How Much Are Christians to Be in the World? Of the World?

ax-collectors were the most despised Jews of all in ancient Palestine, because--even more so than bankers and accountants today, and more justly--they were sell-outs. After the Maccabean revolt in from 167-160 BC, the Jews decided to ally with the Romans, as the second book of Maccabees records. This turned out to be a bad idea, because in 63 BC, one of the claimants to the Jewish royal throne, asked the Roman general Pompey to intervene.

Pompey did so (probably not as his Jewish frienemy Hyrcanus II intended) by conquering Jerusalem and desecrating the temple yet another time (It had been desecrated about a hundred years earlier by Antiochus IV, whom the Jews rebelled against in the Maccabean revolt.) This made Judea just another Roman client state, so the Jews once again lost their national independence, and Jews who worked for the back-stabbing Romans as tax-collectors were themselves seen as race-traitors and back-stabbers, as today's reading might suggest based on the Pharisees' reaction to Jesus mixing with such people:

Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post.
He said to him, “Follow me.”
And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him.
Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house,
and a large crowd of tax collectors
and others were at table with them.
The Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples, saying,
“Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
Jesus said to them in reply,
“Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.
I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”

So today's reading likely sparks the question: As followers of Christ, how much should we associate with those in the world, and can we keep company with the despised of society, or in this case, the evil but socially well-off, and not have it rub off on us? The answer is, I think, dependent on the situation and people involved, but it's definitely not an unequivocal "Yes, like Jesus, you can always feel free to keep whatever company you want."  Obviously, the Pharisees were prone to blame the tax collectors because they cooperated with the Roman oppressors, which Jesus did not necessarily condemn: "Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." But they were known for cheating people and taking more than their fair wages, and it seems that a culture built up among the tax collectors that made this kind of activity socially acceptable, although obviously unjust. So we're probably dealing with some actually evil people whom the Pharisees are criticizing for the wrong reasons.  Can a Christian associate with the evil? Even the first Psalm, and the very first words of that Psalm, make it clear that you cannot keep bad company and expect to remain blessed: "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the way of unrighteous, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers." 

The way that this warning is phrased, however, along with the circumstances that led Jesus to eat with the sinners of his day, point us to the solution to the seeming contradiction of Jesus' actions with the advice of the first Psalm. Notice how we started by walking in the way of sinners, then by standing around with them, and finally by sitting with them, as one of them. There is a progression of activities here that show the person in question gradually compromising whatever they were doing and wherever they were originally going, becoming one of the unrighteous. Jesus was not compromising anything. He was ministering to everyone indiscriminately, like a good doctor healing the sick without reference to their race, religion or current state of health. This particular physician had the inoculation against every single disease he might encounter and treat--by virtue of being God incarnate, Jesus could not sin.

We do not enjoy the same inoculation, although through our participation in the Sacraments and attendance at Church each Sunday, we gain more of Christ's Spirit--the Holy Spirit--and make it part of our being. We are at risk of catching the disease of sin though if we spend too much time away from these Graces. So it seems that like Christ, and like a doctor, we should be clear that our patients are not our friends. They are people to whom we minister. Although we can be friendly with them, we should maintain our closest friendships with other Christians who share the same assumptions. Jesus called Levi out from the society of the tax-collectors. The reading says that he left his post. Opposite to the Psalm, he was sitting in the seat of sinners, and Jesus got him to stand and walk out. He was no longer one of them. We then need to create societies of Christians and make those our innermost confidantes. By doing so, we will be able to minister best to the World, and even more importantly and essentially, keep Christ at the center of our lives.