| Yet Jesus Did Not Act Like a Jew |
| During Jesus' life society was, in effect, a religious caste system based on steps toward holiness. Rules on washing hands and avoiding defilement were an attempt to make the devoted more acceptable to God. Sinners, menstruating women, the physically deformed, and other undesirables were banned from the temple. In the midst of this tight religious caste system, Jesus appeared, with no qualms about socializing with children or sinners or even Samaritans. He touched, or was touched by, the "unclean": those with leprosy, the deformed, a hemorrhaging woman, the lunatic and possessed. Although Levitical laws prescribed a day of purification after touching a sick person, Jesus conducted mass healings in which he touched scores; he never concerned himself with the rules of defilement after contact with the sick or even the dead. Pharisees believed that touching an unclean person polluted the one who touched. Yet when Jesus touched a person with leprosy, Jesus did not become soiled--the leprous became clean. When an immoral woman washed Jesus' feet, she went away forgiven and transformed. As Walter Wink puts it, "the contagion of holiness overcomes the contagion of uncleanness." In short, Jesus moved the emphasis from God's holiness (exclusive) to God's mercy (inclusive). Instead of the message "No undesirables allowed," he proclaimed, "In God's kingdom, no one is any longer an undesirable." Jesus' attitude convicts me today, because I sense a movement in the reverse direction. I hear many calls that we show less mercy and more morality. Stigmatize homosexuals, shame unwed mothers, harass the homeless and punish law-breakers. Christians need to be a moral voice. In doing so, though, we must follow Jesus' example of "loving the sinner while hating the sin." I am struck by the power of mercy as demonstrated by Jesus, who came for the sick and not for the well, for the sinners and not for the righteous. I spent half my life rebelling against the legalism of my childhood; when I tasted the first draught of the Living Water offered by Jesus, I knew I was changed forever. |