Well, you say, I would never want to scare off unbelievers. But we do it all the time and we use an age-old technique that has been honed to perfection by some. In fact, there is a great example of this from Jesus’s day in Matthew 9:9-13.

As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and “sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice. For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Tax collectors were members of the ancient mafia. They had the power to steal, bankrupt those who didn’t comply and collect all the tax they could. They had a quota they had to send to the Emperor or local ruler and they could pocket the rest. Thus they had a built in incentive to raise all that they could to the detriment of the population.

So here came Jesus and He tells Matthew, who then became a disciple, to follow him.  Matthew threw a dinner party at his house for a bunch of other tax collectors and “sinners” (the terms could be used synonymously). The Pharisees, who were the religious of the day, asked the disciples why Jesus would spend time with the riff raff. That is what many do today when we stay clear of people whose lives are messed up. They are not the nice people, the safe people, or the religious. They are messy and have a lot of issues, maybe addictions, are sometimes crude in their language, maybe even a criminal record. Whatever it is, many believers stay clear as did the Pharisees. And that is a proven strategy to scare off unbelievers. After all, they can read our judgment and disapproval. So they too stay clear.

Not so Jesus. Rather than judging, staying clear or huddling with the righteous, Jesus is right there in the middle of the party. He came, after all for the sick, not the healthy. Not only that but He quotes an Old Testament passage that God desires mercy, not sacrifice. He desires that our hearts are broken for the broken more than that we keep our religious traditions. We belong among the broken so that we can love them like Jesus, rather than keeping our hands clean with our prayer meetings where we can pray that the lost will somehow find Him. 

He would ask, if not you - Who? If not now - when? If not compassion for brokenness, what? The broken know they are broken and they are some of the most open to the love and good news of Jesus. When was the last time you were found among the broken, on purpose? And “on mission” for Jesus?

Father, forgive me for judging the broken more than I love the broken. Forgive me for staying safe with my Christian friends rather than engaging my unbelieving friends. Develop in me your mercy for the lost and my willingness to engage them in your name. Amen.