But when Simon Peter saw [the great catch of fish], he fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!” For amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken.
The Pharisees and their scribes were grumbling at His disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus answered and said to them, “It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.
Luke 5:8-9, 30-32.
“I’m not worthy of Christianity,” my friend protested. He was right, of course.
Our encounters with God, initially, and from then on, are continual confrontations of the contrast between His holiness and our sinfulness. “Go away from me, Lord,” was Peter’s desperate plea. He no doubt smelled like and probably identified more with the stinking fish in his boat than the Teacher who had hired it.
“Depart from me,” exclaimed Isaiah, “because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips.”
Perhaps we can relate.
Thank God these are prayers to which God’s answer is “no.”
Rather, Jesus insists in hanging out with scum.
This incites indignation. “Why do you hang out with them?” The indignation arises from a contrast: “I am so much better than those people.” Perhaps. But it’s still not good enough. And when one looks at the heart, as God does, the juxtaposition may look more like a comparison of equally black hearts, or even a reverse of what the outwardly posing would imply.
Jesus does not duck the hard realities. “Sick,” he calls these people. He does not quarrel with the disparagement of them by the Pharisees.
It is precisely the depraved human condition that brought our Savior to earth. Hanging out with sinners is not nearly the half of it. He will not only hang out with them, he will die for them. That is, for us.
It’s not that Jesus’ presence is approval or ratification of sin. He is clear: he is calling sinners to repentance, to turn away from past practices. Yet this turning away is possible first and only because Jesus is the initiator. He calls this turning. And the sequence is vital. He comes. He is present. He calls. We turn. Which, by the way, is by His power.
There is a heresy which says God cannot look at sin. That suggests that while we are sinners we are so repugnant to God that either He turns away from us entirely, or holds His holy nose while we are anywhere in the vicinity. This heresy puts the onus on us to crawl back to God, if only He will take us. Scripture teaches the opposite.
While we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. He loved us before we loved Him. The father of the prodigal son would not hear the rehearsed speech of “I am not worthy to be called your son.” It is the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light; we do not qualify ourselves.
The initiative is all His. The work is all His. It is all accomplished at the Cross.
My friend was right. He was not worthy. None of us are. And that is exactly the point.
“The sick need a doctor,” Dr. Luke records Jesus as saying. And so the Doctor comes. He makes house calls.
“Away from me Lord?” No. Absolutely not. An embrace is more like it. A meal together. A friendship and a warm, personal, real relationship. He receives us. And at once, before we can even respond, He gives us a new life purpose, a purpose of eternal value, a call to be fishers of men.