Mark 2

¹³ He went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them. ¹⁴ And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him. ¹⁵ And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. ¹⁶ And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” ¹⁷ And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

A professionally-produced television commercial comes onto the screen. The opening shot shows the inside of a church sanctuary. Music begins to play. The narrator speaks then responds in turn to a number of folks who look into the camera and tell what they would like in a church. It goes like this:

Narrator: Imagine a church where every member is passionately, wholeheartedly, and recklessly calling the shots.

Business woman: I have a busy work week, and by the time Sunday rolls around I’m tired. So how about a church service that begins when we get there?

Narrator: Can do. When you arrive, we begin.

Parents Holding Baby: This guy [father nods towards baby], he plays by his own rules. We want to find a church where if he starts screaming we’re not the bad guys.

Narrator: Say no more. If your baby’s screaming, you stay seated. The others around you can leave.

Couple Working in Yard: You know, financially Sherry and I don’t give a lot to the church, but we sure like to know who does.

Narrator: Alright. If you join now you’ll know what every person gives in detail.

Senior Adult Lady: When I’m in the church service, can my car get a buff and a wax?

Narrator: Not just that, but an oil change and a tune-up.

Man Throwing Football: And how about tickets to the Super Bowl?

Narrator: That’s asking too much.

Man Throwing Football: I’m serious. If I’m going to join I want tickets to the big game.

Narrator: Alright. You join now and we’ll get you there.

Kid on Bike: I’d like a pony.

Narrator: Look in your back yard. [kid gasps, drops bike, runs toward backyard]

As the commercial ends, the narrator says: “Me-Church. Where it’s all about you.” At the next commercial break, another commercial, much like the first, comes on.

Narrator: Imagine a church where every member is passionately, wholeheartedly, and recklessly calling the shots.

Exercising Woman Pausing to Tie Shoes: I don’t know who sets the worship service temperature, but why does it have to be so cold?

Narrator: Why do you have to be so right? Heated chairs are now being installed.

Parents Holding Baby: This one [father nods toward wife] wants a small church, but I’m afraid if it’s too small they’re gonna make me volunteer like crazy. I don’t stack chairs.

Narrator: Makes total sense. Join now and we’ll let you decide the size of our church.

Group of Young People: We’re Millennials, and we want a church that…

Narrator [interrupting]: Say no more. Any request you have will be granted immediately. [young people nod approvingly]

Woman in Parking Lot: Parking is horrible. It takes me almost six minutes to get from my car to the building.

Narrator: It’s gonna take me six seconds to tell you a valet service is on the way.

Studious Man Surrounded by Bible Commentaries: My pastor’s preaching: it’s all over the map. I say – oh, I don’t know – stick with the books of the Bible. We should be only exedagetical.

Narrator: Ok. Next week we start John 1:1. And we’ll even start pronouncing that word the way you say it.

Man Throwing Football: Hey, I’d like the sermon to be no longer than thirty minutes.

Narrator: How does fifteen minutes sound?

Man Throwing Football: Hey, anybody willing to go fifteen should be willing to go to ten.

Narrator: Heh. You drive a hard bargain. But from now on, five minute sermons it is.[1]

Once again, the commercial ends with the narrator intoning, “Me-Church: Where it’s all about you.”

These commercials actually exist, though I am thrilled to say that they are actually intentional parodies of what many churches are becoming: inwardly focused, man-centered, and “me” focused. These commercials are extreme depictions of what happens when churches lose their sense of vision, their sense of purpose. Specifically, this is what happens when churches lose their missionary hearts, when they forget that Christ came to us, that Christ Jesus was and is a missionary. As a result, the Church, the body of Christ, must be as well.

We can see the missionary heart of God in Christ in the call of Levi found in our text.

Jesus went to lost people because Jesus is a missionary.

Having returned to Capernaum and healed the paralytic man who was lowered down through the roof, Jesus once again looks, turns, and moves outward.

¹³ He went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them. ¹⁴ And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him.

