Repentance
Scripture selection: Luke 5:29-32
Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sects complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
It’s not a very popular word these days: repentance.
We are far more comfortable thinking about the compassion and caring of Jesus; how he reached out to all people.
Yet, this passage makes something clear.
Jesus – compassionate though he was – also called people to move beyond the choices they had made and the life they had chosen which was out of line with God’s wishes for them.
In other words, they had some responsibility to choose another way.
Are there those who find it difficult to make such choices? Yes.
Are we to be as compassionate as possible in reaching out to these individuals? Yes.
Are they absolved from any personal responsibility when it comes to wrong or damaging choices? No. I don’t believe they are.
Jesus brought grace and hope to all people. He still does.
He also called people to “go and sin no more.”
That goes for sinners and self-righteous folk, who seem to believe they don’t ever sin.
Repentance – it may not be popular. Sometimes, though, it is the only way to find new life and hope.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
By Paul Simrell
The Reverend Paul W. Simrell has served for over thirty years in a variety of congregational and institutional settings. He is a recognized minister with standing in the Virginia region of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada and is nationally endorsed by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) for specialized ministry in both pastoral counseling and chaplaincy. Ordained in 1982, he has served congregations in Kentucky, Texas, Florida, and Virginia. He currently serves as the pastor of Elpis Christian Church, a small, historic congregation located just a few miles west of Richmond, Virginia. Elpis is the Greek word meaning “expectant hope.” He also serves on the associate clinical staff of the Virginia Institute of Pastoral Care, Richmond, Virginia, both as a pastoral counselor and a ministerial assessment specialist, specializing in executive, clergy and relationship coaching. He is a graduate of the University of Florida and Lexington Theological Seminary and has done advanced clinical training in chaplaincy and pastoral counseling at the University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky, Children’s Medical Center and Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Texas and the Virginia Institute of Pastoral Care in Richmond, Virginia. He is a Certified Pastoral Counselor, an ACPE Practitioner, and a member of the American Association of Christian Counselors. He is a Certified Facilitator of the Prepare-Enrich relationship assessment and skills-building program and served as a volunteer chaplain for over twenty years with the CJW Medical Center campuses in Richmond, Virginia. His avocational interests include playing the piano and drawing. He is very happily married to his wife Elizabeth Yeamans Simrell, a free-lance writer, who is also a Certified Facilitator for the Prepare-Enrich program.
Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton
View all of Paul Simrell's posts.
IGW3 - In God's Word, In God's Will, In God's Work 