In the well known story of the woman at the well, we find Jesus speaking with someone who is marginalized in her society as the result of her sinful behavior. You know it well but it is worth revisiting. It is important to remember two things in this story. First, Jesus did not arrive here by chance. He intended to meet this woman. Second, He knows exactly who this woman is, her past, everything. Yet when he speaks to her, he does not bring up any of her past. Jesus knows that it’s not proper for a Jew to speak to a Samaritan woman, let alone one living in sin. But still, he asks her for water. She doesn’t understand this at first, and he becomes even more confusing when he begins to speak of “the gift of God”. He tells her that if she asks, he will give her living water. In short, he leads with love.
I’ve noticed that whenever Jesus interacts with someone who is “poor in spirit”, he leads with love. He doesn’t ignore the sin. But He starts with loving the person. In Luke 7 we see Jesus reclining at table with a Pharisee when a woman, identified as a sinner, comes and anoints Jesus’ feet with expensive ointment, weeps and dries his feet with her hair. The Pharisee is appalled. He wonders if Jesus is in fact a prophet, because if He were, He would know who this woman was. Unknown to the Pharisee: Jesus knew exactly who she was.
Later in Luke we see Jesus approach Zacchaeus, a tax collector, to tell him He will be having dinner at Zacchaeus’ house. The people grumble because they consider Zacchaeus to be a sinner.
In John 8 we see a woman about to be stoned by the religious people. Jesus writes something in the dirt with a stick, we don’t know what, but some presume He was listing the sins of the religious people. “Let the person who is without sin cast the first stone”, He says. One by one the people drop their stones and leave. He tells the woman “Who condemns you? No one? Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”
There are countless other stories: the thief on the cross, the woman bent by a “disabling spirit”, the Centurion with the paralyzed servant, the woman who touched the hem of His garment. In all these cases, Jesus met the sinner or the non-religious person first with love.
Contrast that with how Jesus interacts with the religious elite. In Luke 11 we see Jesus dining with a Pharisee. The Pharisee is uptight because Jesus did not wash His feet. Jesus replies, “You wash the outside, but on the inside you are greedy and dishonest…woe to you…you tithe for show but you ignore love and justice…” In both Mark and Matthew we see Jesus’ disciples eating from the wheat fields. The Pharisees dislike this but He rejects their religiosity and their conventions and says “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.” In Matthew 15 we see Jesus scolding the Pharisees, again for their focus on rules and traditions. He calls them hypocrites, and says they “honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” Later the disciples, worried about offending the Pharisees, ask Jesus about the encounter. He says “Everything that has not been planted by my Father will be pulled up”, and says the Pharisees are the “blind leading the blind”, and they will both fall in the pit. In Matthew 19 when the Pharisees tried to trap him with words about divorce he said “Because of your hardness of heart…” Moses allowed them their rules and traditions about divorce.
Again, the list seems endless. When interacting with the keepers of the law, Jesus does not lead with love, He leads with the law, and with ruthless precision shows the Pharisees how they themselves have missed the mark. Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when he said “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.” (Mathew 7:2)
The sinners in each of the stories reflect the first Beatitude: they were all poor in spirit. They knew they were wretched in their soul. They reflected the second Beatitude: they mourned their own sinfulness. They reflected the third Beatitude: they were meek, or humble. They did not think more highly of themselves than they should. Because of this, they reflected the fourth beatitude: they were hungry and thirsty for righteousness. They sought to be made right, to be aligned with God. Not with man, but with God. And so Jesus met them with His love, because that is where true discipleship always starts. From there, the behavior will come, because it is born out of love.
The religious people started out believing they were righteous already. So they reflected none of the Beatitudes. And as a result, Jesus started on the other end. He started with the Law. And the law convicted the Pharisee. He called them “whitewashed tombs”.
So which are you? Are you poor in spirit? Do you see yourself as lost and broken and in need of Jesus’ love? Or perhaps you have grown up in the Church and feel you’ve got everything pretty well figured out? Maybe a more important question to ask is how do you treat other people? When you see a transgender person, do you first fixate on their sin, or do you desire to show them God’s love? When you meet someone who doesn’t reflect what you think a godly person should be like, how do you treat them? How would Jesus treat them? Maybe your inner thoughts are “You know, I don’t treat them well. I’m critical of them. I don’t really even want to interact with them at all. They are sinners, and they make me uncomfortable.” That’s a good first step! You are poor in spirit! You recognize, at least, your sin.
Perhaps if we followed Jesus’ model, and we lead with love, we will win more people to Christ than if we follow the Pharisees’ model. I think we are afraid to do this because we worry that if we love someone in their sin, it means we are accepting or even approving of their sin. This is not the case. Jesus clearly did not accept people’s sin. In most cases, after He loved them, He admonished them for their sin and called them to repentance. Yet still, scripture tells us that while we were yet sinners, Jesus laid down His life for us!