TEXT: Mark 2:13-17

SUBJECT: Meeting the Lord #4: Levi

The story takes place near the Sea of Galilee. Our Lord has gone there, it seems, to get away from the people of Capernaum, who were making impossible demands on His time. In short, He needed a break.

But He didn't get one. The mobs followed Him to the beach and insisted He teach them some more. Which He did, with His customary grace. What did He say? We don't know, for Mark is "a man of action"--and doesn't care much for words.

He tells us what the Lord does. And a weird thing, it is. He walks up to a customs table (or a tollbooth) and invites the busy agent to put down his ledger and to "Follow Me". The man's name is Levi; he's better known as Matthew, the Apostle and author of the First Gospel.

Levi is a publican or a tax collector. He works for Rome, and is not well-liked by his own people. To them, he is an apostate, a traitor, and a dirty, low-down thief!

Are they right about him? Yes they are. The publicans are notorious for their crookedness. Levi is more than your run-of-the mill publican; he's a Moksha--the worst of a bad lot.

Alfred Edersheim tells us the sort of taxes these men collected--and how they did it.

When you think "publicans", don't think the IRS or the Franchise Tax Board. Think "The Mafia". Levi was a mobster!

How did this Gangster respond to the call of Christ? He dropped what he was doing and "followed the Lord fully". What's more: He invited his friends from the underworld to meet the Lord Jesus at a party he was throwing for Him. Did they come? They did. And had a jolly good time of it.

Levi is happy; our Lord is happy; the sinners are happy; the disciples are happy; everyone is happy. Well, not quite everyone. The Scribes and Pharisees don't like it one bit!

They grumble to the disciples: "How is it that He eats and drinks with Publicans and sinners?"

He explains why in a proverb: "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick". Do doctors visit the sick or the well? The sick, of course; that's what their here for!

There is always someone who doesn't get figurative language, and so, the Lord spells it out: "I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance".

And so the story ends.

What is it about? What issue does the story address? Does it justify greedy and dishonest men? It doesn't. Does it minimize their faults? No. Does it imply Pharisees and Scribes are worse-off than Publicans and Sinners? That is true, but not quite the meaning here.

What is it? This: Jesus Christ loves bad people.

The name, "Publican" speaks for itself. Its Hebrew root means "oppression" or "injustice". He was a bad person--really, really bad! It's no wonder decent people avoided the publicans. Moral lepers, they were, sure to infect anyone they touched.

But what about "sinners"? Who are they? They are not people who commit sins. The proudest Pharisee knew he did that; he knew "There is not a just man on earth who does good and sins not" (Ecclesiastes 7:2). He didn't claim sinless perfection.

He knew His Law; it provided for sin. Offerings could be made which would clear the guilty--the sin offering, the trespass offering, the peace offering, and so on. Restitution was there, too. If a man stole a sheep, he must repay four-fold; when he did, he was justified. The Pharisees did these things. And believed, as a consequence, they weren't sinners.

For a "sinner" is one who had sinned so grievously that no sacrifice would do him any good; no restitution was possible. Sinners were beyond the pardon offered in the Law.

All the Law had for them was death. The children of the Covenant treated "Sinners" like dead bodies.

But the Son of God? He loved them. He proved His love in two ways: (1) He befriended them, having supper at Levi's house and enjoying the company of his shady friends; (2) He called them to repentance. Love comes to the sinner in his sin, but doesn't leave him there. Just as a doctor comes to the sick and leaves them well, so the "Son of Man" dines with "sinners" but leaves them saints.

"Neither do I condemn you;

Go and sin no more".

How does this story apply to us? In countless ways, of course, but I've limited myself to three obvious ones.

It humbles the believer. How did you come to faith in Christ? Did you find Him yourself, or did you respond to His call? It was His call that brought you to faith. But why did He call you--and not your neighbor? Not your brother? Not your wife? Why you? Obviously, He called you--and not someone else--because He found something good in you.

Right? Wrong! He called you because He found something bad in you--something monstrously bad! He came to you because He saw you as bad-off as those crooked "publicans" or those death-row "sinners". He paid you a house call because He saw you good as dead without His treatment.

This is what the Bible teaches about Christians. Not that we are better than others, more worthy of God's favor, but we're worse than others. And God, wanting to show the freeness of His grace, gives it to us--people who couldn't possibly think, "I deserved that!"

This is true of ordinary believers. "Not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world...the weak things...the base things...and the things that are despised..." Why? "So that no flesh should boast in His presence, but that `he who glories [must] glory in the Lord'".

What about exceptional believers? Surely, they have a special something about them? You don't get any more "special" than Paul. About himself, He said, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am chief". And he meant it, calling himself "a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man".

The coming of Christ humbles the believer, for it reminds him that he was so far gone--sunk so deeply into sin--that nothing could save Him but "The Word made flesh".

You ought to go home today and apologize to unbelievers you have snubbed or sneered at. Are you saved and they not? If so, it's because you were worse than they!

God forgive us for looking down our noses at anyone! Joseph Hart had it right:

"Not the righteous,

Not the righteous,

Not the righteous;

Sinners Jesus came to call".

The story also encourages sinners. If Jesus Christ takes people like Levi and his mobster friends, he will take you too. Just as you are--right now. And He will do more than "Call [you] to repentance"; He will also give you the power to turn from your evil ways and to follow after holiness. He did it for Levi--who became an Apostle. He will do it for you.

"Is there anything too hard

for the LORD?"

The story warns the self-righteous. You needn't worry about being "too bad" for Christ. He loves Levi and his crooked associates. What you have to worry about, though, is being "too good" for Christ. Some people are this way all their lives--the Pharisees for example. But for others, pride is a slow-growing cancer on their souls. Once they needed Christ--needed Him desperately. But that was years ago; lately they haven't felt the need. Why should they? They're quite respectable; they know their Bibles; they conduct family worship--They are "rich, increased with goods, in need of nothing".

Or so they think. Yet the fact remains, everyone needs Christ at all times. The believer no less than the infidel; the holiest saint, no less than the rawest convert.

"I need Thee every hour".

Finally, the story teaches us how to treat shameful sinners. We mustn't hate them; we mustn't despise them; we mustn't bar the door against them; we mustn't ignore them. This is the Pharisee's way! Our Lord befriends them, not to share in their sin, but to redeem them from it. We ought to do the same. We ought to have welcoming personalities, letting people know that we care, and would like nothing better than to see them "rejoicing in the Lord" too.

God teach us these things--and more--for Christ's sake. Amen.