Continued

Food Fights

There are plenty of other evidence from the Gospels that this was the case. As soon as the Gospel of Mark reveals the conflict between Jesus and “the scribes” (Mark 2.1-12), he launches into three conflicts over eating (2.13-28). These conflicts vary. One is over whether or not Jesus fasts enough (2.18-22/ Matt 9.14-17/ Luke 7.31-35). Another is over picking and eating grain on the Sabbath (2.23-28/ Matt 12.1-8/ Luke 6.1-5). Moving on to other incidents, Jesus’ disciples did not ceremonially wash their hands before eating (Matt 15.1-2/ Mark 7.1-5) and Jesus Himself would eat with hands that had not been “baptized” (Luke 11.37-38). Worse, Jesus not only thought the conflict over food was an occasion for an attack on the Pharisees (Matt 15.3-9/ Mark 7.6-13; Luke 11.39-52), but he openly taught that the Pharisees were entirely wrong in their dietary concerns (Matt 15.10-20/ Mark 7.14-23).

But these incidents were not the root problem alluded to in the accusation against Jesus, that He was a glutton and a drunkard, “a friend of tax gathers and sinners.” The additional provocation which Jesus gave to the scribes and Pharisees was the company he would keep, especially around the dinner table. Jesus would eat and drink with “many tax-gatherers and sinners” (Matt 9.10: Matt 9.9-13/ Mark 2.14-22/ Luke 5.27-38; Luke 7.36-50; Luke 15.1-2). This was a horrible offense in the eyes of various strict Jews, whether called scribes, Pharisees or lawyers.

Yet when Jesus was asked to explain Himself, His explanation added insult to injury “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick” (Matt 9.12/ Mark 2.17/ Luke 5.31). Jesus was effectively claiming hear to be able to “heal the sick,” that is, to forgive sinners. This is made explicit in all three Gospels. They all record the first incident when Jesus calls a tax-gatherer to be his disciple and then eats at his home just after his conflict over the forgiving and then the healing of the paralytic (Matt 9.1-13/ Mark 2.1-22/ Luke 5.18-39). In eating with these tax-gatherers and sinners, Jesus is indubitably demonstrating the right he had just claimed for Himself to forgive sins. The analogy of being a physician to being a forgiver of sins obviously points back to his claim that because he could heal the paralytic he could also forgive his sins.

Luke records another whole incident in which we again see this power to forgive sins used to explain the company Jesus kept at the dinner table (Luke 7.36-50). In this case, the immoral woman was not an invited guest to the feast, but only because the host in this case was a Pharisee. Though he did not invite her, Jesus welcomed her and made it clear His welcome to her was based on or resulted in his forgiveness of her sins. Just as in the case of the paralytic, the pharisaical guests want to know “Who is this who even forgives sins.”

To anticipate a point that will be made when we look at the Old Testament background, it is impossible to believe that the scribes and Pharisees thought that sins could not be forgiven. That was not the issue. God had provided for the forgiveness of sins through the Temple system. The offense of Jesus was that He seemed willing to bypass this God-given system, as if it was not necessary or as if he was just as much a source of pardon. Thus, He was able to eat and drink with sinners.  The onlookers understood that in some way, as “son of man,” Jesus was not simply proving his own deity but also establishing a new way for people to find forgiveness and thus table fellowship: “When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men” (Matt 9.8).

TO BE CONTINUED