Guilty by Association
But the Pharisees and their teachers of religious law complained bitterly to Jesus’ disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with such scum?”
Jesus answered them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent.” -Luke 5:30-32, NLT
And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. – Luke 15:6-7, ESV
“The church is the only fellowship in the world where the one requirement for membership is the unworthiness of the candidate.” -Robert Munger
“Their (the Pharisees) failure to become disciples is perhaps connected with the fact that repentance is not easy for the respectable and the self-righteous.” - Leon Morris,
“… “healing” is understood as restoration to relationship with Yahweh and his people- that is as forgiveness. In coming to them as a physician, Jesus participates again in boundary-crossing and, in doing so, opens the way to spiritual and social restoration for these outcasts.” - Joel B. Green
Guilt by association is a logical fallacy. Meaning it is flawed to think that because a person is in proximity to a person guilty of a crime, they too are guilty. One legal website states it this way, “Also known as the “association fallacy,” this is the assumption that a person is guilty of something, not because of any evidence to prove they are guilty, but rather because they are associated with someone who is guilty.” (emphasis theirs[i]) This is essentially at the heart of the grumbled question of the Pharisees and teachers of the law in Luke 5:30. They don’t understand how, if Jesus is doing God’s work, he can be associated with such sinful people. Joel B. Green helps us understand better by writing, “…the presence of Jesus at the table with social outcasts begs for rationalization, given that shared meals symbolized shared lives- intimacy, kinship, unity…” While our culture has less ridged lines around insiders and outsiders, it is easy enough to catch the wrath of the religious elites for hanging out with the wrong crowd. Often, it is our fear of guilt by association that informs our relationships more than a genuine sense of being on mission with Jesus. No one likes to feel the sting of being associated with the “wrong” people. And so, our followership of Jesus is thrown into a crisis in a unique way. Sick people need a doctor, but being around sick people can get you a bad reputation, even getting you lumped in with them at times (see Luke 7:34). Our choice here though will either put us on the same mission Jesus is on or, have us opposing Him. My problem is that I want to draw nice, neat lines around whom and when and where Jesus can work. And as a result, I often end up missing out on where God is working. I find it far more native and comfortable to point out the sinful behavior of others than to attempt to find a redemptive way to be in their presence. Inviting outsiders in is messy work and is becoming increasingly polarizing. As the lines get bolder and darker around who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’, they also seem to become less grace informed. Instead of sitting with the hard question, “How can I be a physician’s assistant among those sin-sick people in my life?”; we guard our group and its orthodoxy against any and all threats, real or imagined. In a culture that is increasingly unable to do nuance, Jesus’ life and ministry puts us in some tricky places fast. The latest black-listed former favored evangelical pastor or leader is the fastest way to know this isn’t just imagined. The Pharisees were the well-respected religious conservatives of their day. Their clash with Jesus came because, in their minds, He was compromising truth and running the risk of contamination by His associations. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reality of course is that the Pharisees, in a well-intentioned effort to avoid compromise, drew lines around God’s law that violated the foundation for the law- God’s covenant faithfulness for His people. Jesus joining Levi and his guests for the party wasn’t an embrace of their sin or sinfulness, it was Jesus’ way to be with the sin-sick as their Physician. Healing Levi required proximity to Levi. His friends needed the same proximity. The sin-sick in your life do too. In our current moment it is no small matter to navigate the issues that will come with being close enough to the sin-sick to offer an encounter with Jesus. We must do this work if we seek to join Jesus in His mission. He wants the outsiders to know how to be insiders who can be changed inside and out. Let us count the cost of such ministry and for the sake of Jesus press on to be lovingly gracious with all those around us, especially the least ‘deserving’ sinners.
Questions for life application and further discussion:
In addition to the clear teaching of Scripture, what resources will you use to avoid being a Pharisee (self-righteous)?
What specific sin or area of sin is most likely to bring the Pharisee out in your response to a person?
How will you respond if you are accused of compromise in your efforts to show God’s grace and love to others?
In reflecting on your own story of God’s redemptive grace finding you and welcoming you in, what people and truths did God use?
How will you avoid compromise in a world full of sin?
Who in your life needs proximity to the Great Physician? How can you be a ‘physician’s assistant’ for them? What support and accountability will you need from your brothers and sisters in Christ to call sinners to repentance in love?
What helps you to repent quickly and regularly? How will you cultivate a lifestyle of repentance?
[i] https://www.gddlaw.com/2019/12/18/examples-guilt-association/