Company He Keeps

By calling a tax collector as a disciple and eating a meal with his friends, Jesus sparks a debate: What sort of people should God's people associate with? His response uses metaphors about weddings, garments and wine to reframe the whole question. Rejecting simplistic binaries like righteous vs. sinners, fasting vs. feasting, or new vs. old, Jesus centers everything on his own person and work. Before we can decide which people to associate with, we must ask what sort of people we ourselves are, and how Jesus is working in our lives.