live in this zip code. But what about the sinners and sufferers? What about the people you don’t make eye contact with on the street? What about the people who have hurt you? I came for the sick, not for the healthy.

Friend, today maybe God is calling you to reflect on which table you are at.

It’s easy to spend all of our energy trying to conform to society, but God is inviting us to a radical kind of love that meets us in our messiest places and pushes us to do that for others.

Maybe God is inviting you to go out in your city and have eyes for the people that feel unseen.
Maybe God is inviting you to reach out to the person that hurt you, that you desperately need to forgive.
Maybe God is inviting you to see past all of the STUFF that our 21st century culture convinces us we need, and live a more generous life.

I’m not sure where God is inviting you to live a little more like He did. But I know this: There’s a God who went first for us. Who did what we couldn’t, so we could be saved from our sin and destruction. And now we get to share that kind of love with the people who need it most.