Jesus goes out beside the sea and sees a tax collector named Levi. It is traditionally understood that this Levi is Matthew. Upon seeing Levi “sitting at the tax booth,” Jesus did something extremely unexpected and profoundly offensive to the Jews who were watching this scene unfold. What He did was (a) approach a tax collector and (b) call on the tax collector to follow Him, thereby (c) inviting the tax collector into the society of His disciples.

To understand the scandal of this, one must understand who these tax collectors were and how they were viewed. Ronald Kernaghan offers some insight:

Tax collectors were Jewish people who worked for Rome. They bought a franchise that gave them the exclusive right to collect taxes in a particular area. The Roman government stipulated how much money it expected in taxes and supplied soldiers to enforce the process of collection. Rome, however, did not set a limit on how much tax could be collected from a particular franchise. The tax collectors themselves assessed the total amount that would be collected in their district. The difference between what was actually collected and what was sent to Rome was what belonged to the tax collector. The home of Levi, where Jesus ate on this occasion, was surely not an incommodious shack.[2]

Tax collectors were therefore seen as collaborators with a foreign occupying force. They assisted the enemy in oppressing their own people and, in the process, allowed the enemy to assist them. Thus, they were traitors who prospered by fleecing their own neighbors.

Not surprisingly, they were hated and despised.

Meaning Levi was hated and despised.

He was hated.

He was despised.

He was detested.

He was avoided.

He was sneered at.

And he was the one Jesus went out to meet.

Jesus went to him.

The first three words of our text are crucial:

¹³ He went out again…

Jesus went out again.

Jesus went to him. Jesus did not expect Levi to come to Him.

Jesus is a missionary.

Jesus went and Jesus goes. He went in His incarnate flesh. He goes now through His Church.

What a wonderful truth: “He went out again.”

We are here because “He went out again.”

We are forgiven because “He went out again.”

We have hope because “He went out again.”

Thank God that Jesus “went out again”!

Some years back Newsweek magazine ran an article entitled, “Savior of the Streets.” It was a story about a man named Gene Rivers. Gene Rivers is a black Pentecostal pastor who has devoted his life to reaching the gang and crime-ridden streets of inner-city Boston. His mission is to the poorest of areas and he is building relationships and trying to reach those who are caught in a web of crime, violence and poverty.

In the article, Rivers told Newsweek that when he first came to those mean streets, he sought the help of a Boston drug dealer and gang leader named Selvin Brown. He said that Selvin Brown took him into the drug dens and into the gangs and introduced him to the people of the neighborhood. Rivers said that he learned a lot from Selvin Brown and that his help was invaluable.

The greatest lesson he said he learned, however, was when this drug dealer explained to him why it was that the gangs were more important than God to the people of the streets. Here is what Selvin Brown told him. He said:

“I’m there when Johnny goes out for a loaf of bread for Mama. I’m there, you’re not. I win, you lose. It’s all about being there.”[3]

Yes, “it’s all about being there.”

Jesus was there.

Jesus formed relationships with lost people because Jesus is a missionary.

But Jesus was not just there. Not only did Jesus go out, He went out and formed a relationship with Levi and sinners like Him. Jesus is a missionary and He does not cut corners in His mission. Jesus fulfills His commission. See what happens after Jesus calls Levi.

¹⁵ And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.

Jesus goes to Levi’s house where He is joined by “many tax collectors and sinners.” They are reclining at table, presumably feasting together.

James Brooks argues that the word “sinners” in verse 15 should have quotation marks around it (as, indeed, in some translations it does) because “it is being used with an unusual meaning” here and refers “not to immoral or irreligious persons but to those who because of the necessity of spending all their time earning a bare subsistence were not able to keep the law, especially the oral law, as the scribes thought they should. As a result the scribes despised them.” Brooks goes on to say that “a better translation” than “sinners” would be “outcasts.”[4]

Perhaps that is so, but, it should be noted, in the eyes of the Pharisees it was a distinction without a difference. Jesus was eating with scandalous company. Jesus was eating with lost people. Jesus went to the lost and formed relationships with them.

Are we doing the same?

