But if we look a little closer, this view has some cracks in it.
One of those cracks concerns the moral aspect of Jesus' welcome. A classic example is the woman caught in the act of adultery. Progressives love it when Jesus says, "Neither do I condemn you." But conservatives love it when he says, "Go and sin no more." Something in the story is cutting across each of these simplistic readings.
Consider also the story of Zacchaeus:
All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”
But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
On the surface, it's a story of "welcome" and "inclusion." Jesus has "gone to be the guest of a sinner." But the story goes on to recount an act of conversion and repentance. And it's at that point, after Zacchaeus repents, that Jesus declares: "Today salvation has come to this house." Jesus hasn't merely "welcomed" Zacchaeus. Jesus has saved him. In fact, that's how Jesus describes his mission: To seek and save the lost. "Saving the lost" pulls in a moral dimension that is typically ignored in progressive readings of Jesus.
A similar dynamic is seen in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. We tend to focus upon the unconditional love of the father, as we should. But the story is also one of conversion and repentance. After a season in the "far country" the son returns home and says to his father: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son." Upon that return a celebration breaks out. As the father says: "This son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found." Notice the themes of deadness and lostness in contrast to being alive and found. The joy is triggered by a transformation.
My goal in raising these points isn't to suggest that there wasn't something unprecedented and shocking about Jesus welcoming of sinners. As we know and will discuss, Jesus' actions gave great offense. Today I just want to unsettle some settled opinions by highlighting details in the gospels that don't easily fit into progressive or conservative readings of Jesus. There are details in these stories, details we tend to ignore or skip over, that suggest Jesus was doing something different from what we typically assume. Do we really know what Jesus was up to? Exploring that question is the goal of this series.
