Eating with Sinners (Sermon)

This is a sermon I preach at Ebenezer and Black Creek on June 7, 2026.

1. Introduction: The Physician and the Sick

Today we find ourselves standing before a table that is more than a piece of furniture—it is a battleground for the heart of the Gospel. In the cultural landscape of first-century Judea, the table was the ultimate site of radical inclusion or cold exclusion. Consider the scene in Matthew 9. Jesus is walking down the road when he sees a man named Matthew sitting at a tax booth. To the crowd, Matthew was a traitor, a collaborator with Rome, a moral leper. Yet Jesus looks at him and says, “Come, follow me.” Matthew doesn’t just follow; he opens his home. That night, the clinking of cups and the smell of roasted meat filled the air as Jesus sat as a dinner guest alongside a crowd of “notorious sinners.”

Some Pharisees, watching from a distance with narrowed eyes, were indignant. They didn’t just question the etiquette; they questioned the holiness of the mission. “Why does your teacher eat with such scum?” they demanded. Jesus heard their whispers and replied “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do.” By framing himself as a physician, he signaled that his grace was not a reward for the righteous, but a remedy for the broken. He challenged them to look past their rituals and grasp the heartbeat of the Father, quoting the prophet Hosea: “I want you to be merciful; I don’t want your sacrifices.” This act of eating with the marginalized was no accident; it was a strategic declaration that his mission begins where society’s acceptance ends.

2. A Friend of Sinners: The Scandal of Fellowship

In the Ancient Near East, table fellowship was a sacred bond. To break bread with another was to offer them peace, trust, and shared identity. Consequently, the behavior of Jesus was a public scandal of the highest order. By sitting with those considered ceremonially and morally “unclean,” he was seen as validating the very lives the religious elite sought to condemn. The accusations were vicious: as recorded in Matthew 11:19, they called him a “glutton and a drunkard,” a “friend of the worst sort of sinners.” Luke 15:1-2 tells us the teachers of the law complained that he was associating with “despicable people.”

The New Living Translation uses the word “scum” to capture the visceral disgust felt by the elite. They didn’t just disagree with Jesus; they were revolted by him. Yet, Jesus stood his ground, maintaining that “wisdom is shown to be right by what results from it.” He pointed to the fruit of his ministry—the repentance and transformation of the “despicable”—as the ultimate vindication of his methods. He was proving that the table of the Lord was intended to be wider than any human boundary, a realization that would soon present a life-or-death challenge to the leaders of the early church.

3. The Expanding Table: Peter’s Vision and the Gentile Turn

The global expansion of the Gospel found its pivotal turning point not in a boardroom, but on a rooftop in Joppa. Acts 10 narrates the convergence of two seekers. First, there is Cornelius, a Roman centurion and a “God-fearer.” As a God-fearer, Cornelius believed in the God of Israel but remained uncircumcised, meaning he was relegated to the outer Courtyard of the Gentiles. In that courtyard, the space meant for people like him was often crowded out by money-changing tables and animals for sale—the very things Jesus overturned because they blocked the way for the nations to worship.

While Cornelius was praying, Peter was on a rooftop, falling into a trance. He saw a great sheet descending like a tablecloth from heaven, filled with animals that Jewish law strictly forbade. When a voice commanded him to “kill and eat,” Peter’s religious instincts recoiled. “No, Lord, it is unclean,” but a voice replied: “What God has made clean, you must not call unclean.” This was never about diet; it was about people. Peter obeyed, traveling to Caesarea to meet Cornelius. As he preached the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Holy Spirit fell upon the Gentiles, astounding the Jewish believers with Peter. Peter realized then that God shows no partiality. When he returned to Jerusalem to face his critics in Acts 11, he silenced them with the evidence of the Spirit’s work, proving that internal church consistency required the table to be open to every nation.

4. The Anatomy of Hypocrisy: Paul Confronts Peter in Antioch

The freedom of the Gospel is a fragile thing, easily lost to the pressure of legalistic tradition. This is most vividly seen in the “Incident at Antioch” described in Galatians 2. Years after his vision, Peter had been living out this new reality, eating freely with Gentile Christians. But when a “circumcision party” from Jerusalem arrived, Peter’s courage failed him. Fearing their disapproval, he withdrew from the Gentile table. This act of cowardice was contagious; even Barnabas, a stalwart of the faith, was led astray into this “hypocrisy.”

When Peter withdrew in Antioch, Paul confronted him and the others publicly. He saw that they were “not acting in line with the truth of the gospel.” Paul’s rebuke was sharp: by segregating the table, Peter was effectively telling the Gentiles that Christ’s sacrifice wasn’t enough to make them clean. Paul knew that if the church allowed walls to be rebuilt at the table, the universal mission of the cross would be dismantled.

5. The Universal Identity: All as Outcasts, All as Loved

Beneath these historical conflicts lies a doctrine that levels the ground for every human soul: the doctrine of universal sinfulness. Romans 3:23 and Romans 5:12 tell us that “all have sinned” and “death spread to all.” We may use words like “scum” to describe those we find despicable, but the Gospel forces a mirror into our hands. Before the work of his grace, we are the scum. We are all outcasts, regardless of our religious pedigree or social standing.

Yet, we are outcasts who have been relentlessly pursued. As Romans 5:8 declares, “God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” We do not become “Loved Ones” by cleaning ourselves up; we are loved while we are yet unholy. This is the promise of Acts 2:38-39: a gift for “everyone whom the Lord our God calls,” even those who are “far away.” When we recognize our shared identity as sinners saved by a Physician, we lose the right to look down on anyone. The character of Christ becomes our only standard—a character of steadfast love that associates with the lowly without ever compromising his own holiness.

6. Conclusion: Toward Christian Perfection and the Heavenly Banquet

The call to eat with sinners is a call to “Sanctifying Grace” and the Wesleyan pursuit of “Christian Perfection”—which is, at its heart, a perfection of love. 1 Peter 3:18 reminds us that Christ, the righteous, died for the unrighteous to bring us safely home to God. He did not wait for us to be perfect; he came to us in our sickness.

The prophet Hosea, quoted by Jesus, offers a stinging critique of religion that lacks a heart: “Your love vanishes like the morning mist... I want you to show love, not offer sacrifices.” God is not interested in empty practices, shallow praise, or a routine of faith that keeps us comfortable. He wants us to know him. And to know him is to know a love that seeks out the person you would just prefer to disappear.

Who do you consider unclean? Who are the people you don’t like, or those you would love to see vanish from your life? The challenge of the Gospel is this: Can you go to them? Can you sit at the table with them? Can you get to know them and even learn to love them?

If we are to grow into Christlikeness, we must love as he loves and embrace as he embraces. The table of Jesus is a foretaste of the heavenly banquet where every tribe, tongue, and nation is invited. Let us move toward that perfection of love, recognizing that we are all sinners invited by the same grace.

+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Sermon preached at Ebenezer UMC and Black Creek UMC, June 7, 2026.

I modified the lectionary texts, using: Hosea 5:15-6:6; Psalm 50:7-15; Galatians 2:1-14; Matthew 9:9-13