““Be careful,” Jesus said to them. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.””
Matthew 16:6 NIV
It is interesting that one of the concerns during Jesus’ time was spiritual contaminations or in other words, being ritually unclean. Jesus eating with someone like Levi was a bit of a taboo because Levi would have been seen as a sinner contaminating the righteous. Yet Jesus didn’t just eat with Levi, he ate with all of Levi’s friends. Jesus wasn’t concerned about ritual cleanliness. He was concerned with bringing the people to righteousness.
The other group of people in this story is the Pharisees. The Pharisees were concerned with maintaining their righteousness not about bringing people to God’s righteousness. Yet Jesus also recognizes that the Pharisees are as spiritually unclean as the tax collectors. And Jesus was around both of them. The ritual uncleanliness and the spiritual depravity were not too much for Jesus.
Neither group stopped Jesus, the sinfulness of both did not overwhelm Jesus’ righteousness or slow the love of God that calls to the sinful hearts and invites them to receive grace and forgiveness. Now the big question is this, why do we think that our problems are too big for the grace of Jesus?
Receive His grace and blessing and live in the that is freed from the limitations of sin, as the tax collectors were invited to do and as the Pharisees were challenged to see.