On Popular and Not-Popular People

Mark 2: 13- 17
1 May 2011

Up until a few years ago, I had three teenagers living at home. I gained a bit of knowledge in those years about what it means to be part of the popular group and not being part of it. I learned that if you were in the popular group that there were certain people that you didn’t really associate with. Why? Well, because they were not part of the right group. Were they “losers?” I would ask. Not necessarily, I was told. It’s just they didn’t quite fit in.
And what happens when you’re not with the popular group? You don’t associate with them. But why, I asked. Because they’re popular that’s why! I could never figure this out – and I still can’t. What makes a person popular and not popular also seems as nebulous. The popular people seem to be the ones who are either well known by being more of a public figure. Or, it seems, they are popular by the way they dress and the kind of company they keep. The non popular are in that group because, it would seem, they are less in the limelight. They might be involved in things but are more in the background. They are also less popular because of the company they keep. At least, that is the way I have come to understand it as a father.
But when I think of it, as adults, we still do categorise people by what they do, how they do it and the company they keep. Think of all the people you meet in the run of a day, or a week. They all fit in various categories. We easily associate with the people who are in the right categories. Those who fall in the other categories, we tend to stay away from. We watch them from a distance.
We tend to trust the people who fall in the right categories but not so much those who fall in the other ones. We tend to like those who are in the right groups but not so much the ones who are not. If I were to ask you what kinds of people fit in the right category, I’m sure you could quickly come up with a description. But if I were to ask you why this is the right category, I suspect that it would be more difficult to come up with the reasons, at least reasons that make sense to someone who is not part of that category.
And then sometimes the way we categorise people is strange. In an article that was published in the Chronicle Herald entitled, A bully to some might be a best friend to others, the write explores our strange ways of categorising people. Most people don’t like bullies. We’d rather get rid of them. But transplant them in an arena, and they love the big defenseman who does not shy away from pounding an opponent into the boards. We don’t like people who bad mouths us or our close friends, but we cheer when the right politician demeans his or her opponent. And in times of election, how easy it is to disassociate ourselves from people we may have once have been close to because their political views are different from ours. For whatever reason, we think less of them than before.
All this is nothing new. The same popular and not popular groupings have existed for a long time. Let me read to you this story from Jesus time and you’ll see that Jesus himself was confronted with the same thing.
“Jesus went out again beside the sea; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them. As he was walking along, he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And Levi got up and followed him. And as Jesus sat at dinner in Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples – for there were many who followed him. When the scribes of the Pharisees saw t5hat he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ When Jesus heard this, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners (Mark 2: 13- 17).’”
If the scribes considered themselves as part of the popular group and also considered Jesus as one of the popular crowd, then it’s not too surprising that they were shocked when they saw Him hanging around the non-popular people. But Jesus set the record straight. He didn’t belong to one group or another. He belonged to everyone. He was not going to let anyone lay a special claim to Him.
He said that He came for sinners. A sinner, as the people back in His day would have understood, were people who were seen as not worthy of God. They weren’t good enough for Him. Tax collectors were not liked because they collected taxes for the government which was not religious but pagan. Poor people, sick people, sad people and farmers, especially those who had animals were seen as sinners. A person of God would not associate with anyone like that because it would make them unworthy of God too.
Jesus said He came for sinners because He came to announce that God’s kingdom and God’s love is not just for those who think they have it all together and that God is happy with them because of how they look and what they do. In fact, the kingdom of God is for those who know they don’t measure up. It’s for those who don’t think God wants them around because of who they are – maybe poor, sick, troubled, lonely, sad or guilty of having done something wrong. Jesus said He came for them because of all people, they need to know that God loves them, that they are not rejects and that they are highly valued by God, even if society doesn’t think much of them.
In God’s kingdom, in Jesus’ circle of friends, there is no room for categories of people. Everyone is the same, everyone is welcome, everyone is forgiven, everyone is loved the same.
I think that what Jesus shows in this story is that there is no one who is not worthy of being valued and cared for – whether a person is a bully, whether a person is bullied, they all need God’s love. They might need it in different ways, but they need it nonetheless. Rather than passing a judgement on whether we should spend time and effort with a person because of the category we have put them in, we need to think “how can I best show that God loves this person?”
The drama we saw a few moments ago shows the torment we all experience when we are separated from God, whether this happens because of our actions, our decisions, or the company we keep. It brings pain inside when we be apart from God. Jesus knows that and that is why He came, to tell us and show us that He can replace this pain with hope and with love. Whether we are popular or not popular makes no difference. God loves us all the same and in Jesus He offers us the same hope, the same forgiveness and the same chance for life.
May we see people as Jesus sees them: in need of being loved and treated with justice. May we stop categorising people and learn to share God’s love with everyone equally. May we indeed live as Jesus as taught us to live.