The Conflict of Discipleship

Last week we saw a turn in the story of the Kingdom of God that is drawing near in Jesus Christ. The plot thickened as we saw Jesus facing opposition from the religious scholars over the issue of whether he could forgive sins. That conflict continues now in our passage today from Mark 2:13-17. Let’s read that together. From this passage, see two points this morning – the call to the sinner and the conflict of the self-righteous.

First, from verses 13-14, see the call to the sinner. Jesus is continuing his ministry in the region of Galilee, and we find him again along the shores of the sea of Galilee. In Chapter 1, we saw him here, calling the first four disciples, Peter, Andrew, James, and John. Now, again, he is wondering along the seashore and comes across a tax collector named Levi. We know him in the other Gospels as the disciple, Matthew. For Levi, this was a reasonable place to set up shop. There was a considerable amount of commerce taking place on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and it is likely the case that Levi was an entry-level tax collector who was mainly interested in assessing use tax. So, he had his target right there in the fishermen who brought their catch out of the sea, as they would be expected to pay a tax for their catch. Even today, in such a country as ours with law and order, there is strong distrust for tax collectors. We despise the IRS, not because their laws are unclear, but because we feel that they arbitrarily enforce the law – or worse yet, they use the law as a political weapon. But, imagine for a moment that you live in a country where there is no concern for rights or limited government. The Roman Empire was just such a place. The Roman tax apparatus was a hodge podge of different self-interested groups. At the local level, tax collectors were men who bid for the opportunity to raise funds for the empire. They bid by proposing that they could bring the most taxes in for the government. The benefit to the local tax collector was the fact that he was able to set the price for any tax, allowing him to skim off the top and pass along the revenues that he promised to Rome. Even worse, these men were considered traitors to their own people. And, especially for the Jew, they were considered to be idol worshipers because they handled Roman coins that the Jews viewed as miniature idols because of the image of Caesar.

With that in mind, imagine the surprise that Levi felt when the new up-and-coming rabbi named Jesus, who preached with authority and cast out demons, and his ragtag group of fishermen-turned-disciples came strolling up to his booth. You would understand if Levi worried that Jesus might be coming to castigate him for his betrayal and idolatry. You would also understand if he worried that these fishermen were ready to abuse him for his grift. I’m sure he did not expect what happened next. Jesus offers the two words to Levi that he did to his other disciples. For Levi, as with the others, these words were packed with significance. He said, simply, “Follow me,” but oh, consider what that would mean. It was an unexpected call, as Levi, like the fishermen Jesus had already called, could never hope to be included in the kingdom of God. Yet, the invitation of the kingdom is like that – it is for those that we would least expect. It was also a call to leave his former life on the seashore. Like James and John left their nets in the water to follow Jesus, so too Levi was called to leave the money in the booth, leave his contract to Rome, leave his fame and power, and follow. As Jesus tells his disciples in Mark 10:29, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold.” The call to discipleship is a call to abandon all for the sake of the Gospel. It is especially a call to leave who we were, to turn from sin, and devote all of ourselves to Christ.

This calling of the sinner always invites conflict, though, and that brings me to my second point – the conflict of the self-righteous. In verse 15, we are told that Jesus moves from this call of Levi to a dinner party. We find him reclining at a table, surrounded by “tax collectors and sinners.” Here again we have the picture of Jesus’s gracious calling of sinners. This phrase, “tax collectors and sinners” served as a euphemism for anyone who was unacceptable to the Jewish elite. Tax collectors would represent anyone who colluded with or benefited from the Roman government in some way. Soldiers, magistrates, bureaucrats, merchants, and anyone else who dealt with Roman money or law would fit into this group. Sinners was a designation for anyone who was unclean or unfit to participate in temple worship. This could be a woman who was married to Gentile, a leper, a divorced man, a prostitute, or anyone else who found themselves tainted by uncleanness.

Everyone at the party was happy, enjoying the fellowship and the blessing of Jesus’s presence. But there is always someone there to spoil the party. Verse 16 tells us that some scholars of the Pharisees saw this party going on, and they scoffed. They confronted Jesus’s disciples and asked, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” The Pharisees were a faction within Jewish religious life who were sort of the conservative separatists. They arose out of the righteous fervor of Ezra’s reforms to cleanse the nation of its idolatry and intermingling with pagan nations. But, in that fervor, they added rules and regulations that the OT law did not require. For example, nowhere does the OT forbid a Jewish man from having contact with a Gentile. But, the Pharisees insisted that any Jew who held fellowship with a Gentile was unclean because, it was suggested, Gentiles killed babies in their own homes, meaning that a Jew would come in contact with a dead body. Yes, it was just that convoluted. This is the kind of reasoning that these Pharisees now apply to Jesus’s party. They see him sitting with Gentiles and traitors and think, “He’s supposed to be a preacher, and he’s making himself unclean and unworthy to worship in the temple.”

To this objection, Jesus gives a wonderful response in verse 17. His response is brilliant because, to the Pharisee, it could have been taken as a compliment, but he really meant it as a slight. He explained, “the healthy have no need for a physician, but the sick do. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” At first blush, it seems as though Jesus is saying that the Pharisees are healthy and righteous. No doubt, this would have seemed like a bit of flattery. It appears he is saying that the Pharisees have it together - they have a right understanding of the law and are correctly following it. But, we know this is not at all what Jesus means for two reasons. First, we know that Jesus has no respect for the way the Pharisees live. In the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5-7, Jesus repeatedly calls them hypocrites for their self-righteous behavior. In Matt. 23:27 he tells them, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.” You see, the Pharisees, for all of their legalism, were not truly righteous or faithful. Their obedience was not from the heart, and their desires were still corrupt and sinful, even if they managed to avoid the big public sins that others could not.

We also know that Jesus did not mean this as flattery because of what he says at the end of verse 17, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” Remember, Jesus is the Messiah, the king of heaven. To be called by the Messiah is to inherit the blessings of the kingdom and eternal life. He is not just simply saying, “I haven’t called you to sit under my teaching”, but “I have not called you to eternal life.” Oh, friend, do not miss this. The call of the kingdom is not for those who think they are good enough. It is not for the mighty, the powerful, the able, the wise. It is for the poor, the meek, the weary, and the foolish. The kingdom of God is only for the sinner who knows that he is lost, unable to do anything to gain salvation by his own power or will. So, if you are to enter the kingdom of God, it will not be through ritual or regulation, but through repentance and faith. It will be through the recognition that you are a sinner in need of salvation that you receive eternal life. It will be through the acknowledgement that you are sick in sin, and you need the healing that comes through Jesus Christ. If that is you this morning, hear the call of your savior and rejoice, for he has not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

Brothers and sisters, may we never be like these Pharisees, who determined the worthiness of other people based on their outward appearance and their social standing. May we never look at our neighbor and refuse to share the Gospel or invite them to church because they are dirty or trashy or foreign or lowly. May we instead, be like our savior, and offer the healing and forgiveness of the kingdom to those for whom the kingdom has come.