When To Temper Your Temperance
Alcohol has been a hotly debated topic for at least the last hundred years, surely even longer than that. After all, issues with alcohol and drunkenness go all the way back to Noah (Genesis 9). The Bible gives several examples of people overusing alcohol and then making bad decisions; Genesis 9 and Esther 1 are the easiest examples. Otherwise, the Bible gets a bit confusing on the subject.
“Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart…” Ecclesiastes 9:7
“Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler; whoever is led astray by them is not wise.” Proverbs 20:1
All the Bible agrees that drunkenness is a bad decision which leads to sin (Prov 23:21, 1 Pet 4:3, Eph 5:18, Rom 13:13, and more). So ultimately it rests on the individual to make the decision.
Pastor Erik established last week that the Pharisees of Jesus’s day had set up “fences” around the law to protect themselves and others from the stain of sin. With this mentality, they often pushed away those who didn’t follow their way. After all, Deuteronomy repeatedly advised the Israelites to ‘purge the evil from among you.’ So along comes an upstart teacher who seems to be associating with drunkards and prostitutes and tax collectors and other members of the ‘evil’ crowd that they should be ‘purging,’ not socializing with. In essence, Jesus isn’t fitting inside the fence they created; he isn’t checking the boxes they expected the Messiah to check. And Jesus addresses this:
To what then can I compare the people of this generation?…They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other
“We played the pipe for you,
and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
and you did not cry.”
The Pharisees were the children shouting out “You’re doing it wrong! That’s not the way I want it! You have to follow my rules!” …to the creator of the universe…
And Jesus further points out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees in the next passage:
“For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘ Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by all her children.” Luke 7:33-34
In other words Jesus says, “There is no pleasing your expectations because YOU are the point.” The Pharisees weren’t looking for God to come; they were too inwardly focused. They took the surface of how John the Baptist and Jesus looked and acted and made all their assumptions that he wasn’t as “good” as they were.
Before we become “Pharisees” ourselves and point our fingers at our Bibles and say, “Ha! what fools! They don’t know what was standing right in front of them…but I do!” Before we do that, let’s please take a few minutes and reflect on a few very important questions:
Have I judged my neighbor by the way they look?
…by the way they talk?
…the music they listen to?
Have I taken time to have a conversation with that person? To ask them real questions? To share the hope I have in Jesus?
Have I prayed for them?Have I offered to pray for them?
Am I afraid of what others will think of me if I associate with ‘those people’?
Honest answers to these questions will help us discern if we are living like Jesus or Pharisees. If you want my raw honesty? With the neighbor on my right, I’m about 50/50. 50% is a failing grade. The neighbor on my left? 0.
Lord, grant us mercy to accept our shortcomings. Give us the courage to go to the places you want us to be, to share the love you have given us, and to faithfully bear the light you have shone on us. Amen.