It Didn't Stick!

I’m fascinated when words, used as descriptors, are changed in an effort to reduce or remove negative connotations.

Drug addiction is increasing being referred to as substance abuse.

Mental illness is increasingly being referred to as brain health.

I’ve noticed a new change of late.  Homeless is being changed to unhoused.  I suppose homeless does have some negative connotations and the change is meant to help alleviate some of them.

The religious leaders, who could not tolerate Jesus entering their little realm of religious practice, called Jesus a “glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Luke 7:34).  In their minds, these negative descriptors were meant to diminish his stature among the people and dissuade them from following Him.  As such, they had no inclination to ever reduce the negative descriptors that they had assigned to Him.  In fact, the more negative they could make them the better, at according to their way of thinking.

But their tactics didn’t dissuade the people!  Take a look at what Luke records in his Gospel:  “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him.  And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”  (Luke 15:1-2). 

The religious leaders, who should have been pointing people to God, wouldn’t go near the tax collectors and sinners, the very people who probably needed to be pointed to God the most.  And here Jesus was speaking and teaching and the tax collectors and sinners were drawing near to hear Him!

If that wasn’t bad enough, Jesus, this friend of tax collectors and sinners, was receiving them. 

And if that wasn’t bad enough still, Jesus the “glutton” was eating with them!

But to top it all off, something that drew the tax collectors and sinners (and others) to Jesus was a direct threat to the religious leaders’ status:  “And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.”  (Mark 1:22)

While the religious leaders thought they had authority, their teaching said otherwise.  And while they tried to present Jesus as a glutton, drunkard and friend of tax collectors and sinners to prove He had no authority, His teaching said otherwise.

The negative descriptors that the religious leaders tried to stick on Jesus actually became quite the opposite as people voted with their feet and flocked to Him!