Saturday after Ash Wednesday, February 20, 2021

Luke 5, 27-32

Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him. Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were at table with them. The Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus said to them in reply, “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”

“Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi.”  The verb here translated as “he saw” means something more than “he looked at him”.  It carries the meaning of “beheld” and “contemplated”.  The Lord, in other words, was looking intently at Levi, who also went by the name “Matthew”.  Levi was sitting at his table in the marketplace collecting taxes while scribes recorded the transactions and others counted or weighed the coins.  Despite the line of people and their complaints and excuses, he felt the Lord’s eyes upon him.  He looked out past the people before him and met those eyes.  The man whose preaching had stirred him even from a distance and whose miracles were recounted to him, was looking at him, the tax collector, whom decent folks avoided to the extent that they could: for the Pharisees taught that tax collectors were little better than vermin.  “Follow me.”  That is all the Lord said to him.  It was both an invitation and a command.  And Matthew understood with certainty that he was to follow not for an hour or a day, but for the rest of his life.  He did not wait to see if Jesus would repeat himself, or if Jesus would clarify that he meant someone else.  Matthew got up and went to Jesus, “leaving everything behind”.  

“Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were at table with them.”  Matthew shows his joy at the call of the Lord Jesus by hosting his last great feast.  The Apostles, who often went hungry with the Lord, must have delighted at the rich variety of food, for meat from goats and fattened calves would have enriched the fare, and good wine would have flowed as well.  His friends, many of whom probably lived outside the town, would have poured in from the surrounding area.  The Lord would have kept with Matthew, who introduced his guests to him.  Meanwhile, Matthew’s steward would have hustled about, directing the lower servants and checking the food and the wine.  Music played on lyre and flute would have entertained the crowd as they ate, drank, and conversed.  The tax collectors and their friends, largely shunned by society, had developed a certain roughness that would have shone itself in bawdy language and raucous laughter.  A good amount of joking would have centered on the fact that Matthew — of all people — had as his guest of honor a holy man.

The Pharisees were disgusted.  It is hard to imagine them feeling welcome at such a feast.  Perhaps they merely strolled around, disapproving of it all, or else they hung around outside the compound.  But they complained.  “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” They addressed the Apostles, but the question was directed at the Lord.  The Lord heard the question, either himself or through an Apostle.  “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”  Jesus, who has acted as physician in healing physical ailments, now reveals to the Pharisees that his work is with souls as well.  We should notice, too, how the Lord declares, “I have . . . come” to heal sinners.  He does not say, “They are called to repent”, but rather, “I have come to call these to repentance.”  That is, the Lord is acting on his own authority.  The inference too is clear: “I have come into the world” to do this.  But who of those born into the world can say this?  We do not come into the world with a purpose.  Only one who existed outside of this world can do this.  The prophets never spoke like this, nor Moses.

“I have not come to call the righteous.”  These are those who esteem themselves to be righteous, despite Psalm 143, 2: “In your sight no man living is justified.”  Or, they do not recall the words of Ecclesiastes 7, 21: “There is no just man upon earth that does good, and does not sin.”

The Pharisees are concerned with keeping themselves ritually pure, which they equate with righteousness.  But the Law does not forbid eating and drinking with tax collectors and “sinners” nor does it say that one who does so becomes unclean.  The Lord on many occasions calls the Pharisees “hypocrites” and one reason for this is that they claim to know, study, and observe the Law, but they hardly know it at all.  They study instead “the doctrines and precepts of men” (Mark 7, 7), and set aside the Law for these lesser things.  We do this when we refuse to eat or talk with others because we consider them “evil” because of their political or religious opinions, for instance.  Surely some shared interests can provide an opening for civil discussion and learning about the origins of the beliefs of others.  Lest we think this impossible, let us consider that the Apostles, all raised as faithful Jews, sat down with the tax collectors and sinners, and ate with them.  And, of course, the God of heaven and earth sat down at the table of his creatures Peter and Andrew and ate at their humble board.  Conversion is not accomplished from far off but from close up.  The Son of God became man in order to be close up with us.  If we humble ourselves a little, we can be close up with unbelievers and gradually help them to believe.