Please read the passage noted before the commentary.
Jesus was accused of eating and drinking with sinners. How awful of Jesus to do such a thing! Did Jesus deny the charge? No. In fact, he admitted to doing just that. He said that his chief mission on earth was to eat and drink with sinners.
He told a story about a man and his two sons. The man thought he had done a good job fathering the boys. Yet, neither of them understood him. One thought his dad had treated him as a slave, the other thought of his dad and a boss who hires and fires.
One had this kind of thinking. “If I do everything he tells me to and obey his every whim, then he will think I am a good son and he will love me. If I do not obey him, he will probably disown me, as he probably done with his younger son.”
The other son had a wandering spirit and could not wait to leave him and do his own thing. He was restless to get away from home. All the rules his father had for him stifled his spirit.
The father loved both sons. It was easier to raise the older one because he made no demands on his father. It was harder to raise the younger because he was constantly pushing against the rules. Whom did the father love more? Neither. He loved them both, but he showed his love for them according to their needs.
For a Jewish person to have to take care of swine while being hungry himself, was humiliatingly outrageous. To be homeless in a foreign country, far from family and relationships, was appalling. It was extreme and dire necessity that brought the younger son to go home to his father.
Would his father hire him back as a day laborer? No. He would not. He could not. He could, however, throw a huge party and welcome him home as one risen from the dead.
Yes, Jesus still eats and drinks with sinners. If you are not a sinner, then you do not belong here. This is the place for sinners. Jesus invites us all in and prepares to feed us himself. We eat and drink the table of the Lord. Then we must go out to find other sinners with whom we will eat and drink.
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