# Seeking God and finding God in Lent
*2015-02-20*

> Bill Young reflects on Luke 5:30 and the contrast between the Pharisees' rigid purity laws and Jesus' inclusive approach to sinners.

## The Pharisaic View of Holiness

In Luke 5:30, the Pharisees and their scribes complain to the disciples, asking why Jesus eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners. To understand this complaint, we must understand how the Pharisees defined holiness. They followed a rigid system of purity laws where, for example, a person could only eat food that had been taxed to support the temple; anyone who ate untaxed food was considered impure.

## The Consequences of Impurity

Under this system, sinners, Gentiles, and those in certain professions—such as tax collectors—were deemed impure. Those labeled as impure were not only considered unholy, but they also lost their civil rights. They could not sit on local councils and were no longer considered children of Abraham. The Pharisees enforced these rules through religious ostracism, believing that one could not share a meal with an impure person without becoming impure oneself.

## Jesus' Radical Example

For Jesus to eat with tax collectors was, by the standards of the time, a crime far worse than simply having bad taste in companions. According to pharisaic law, this act made Him a sinner to be shunned. By their laws, the Son of God was not to be called a child of Abraham. It is a reminder of how easily we can fall into the belief that God is bound by our religious laws, and it shows how foolish Jesus made that idea look.

## Daily Practice and Prayer

For today's practice, I encourage you to keep the Lenten regulations for fasting and abstinence without judging or commenting on those who do not keep them. Let us pray: Lord, may everything I do begin [unclear].

*We should avoid the trap of rigid legalism and judgment, remembering that Jesus found holiness in associating with those the world deemed impure.*