• For the last two years I’ve mulled over the meaning of Jesus coming not for the healthy but the sick. There are some easy take-aways: the “ sick” (these are the “good” people in these narratives) are the humble, the self-aware, those who know they have a problem in their hearts, not just their conduct. At this level, the healthy-sick equation seems simple and we say: “ I get it. We’re all sick, myself included, and I need to be more humble.” Then we get on with life.
• But the equation is actually not simple. For example, the minute we say we “get it” we enter the ranks of those who claim to see. And Jesus says there are none so blind as those who believe they see. It sounds like a Catch-22 but it’s not — consider Matt 9:9-13. The passage tells the familiar story of Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners, the Pharisees complaining to his disciples, Jesus overhearing and saying, ultimately, “ Learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
• Mercy and sacrifice. In the sacrificial system, the believer lived in relation to a code. In its worst expression, which was common in Israel, the believer “ used” the code to keep ritual purity. The better you kept the code, the more righteous you were or, at least, the more righteous you felt. This is not an uncommon use of Christianity. Christian legalists use Christian ethics (conduct) this way; people who claim to understand doctrine (including the doctrine of grace) also use their knowledge in just the same way. In both cases, the believer judges their fidelity to the code (conduct or knowledge) and feels either better or worse about himself.
• Mercy, as Jesus uses the term in Matt 9, is an expression of God’s love for sinners, and a calling for his people in their own conduct toward others. Mercy is not a relationship between a soul and a code (which permits him to feel more righteous), it’s a relationship between a soul and a soul. Furthermore, mercy is not a soul representing itself as good or righteous to God through conduct or teaching, but a soul embodying the love of God to another soul. So, the “movement” of mercy is not soul-to-God (upward), but God-to-soul or soul-to-soul (downward, outward).
• In other words, self-identifying as “sick” is not about the acquisition of righteousness. Think of the first paragraph above. The problem with the person who “gets it” and tries to grow in humility and self-awareness is she is still in the mode of self-validation. It’s the Rich Young Ruler coming with his checklist: “ What must I do?”
• What must you do? You need to think in an entirely different way. A way in which your righteousness is no longer your concern at all — it is Christ’s gift to you — and now your life is devoted to spreading abroad the love and mercy of God. As God loved us while we were yet sinners — in an odd way, because we were sinners — so we love. You are a living sacrifice, a servant, a slave. You exist to be gloriously, lovingly spent. Give yourself to that calling today, this week, this decade.