Jesus Partied

Location: Comedy Club
Luke 5:27-39 (NIV)

"They said to him, 'John’s disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking'" (Luke 5:33, NIV).

This past week I had the privilege of attending a debut album recording for a local comic in town. As some of you may know, I’ve been taking stand-up comedy class and loving every second of it. So I was so excited to watch jokes with a newfound love of the comedy process. 

In my stand-up class, one of the students found an article online that said “moral” people don’t get jokes as much as “immoral” people. I found this fascinating because—usually I get jokes! (so now you know my level of morality). And I thought this was sad because—I love to laugh at jokes. Does being “moral” really make you less fun?

One of the stand-up openers for the show even discussed that he did not want moral people around him while he was ready to have fun because they’d be a downer. And it made me flashback to the time in middle school when I found out there was an inside joke going around where everyone said “No Erica” because apparently I was the morality police and no one wanted me around. 

Interestingly, as I was dislocating at the comedy club, surrounded by my fellow “immoral” people, I was reading Luke 5, where the Pharisees grumble about Jesus for eating and drinking with tax collectors rather than fasting and acting pious. 

And doesn’t this scene in Luke ring some bells for some of us Christians? Some of us draw a line between those who are “moral” and “immoral.” We say “don’t get too close to them or they’ll rub off on you and affect your beliefs!” So some of us surround ourselves only with Christians who adhere to our sense of morality so that we’re “safe.” And some of us only hang out with our “lost” friends because we’re trying to convert them.

Yet in Luke 5:27-39, Jesus does the exact opposite. Jesus eats and drinks while the Pharisees fast and judge. Jesus hangs out with outcasts and robbers while the Pharisees hang out with mirror versions of themselves. The Pharisees wait for Jesus to tell everyone to repent at the party (1), but Jesus just has a good time. Jesus celebrates life while the Pharisees never live it. 

And Jesus is funny. I picture Jesus holding a beer in his hand and saying to the disciples and Pharisees with a wink in his eye, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:31, NIV). And he winks because surely those Pharisees who study the law intensely know the verse well that says, “Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous…” (Ecc 7:20, NIV).

Later in Luke, Jesus says he came to “seek and save those who are lost” (Luke 19:10, NIV)(2). And the thing is, we are all lost in something. We could be lost in more obvious things like pain killers, alcohol, an affair. Yet there are those of us who are lost in less obvious ways. Those of us who are lost in our own letters of the law. Those of us who need freedom from the confines of a rigid and judgement-filled religion. Those of us who can’t count blessings because we’re too busy counting sins.

Friends, we don’t need to wait until heaven to start celebrating. We can start today. Seek out the God who gives grace in place of judgement, who creates purpose from pain, who lifts up those who are low, who wants you to find freedom in this life, and who is waiting with open arms for you in the life to come. 

Let us pray: Grace-filled and eternally loving God, thank you for seeking and saving those who are lost. However we are lost today, may we find freedom through your saving grace. Amen. 

Reflect: How have you ever acted like the Pharisees, judging others on the periphery? What might you be projecting onto others?

Work Referenced:
(1) Alan R. Culpepper, “Luke” in The New Interpreters Bible Commentary Volume VIII, (Abingdon Press: Nashville, 2015) 104.
(2) Ibid., 105.


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