The Mercy Factor (Mark 2:15-17)

Have you ever experienced how it feels to be an outsider? I have. We had just moved to a small town where my young son wanted to be on a baseball team. When I went to watch him practice I sat on the bleacher with several other women that I had recently met. I tried to engage them in conversation but found that instead of talking to me they just slightly turned away. It didn’t take long to understand that I was not welcome. I went to sit on a lower bleacher with a woman I hadn’t met yet. She welcomed me and then said with an understanding smile, “You can only sit up there on that bleacher if your son establishes himself as one of the best players.” It feels really good to be part of an exclusive group, unless you’re the one who makes it exclusive because you’re excluded.

God had blessed and instructed the descendants of Abraham through the law about how they could have fellowship with God Himself. However, from the beginning God had made it clear that He had blessed them so that they in turn could be a blessing. The scribes and Pharisees loved the fact that their knowledge of the Law and keeping of it separated them from those whom they considered unclean. In fact, they loved the Law so much that they had added to it. This made it so difficult to follow that they could truly separate themselves from the tax collectors and sinners. The word Pharisee itself meant “a separatist, a purist.”

When the scribes and the Pharisees saw that Jesus was reclining at the table in Matthew’s house having a meal with tax collectors and sinners they went to Jesus’ disciples to demand an explanation. Jesus answered them Himself. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:15-17).

The scribes and the Pharisees were experts at observing religious rituals that kept them apart from those around them. They were focused on their own righteousness and didn’t want to be made unclean by the sinners. While following the letter of the law their hearts had become hardened to those who were struggling and bound by sin. Matthew also records Jesus as saying, “Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:13).

This mercy found its fullest expression in the tender love and compassion that God had extended to sinners through His covenant. The scribes and Pharisees saw themselves keeping God’s covenant because they offered all the right sacrifices and kept all the laws, not only the laws of God but their own laws. What they needed to learn was that the only way to be righteous was by the mercy of God. Their hard hearts had caused them to be blinded to their need of a physician. In their desire to be separatists they had separated themselves from the Savior who sat with tax collectors and sinners.