Jesus Was A Scumbag

 What if I told you that the reason Jesus Christ was murdered was because of the way He ate?

Throughout the story of Jesus, we see Him eating… a lot. There’s the time Jesus went looking to eat a fig and couldn’t find any on the tree, so He cursed it (that’s like me going to a Coke machine, depositing my money, pushing the button and nothing happens… it took my money, but supplied me no drink… and then me reducing it to a smoking heap of nuts and bolts). There’s the time He fed thousands of people on short notice with an inexperienced catering staff… Or the time He helped the bar-tender out during a big wedding… Or ate fish on the shore with Peter… Or the time He ate with Zacchaeus, the tax collector, in Zack’s own home.

The Gospels are bursting with meals and foods and daily bread. I say that the way Jesus ate is ultimately what got Him killed, because how He ate, when He ate, and especially WHO He ate with, really does represent what those that murdered Him hated most about Him. It was one of the main reasons He was looked upon as… a scumbag.

In the year 1925, if a wealthy plantation owner in Atlanta, Georgia, had extended a formal invitation to four colored cotton-pickers to come to his mansion for Sunday dinner, preceded by cocktails and followed by several hours of brandy and conversation, the Georgia aristocracy would have been outraged, neighboring Alabama ticked off, the KKK infuriated. The caste system at that time was unbreakable and even considered sacred, social and racial discrimination inflexible, and going against their ‘rules’ made the loss of reputation inevitable.

The scandal that Jesus caused in first-century Palestinian Judaism can scarcely be appreciated by the Christian world today. It was legally forbidden to mingle with sinners who were outside the law; the prohibition on table-fellowship with beggars, prostitutes, and tax-collectors was a religious, social, and cultural taboo.

One of the most striking features of Jesus’ ministry was the meals He shared with ‘sinners’ – that is, outcasts. Pharisees (and others) wouldn’t eat with someone who was impure, and no decent person would share a meal with an outcast.

Unfortunately, the meaning of meal-sharing is largely lost on our culture today. In the East, to share a meal with someone is a symbol of peace, trust, brotherhood, and forgiveness; the shared table is a shared life. To say to an Orthodox Jew, “I would like to have dinner with you,” is understood as “I would like to enter into friendship with you.”

Even today, members of Orthodox Jewry will share a donut and a cup of coffee with you, but when they extend a dinner invitation, they are saying, “Come to my mikdash me-at, my miniature sanctuary, my dining-room table and we will celebrate the most beautiful experience that life affords – friendship.” That is what Zacchaeus heard when Jesus called him down from the sycamore tree, and that is why Jesus’ practice of table-fellowship caused many to look down on Him from the outset of His ministry.

In our text, Jesus has been invited to be a guest of a leading Pharisee, a high-ranking guy in the religious community. We’re told at the beginning of chapter 14, that although Jesus has been invited… they were ‘watching Him closely’ (Luke 14:1). And apparently, Jesus is watching them closely too. Remember in our last study, Jesus was actually noticing where these folks liked to sit… the places of honor? So although He is being scrutinized… and judged… He continues to be exactly who He has always been – a truth-speaker – and a bit of a pot-stirrer.

It’s with all this in mind that we dive into our text today…

Luke 14:12-14 – HCSB

12 He also said to the one who had invited Him, “When you give a lunch or a dinner, don’t invite your friends, your brothers, your relatives, or your rich neighbors, because they might invite you back, and you would be repaid. 13 On the contrary, when you host a banquet, invite those who are poor, maimed, lame, or blind. 14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

So… catch this: “Not only are you not to be reserving the best seats for yourselves… but you need to reevaluate your guest list too. I look around and notice that the folks you’ve invited are only the ones that make YOU look good, or those that will be able to invite YOU back, or repay you in some other way.” In other words, “Here you are throwing a big nice meal, appearing to be very generous and kind… but in reality… the only ones you’ve invited are those that can repay you or make you look good to others!”

Ouch. Jesus sure has a way with dinner-conversation!

Of course, Jesus didn’t stop there. He went on to describe the types of people they should invite; the poor, maimed, lame, or blind. You know, the exact kinds of people that won’t help your reputation with the upper-class, the very ones who will NEVER be able to repay you or ever invite you over for anything close to what you’ve provided.

Can you imagine the freedom that could be experienced if you truly DIDN’T CARE what others thought of you? Can you picture a life where we weren’t always trying to ‘keep up with the Jones’? What if we could honestly lay down all of that, and begin to love ‘others’, especially those who were NOTHING like us… what would that do for us? What would it do for them?

The truth is… Jesus was a scumbag! In the eyes of the world, at the time He walked the planet, Jesus was considered by many to be a scumbag. The word “scumbag” refers to a person that is offensive, disgusting, disreputable or possessing of low-life characteristics. There’s no way we can read passages like Isaiah 53 and not come to this conclusion, for it is there that the prophet tells us that the Messiah would be despised and rejected; spat upon and cursed – and we would hide our faces from Him. Calling Jesus a scumbag may seem shocking to us, but it was how so many people viewed Him.

And you know what? He didn’t seem to really care. As a matter of fact, He then challenges you and me to be scumbags too. He asks us to consider taking the seats, NOT at the head of the table, and to invite those to fellowship with us… into friendship with us… that might not make us look better to the outside world. Why? Because… that’s what He’d do. Why would He do it?

Author Brennan Manning states: “The inclusion of sinners in the community of salvation, achieved in table-fellowship, is the most dramatic expression of the message of the redeeming love of the merciful God”(A Glimpse of Jesus HarperCollins Publishers - page 55).

It’s when we SWEEP AWAY all that is about ‘us’… all the ‘pride’… And as we let Jesus fill us up, by His Spirit, and lead us, guide us… we will begin to feel His heartbeat in ours… for others. We won’t give out of some selfish motive… but because we truly are swept away and allowing Him to love through us.