Martyr or A-martyr?

Jesus answered, “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 to repentance.” Luke 5:31-32

Dear Friends,

On Sunday I preached on the text from Luke where it recounts how Jesus called Levi (Matthew) the tax collector to follow him. He dropped everything and followed him… and then threw a party for Jesus, his disciples and his fellow tax collectors. At the end of this story, the Pharisees challenge Jesus’ disciples about how their master is eating with sinners. The verse above is Jesus’ reply to that. In my reflections on Sunday, I focused on the transformation that happened with Levi when he shifted his orientation from being a tax collector (someone who was focused on acquiring money and seen as participating with the Roman oppressors) to someone who was focused on following Jesus and practicing generosity.

In Jesus’ rebuttal to the Pharisees, Jesus offers up the contrast of being sent not to the righteous but to sinners. Quite often, I get curious about the actual words used in the biblical Greek that get translated for us into English. This week, I was curious about the Greek word that is translated as sinners. In the Greek, the word is ἁμαρτωλοὺς which is transliterated as hamartōlous. I’m sure this is all Greek to you… but what caught my attention is that the original Greek word has the same root that “martyr” has in it. When we think of martyrs, we think of those who have died for the faith… people who are put to death because they are Christian. The word martyr is most accurately translated as “witness.” Certainly, people who have chosen to be put to death instead of disavowing their faith are powerful witnesses to Christ, but the word martyr itself simply means “witness.”

So what is martyr or witness doing in the word translated sinner?

Those of you that are familiar with prefixes know that when an “a” is added before a word, it makes it mean the opposite:

• Asymmetry means something is NOT symmetrical

• Apathetic means someone is NOT pathos (passionate)

• Amoral means someone is NOT moral

Hence, the word which is translated into English as sinner is literally, not a witness. I find this very helpful… To me, this suggests the following paraphrase of the verse above:

[Jesus said], I have come to call not the righteous

but those who are not witnessing  to repent (transform).

This invites me into the inquiry, How (by the way that I am living) am I witnessing to my faith? And conversely, How (by the way that I am living) am I NOT witnessing to my faith?

From this perspective, we are all sinners. We all have times that we say and do things (or don`t say and do things) that are not faithful witnesses to the savior that we follow. That means that Jesus does not come to those others who are sinners but continues to come to us… to heal us, forgive us, free us, enliven us, wake us up… to transform us to be witnesses to others by the way we live. There is the saying, You may be the only Bible some people read. May you claim the power in what you say and do to impact others in Christ`s name!

Peace,

Pastor Phil