In their book Comeback Churches, Ed Stetzer and Mike Dodson write a jarring little sentence: “Most Christians don’t like lost people.”[5]

I do not know if that is true. I rather suspect it may be an overstatement. But what if it is partially true? What if “many Christians don’t like lost people”? Is that any better? It certainly is not.

Jesus liked lost people. He went to them, befriended them, formed relationships with them, and led them into the Kingdom.

Do you cultivate relationships with non-Christians? Jesus did. Where they were was where He wanted to be. Where are you? Where do you want to be?

Sometimes our love for folks has trouble extending to people who live right next door. The late Dallas Willard told of a time when he realized he was not loving the lost next door.

Some time ago I came to realize that I did not love the people next door. They were, by any standards, dangerous and unpleasant people – ex-bikers who made their living selling drugs.

            They had never tried to harm my family, but the constant traffic of people buying drugs, a number of whom sat in the yard while shooting up, began to wear down my patience. As I brooded over them one day, indulging my irritation, the Lord helped me see that I really had no love for them at all, that after “suffering” from them for several years I would secretly be happy if they died so that we could just be rid of them. I realized how little I truly cared for nearly all the people I dealt with through the day, even when on “religious business.” I had to admit that I had never earnestly sought to be possessed by God’s kind of love, to become more like Jesus. Now it was time to seek.[6]

Have you “earnestly sought to be possessed by God’s kind of love, to become more like Jesus”? If so, God will lead you to love the unlovable, to walk in when everybody else walks out, to see people as people and not as enemies. And God will lead you to form relationships with those you previously despised.

Missionary people who go often make settled religious people who stay very nervous…but that must not stop us from going!

The fact is, Jesus’ missionary-driven relationships with lost people made the religious establishment of His day more than a little uneasy.

¹⁶ And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” ¹⁷ And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

We now meet the Pharisees. Michael Card has offered some helpful background information on who these men were.

In Mark 2:16 we meet the Pharisees for the first time in Mark’s Gospel. These religious leaders were known as the “separate ones” form the Hebrew word parush (“to set apart”). An extreme “back to the Bible” sect, they came together sometime after the Maccabean revolt. Their piety was founded on a radical embrace of the oral law, which they believed was delivered to the elders at the same time Moses gave the written law to the priests. At a time of political and social upheaval, when many movements and sects were forming (Sadducees, Essenes, Herodians), the Pharisees had the most momentum and the widest following. Their influence has shaped the nature of Judaism into the present day.          One of the Pharisees’ distinct beliefs was that the ritual cleanliness mandated by the Old Testament for the priests of Israel should be extended to all the people. It was a tremendous burden that they placed on themselves and everyone else (see Mt 23:4).[7]

The Pharisees were therefore hard-wired to spot the unclean and to distance themselves from such undesirable elements. As a result, Jesus’ dining with such a motley crew ran afoul of their pet issue in a serious way.

Robert Gundry notes that repetitive usage of “sinners” and “tax collectors” in verses 15 and 16 highlight the shocking nature of Jesus’ company. He notes that the Pharisees’ switching of the order to “tax collectors and sinners” emphasizes their contempt especially for the tax collectors and that “in the Greek text the emphatic position of the phrase ‘with toll collectors and sinners’…sharpens the accusatory tone.”[8]

The Pharisees were scandalized that Jesus would commune with folks who were unclean. One can argue that many religious folks often are scandalized by such associations. Julie Stoner’s poem, “I Did Not Come to Call the Righteous,” is an apt description at this sense of scandal and unease on the parts of religious folk.

We ninety-nine obedient sheep;

we workers hired at dawn’s first peep;

we faithful sons who strive to please,

forsaking prodigalities;

we virgins who take pains to keep

our lamps lit, even in our sleep;

we law-abiding Pharisees;

we wince at gospels such as these.[9]

We do wince at gospels such as these! Perhaps it stems at times from a motive that is commendable. After all, Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:33, says, “Bad company ruins good morals.” And 2 Corinthians 6:17 says, “Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you.”

