The Company We Seek

Matthew 9: 10-17

And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “The wedding attendants cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; otherwise, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are ruined, but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”

When reading through the New Testament Gospels, time and time again we encounter religious authorities, individuals in prominent positions, marketplace influencers and numerous others who come to Jesus struggling to understand why Jesus is not conforming to the traditional religious and social norms. The questions cover numerous topics that range from attempting to gain clarity on who Jesus is, to why he chooses to act in such a peculiar manner. Why did Jesus chose to connect himself with the poor, the brokenhearted, all those in need of deliverance, the blind, the bruised and all who were living life on the margins.

We hear the Pharisees ask Jesus’ disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” This was not the crowd that the Pharisees thought anyone should connect themselves with and should be avoided, cast to the margins of society as they were concluded to be beyond the bounds of divine acceptance and approval. This is not the company Jesus should keep.
When I was young, there were often moments when my parents would tell me as I prepared to head out into the world, “Be careful of the company you keep?” I am not the only one to hear these words or to have reached the point of life when the wisdom of those words comes into a modicum realm of clarity. This reading had me reflecting upon the more than the company Jesus was keeping. I had to think about the company he was seeking.

We are living in an age and in a culture that values popularity and appearances. It is important to be seen with the right people, in the right places, in person or captured by the camera for digital and social media postings that will travel around the world. The posts are published to display and to show that we are in the company of the right people and moving through the right places. As disciples of Jesus Christ, we have been invited to join Jesus in a ministry and consider not just the company we keep but the company we seek.

prayer

O God, our gracious Heavenly Father, help us to rise out of our attitude of self-centeredness, out of our egotism. Help us to rise to the point of having faith in Thee and realizing that we are dependent on Thee. And when we realize this, O God, we will live life with a new meaning and with a new understanding and with a new integration. We ask Thee to grant all of these blessings in the name and spirit of Jesus. Amen.

—“Thou Dear God”: Prayers That Open Hearts And Spirits, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1957