They were drawn to Jesus

Luke 15:1 says, “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear [Jesus.]” I don’t know about you, but that strikes me as a bit unusual. It’s true that repeatedly in the Gospels we are told how Jesus made himself available to those who were rejected by polite society. We know that he reached out to them in many ways, because as he put it, he came to ‘seek and to save the lost.’ We have the sense that Christ went looking for people who needed Good News in their lives. But this verse approaches the matter from the other direction. It sounds to me as if the Gospel writer wants us to understand that the less religious, righteous, or moral folks of the land took some initiative to hear what Jesus had to say. They were drawn to Jesus.

That's a strange attraction. Ordinarily we wouldn’t expect such people to have any interest whatsoever in what a spiritual leader might have to say. They appear to be on a different wavelength altogether. These are the people who tend to live their lives without much regard at all to matters of religion. They are looking to get ahead, whatever it takes, hoping for any advantage. They don’t get too disturbed over the concerns of other people. If they have to bend the rules – morally or legally – so be it. Folks with these attitudes come in all social classes and backgrounds. They are among the intellectually elite and the economically disadvantaged, the high born and the low. Most of them aren’t bad folks -- though there are certainly some. In the main, though, they just aren’t motivated by the same values that you would typically associate with the followers of Jesus.

But here they are, drawing near to Jesus! Don’t you find that fascinating? What do you think there was about Jesus that would have attracted these otherwise pretty self-absorbed, indifferent folks? There was something about Jesus that attracted people who lived on the wrong side of the religious tracks.

This is a compelling thought because I have noticed that often we church folks, who are trying to be followers of Jesus, don’t seem to have that affect on the people around us. Not only are we having a hard time attracting the indifferent and secular person, as Jesus was able to do, but we are also having trouble keeping folks involved who already have claimed an allegiance to him.

This raises the question that if, as we believe, the church is the Body of Christ in the world, why aren’t the unreligious people interested in what we have to share? They drew near to Jesus. There was something about him that attracted them. Could it be that we are not faithfully reflecting his compassion, servanthood and commitment to God's will?