Sinners

What exactly is wrong with tax collectors, whores and sinners?

To a first century Jew a tax collector was one who had sold out his own people, and therefore cut short their status as God's people, for the sake of getting a pay check. They were traitors. It was surprisingly difficult to make money as a tax-collector. Zaccheaus was a rare exception as a tax collector who had been able to extort enough money out of people to gain some wealth. No doubt, this meant abusing his Roman connections more, and thus making himself more hated than most of the 'lesser' tax collectors like say Matthew. We don't hear any stories of Matthew having to give his wealth back to those he had stolen from, because in all likelihood he had no wealth to give back. He like most tax collectors probly made just enough money being a tax collector on which to eat. Sad situation: being hated by everyone, and only making enough money to scrape by. Let's keep in mind that tax collectors lived a miserable existence. They were lonely, afraid, hated, spit on, and making ends meat generally.

Whores? Well, taking off our puritan blinders for a minute, prostitutes live probably the most miserable lives of anyone. Their daily existence steals all hope of finding any human dignity in their lives. They are abused in every way a person can be abused. The aspect of human existence (sex) that should bring one the closest kind of intimacy is used to steal from them the chance of knowing and being known. On a Freudian level, many of us put prostitution into some kind of moral structure of thought. We should stop doing this. Prostitution has little to do with sexuality. The overwhelming majority of whores are such because they have NO other options. Starve to death or sell something that can always find a purchaser. Romantic notions of sex are ridiculous in the context of poverty.

Sinners? Hmmm. People who cuss right? Well, in the Bible this could refer to people who don't keep the Torah/Law. And, in that sense it could also apply to social law-breakers, meaning actual criminals. It could also just apply to people who are less desirable, people who work jobs that none of us would work. Street vendors. Sea men. In Jesus day, all the jobs that required one to be "unclean" by Torah standards were therefore jobs that only sinful people would work. It was very reminiscent of the caste-system in India. Certain jobs are for untouchables, who are untouchable because of past misdeeds, but seeing as they're 'untouchable' are required to live in ways that would probly mean they will be reborn untouchable. Since they do such deeds the society mistreats them, but what choice to they have. Sinners live in a world of vicious circles. Yet, it seems it is not fate, but other people that continue to shove them into the circles.

Now, growing up in church this was not my understanding of 'tax collectors, whores, and sinners.' I was told that these were bad people. If you grow up in church the world is presented in black in white terms. Everything is simple and these were simply people who chose the dark, seedy side of life. I should therefore choose carefully so that I didn't end up like them.

Yet, in truth, tax collectors and whores are what they are out of economic social reasons as much as for poor moral decisions. But, not sin . . . right? . . .

Actually, when Jesus uses the term sin, he never seems to be referring to personal moral lapses. He uses it as it was typically thought of in his day, as people who broke the Torah Law. Yet, he seems to always have "grace" for such lapses. So often when we say grace what we really mean is this:

God holds to the letter of the Law.
When we break it, punishment must occur.
Jesus being God, suffers for us.
Our law-breaking is atoned for.
Thus Jesus/God shows us grace, and treats us kindly even though we didn't keep in step with the letter of the Law.

I think this is crap. I think theologically it is a sign of God entrapped in his own system. It is a God devoid of creativity, and a God who is slave to the human conception of consistency. It is a grossly perverted sense of what 'Justice' is. I have no trouble leaving behind this view of the stern-faced God, because it is garbage.

Grace is this: instead of seeing sin in terms of a person's moral lapse, Jesus sees it for what it is, a social/economic category. "Sinners" were not pawns of the cosmic ontological struggle between good and evil, they were people trapped in social networks that on a practical level condemned them to a category of 'less human'. In Jewish society a fisherman was a sinner, because the only way he could make money was to touch things that the Old Testament declared unclean. He was therefore sinful by vocation, and of a lesser caste. Consider that next time you read as Peter says 'Away from me Lord, I am a sinful man.' Corpses were unclean for Jews to touch. But in the funeral procession Jesus takes the dead girl by the hand. Oops, the Son of God was sinful.

Jesus shatters the concept of sin. He makes his closest friends out of sinful people: fishermen, a tax collector. He touches corpses, people with leprosy, he speaks with gentiles, he has multiple associations with prostitutes. He allows women to do outrageous things in his presence, subverting the patriarchal culture. All these things were sin in the eyes of the first-century Jew.

Consider when Jesus stands before the adulterous woman and says he does not condemn her, but tells her to leave her life of sin. What was this womans sin? Sex outside of marriage? That would be breaking the Torah. I think we read this story and see a woman who fell into a lustful relationship with a man and got caught. What if she lived in poverty like the majority of Palestinian society at the time. What if adultery were a way of getting dinner for that evening. This is conjecture, but it is also possible. Adultury is rarely as simple as we think it should be. At the most basic level we can read this story in John 8 as a story of moral degredation and Jesus giving forgiveness. I think we can also see it from another, likely perspective. In Jesus' society women were disadvantaged. They were also generally the ones who suffered the worst from poverty. Women were generally prevented from aquiring skills that could lead to them making a living. Thus when a woman's family fell on hard times, and no friends or extended family could offer help, there was little a woman could do to bring in extra income. Often husbands were required to prostitute their wives in such situations for lack of other options. Or, wives could offer illicit favors when the husband was desperately seeking work . . . The point is, this womans sin was likely caused by much more than lustful desire.

When Jesus tells her to leave her life of sin, he might be saying more than 'obey your moral compass'. If the Torah was written for people and people not made for the Torah, he might be saying something more along the lines of don't sell out to social sin for the sake of putting food on the table. Don't let poverty force you into relationships that steal the humanity the God of the Torah gives you.

I would feel that slightly cruel except that Jesus was doing something about it. The community he was gathering around him was one which became known for providing for each other. They lived in such a way that poverty never needed mean that another had no choice but be a 'sinner'. Jesus also crushed views that would say someone was sinful based purely on the fact that they fished for a living. Yet, in it's early stages, the egalitarian nature of the Jesus momement provided an alternative for prostitutes and tax collectors. It forgave them their offenses, but also provided financially so that widows and orphans were not doomed to disreputable vocations.

then we got the idea for church buildings and it all went to crap.
but i thought it was an interesting shift in perspective.