Why Did Jesus Party?

Why did Jesus go to parties and many other curious places full of tax collectors and prostitutes and drunkards and gluttons and thieves? It’s not a trick question. Certainly He wasn’t there to endorse everything happening inside! And while that’s true, He obviously didn’t go to church to endorse everything happening in there either! Because when He got up to preach in Luke 4:16, He rebuked them from Isaiah.

Same type of thing with Paul. Who wrote letters to the churches in the New Testament rebuking them for quarreling and gossiping and you name it. Same thing with John. Who conveyed to Laodicea in Revelation 3:16 that God would rather they were either hot or cold. Anything except lukewarm.

So if we’re not treating every day as outreach, because we’re too afraid of endorsing the wrong thing, or even worse, because we’re too worried about our reputations, maybe we should all stop going to church too. Because there’s more ink in the pages of the Bible devoted to righting the wrongs of church members than those outside it. Jesus prayed in John 17:15 [NIV], "15My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one."

So I ask again: Why did Jesus go to parties and hang out with tax collectors and prostitutes and drunkards and gluttons and thieves? I think He went to these curious places and hung out with them there because that’s where His missing children are!

Think about it! They’re not in church! But maybe more of them would be if we took the sanctuary to them instead of waiting for them to wander back through its doors. And maybe more of the church would be willing to leave the building if it didn’t require vast memorization of Scripture or 6 weeks of boot camp before you could. And maybe if we all just tried being normal for a change, and cared as much about building relationships as being theologically correct, maybe more people would be more interested in Jesus.