It is indeed important that in our efforts to reach the world we do not become the world. On the other hand, our efforts not to become the world cannot keep us from engaging the world lest we violate our very calling and commission! Where then is the line that we should not cross? Well, the line is that point where your efforts to reach and love those in the world lead you to uncritically over identify to the point of abandoning your convictions and missionary impulse. That is a line we dare not cross.

So perhaps this separatist mindset at times has a noble origin. Regardless, at the point where it leads us to recoil from hurting and lost people when we have the good news they need our behavior becomes deplorable, unChristlike, and outright demonic. I do not believe that is an overstatement. It is demonic to withhold the gospel from hurting people and to distance yourself from them because they are lost!

Missionary people who go often make settled religious people who stay very nervous…but that must not stop us from going!

Jesus went! Jesus loved! Jesus reached! Jesus drew! Jesus invited! Jesus led! If we are the body of Christ we must do the same!

One of the most interesting books I have read in recent years is Larry Eskridge’s God’s Forever Family: The Jesus People Movement in America. In it, Eskridge provides a history of the Jesus People movement of the late 1960’s and 70’s. One of the things he considered in that book was how established churches handled this movement and how, specifically, they chose to embrace or, more often than not, not embrace the tremendous numbers of young people who were coming to know Jesus. This created problems for churches. The methods of the Jesus People were unorthodox and so were the kids they were reaching. As a result, established institutional churches were conflicted over what to do in response. Eskridge explains:

The conservative churches’ reaction to the hippie Christians seems to have been mixed. Although the Mission’s operators occasionally received some money or other offers of assistance, some forays— like the time they drove over 200 miles down to Fresno and were given a couple of dollars for a meal at McDonald’s— ended up largely being exercises in hoping that a few straight Christians would be inspired to reach out to hippie youth. At this juncture, though, it appears that most of the pastors and congregations were not buying what they were selling. Steve Heefner recalled in a 2007 interview that at one time he had “counted 54 or 55 churches that members of the group had gone to, mostly the guys, sometime all of us— and we never got invited back to one…church.” One woman’s response to a request to house one of the hippie kids that they were trying to get off the street spoke volumes of the attitudes of many conservative church members. Evangelical Concerns board member Ed Plowman remembered that after he had made the request, the woman just stared at him in disbelief and blurted out: “Pastor— THAT between my clean sheets?”[10]

And there it is: that crucial moment when we have to decide whether or not we will love people where they are.

“Pastor – THAT between my clean sheets?”

I know the answer that Jesus would have given: “Yes. Yes – THAT between my clean sheets. For THAT is actually a WHO, a human being, created in the image of God and needing the love and mercy that I have come to offer him.”

Church, we will not truly be a church until we see THAT as a human being to whom we should go and reach and invite and love. THAT has a name, and it is a name known by God. More than anything, it was a name on the mind and heart of Jesus as he hung on the cross. As such, it is a name that must be on our minds and hearts as well.

“Jesus went out again…”

“Jesus went out again…”

Let the church hear what the Spirit is saying.

 

[1] https://www.ignitermedia.com/products/18-mechurch and https://www.ignitermedia.com/products/4559-mechurch -2

[2] Ronald J. Kernaghan, Mark. The IVP New Testament Commentary Series. Ed., Grant R. Osborne. Vol.2 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007), p.61.

[3] John Leland, “Savior of the Streets,” Newsweek ((June 1, 1998)), p.20-29.

[4] James A. Brooks, Mark. The New American Commentary. Gen. Ed., David S. Dockery. Vol.23 (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1991), p.62.

[5] Stetzer, Ed; Dodson, Mike (2010-07-19). Comeback Churches (p. 62). B&H Publishing. Kindle Edition.

[6] Dallas Willard, The Great Omission (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2006), 23.

[7] Michael Card, Mark. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), p.48.

[8] Robert H. Gundry, Mark. Vol.1 (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1993), p.125-126.

[9] Julie Stoner, “I Did Not Come to Call the Righteous.” First Things, no.194 (June/July 2009), p.20.

[10] Eskridge, Larry (2013-05-31). God’s Forever Family: The Jesus People Movement in America (p. 39). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.