Scripture: Mark 2: 13-17
Jesus went out again beside the sea; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught
them. As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and
he said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him. And as he sat at
dinner in Levi's house, many tax collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and
his disciples-for there were many who followed him. When the scribes of the Pharisees saw
that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, "Why
does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?" When Jesus heard this, he said to them,
"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."
The Gospels have many stories about the concern of the Pharisees and scribes for the
company Jesus keeps. He is taken to task for eating with sinners and gathering into his
company a rather sorry collection of vagrants, ne'er do wells, failed revolutionaries,
loose women and other assorted riffraff. In this morning's Gospel lesson, the Pharisees
are particularly offended by his friend, Levi. Levi bears the name of the tribe of the
Levites, the group especially assigned since the earliest days of Israel to special
religious ceremony duties and upkeep of the temple. If any bloodline is to uphold the
purity of the Hebrew traditions, it should be one who bears the name Levi. Yet Levi's
career is a cross between a pre-democratic IRS agent and a traitor. He is a turncoat, a
lackey to the Roman overlords, a Nazi collaborator, a mainline Presbyterian enjoying the
campus of Bob Jones University.
Typically, when the Pharisees and scribes take Jesus to task for whom he brings home to
dinner, he does not argue with them, he tells a story. He tells a story about a shepherd
who leaves behind ninety-nine sheep to find one that went astray, or a woman who turns her
house upside down to find one lost coin, or a compassionate father who welcomes a lost son
home and throws a big party.
To the Pharisees and scribes it appears that Jesus condones both the sin and the sinner
by the company he keeps. Eventually they crucify him for it. "I have come to call not
the righteous but sinners," says Jesus, but we expect him to spend a little more on
the sinners and their sin - including a little more confession, some penitence, a promise
to make amends, and a disciplined plan to correct the errors - or three strikes and you're
out.
Instead, Jesus never seems to dwell on Levi's confession of culpability in treason or
money-grubbing. There is no confession, only a nice dinner. Jesus never seems to dwell on
just what exactly did that young man do when he spent his father's inheritance on loose
living; he celebrates the throwing of a party. He promotes the idea of rescuing of one
lost sheep, but we ask who's tending the flock back up the valley on the other side of the
hill? Shouldn't that sheep be scolded for being such a "sheep" and be kept on a
short leash until she's a little more dependable? That's the right way to do it, right?
Jesus seems to reply that God's forgiveness and welcome are so complete that not a lot
of attention is devoted to these proper concerns. While it may be a relief among you whose
tails are caught between your legs as you slink back into church after having lived the
life of the lost sheep, the lost coin, the prodigal, and the tax collector, it is a
concern to those of us who are holding up our end of the deal. How about us who are paying
the bills, obeying the law, upholding right and wrong, serving on the church boards,
contributing to charities and making our society work? We work hard, what about us? We
recognize that the church is to direct our attention and our ministries to the poor, the
broken, the outcast, and the reviled; and certainly they need our concern and
understanding, but what about those of us who are holding our own? When do we get invited
to dinner?
On the other hand, maybe we don't need Jesus that much. If Jesus came not for the
righteous, but sinners, then maybe we really don't have to be all that concerned. After
all, we work hard to keep our noses clean, earn our keep and try to prevent this society
from going down a moral sewer. Who needs this Jesus anyway?
We look inside the window of Levi's house, and see him there eating and drinking with
Levi and the rest of the riffraff.
Over there is teenager with pants hanging half way down his butt and tattoos on his
arms, shoulders and neck.
Sitting next to him is the couple who have been together 10 years, against whom Prop.
22 is written. They want to adopt but not all the boxes on the form can be filled out the
way society has determined they need to be.
Over there is the man who has never had to look for a job in 30 years but now knows
what it's like to be a man in this society without a job and to seethe with frustration
and resentment.
Over there is the bigot who used to finger his gun collection, waiting for an opportune
time to get even for some high school slight.
Over there is a corporate executive who could only see one thing in life and that is
the bottom line, the rest be damned.
We look inside and say, if those are the ones he collects, than I'm not so sure any
decent self-respecting person of faith should be in there with him. Maybe he doesn't want
me and maybe I don't want him.
We stand on tiptoe, look inside one more time and see the sorriest collection of broken
humanity. Jesus is at the center and everybody is laughing and carrying on. There seems to
be such freedom and joy.
We start to turn away, but before we can, Jesus catches our eye through the window.
He sees our self-righteous judgment and the masks that hide our own need.
He looks through the window and looks at us through those soulful eyes with as much
compassion as he would give a paralytic, or a blind beggar, or a woman caught in adultery.
He sees behind our perfectionism a desperate need for approval from a parent who never
fully loved us and demanded more than any child could ever fully give.
He looks beyond our stuffed suits, pretty dresses, manicured lawns and secure incomes
and sees the emptiness of lives tied up with all sorts of entrapments - from "what
will the neighbors think?" to "why is my child in such trouble?" to the
mortgage, the aging parents, and the rumored corporate takeover that leaves all you've
built in ruins.
He looks out at us and sees one more lost sheep wandering and lost, one more prodigal
poisoned by self-righteous anger, as lost as though we had spent the family's inheritance
and were working on a pig farm, one more Levite who has cashed in and sold out.
Jesus looks out and motions for us to come in out of the dark, out of the sad and
lonely places of secrets and masks, into a fellowship of sinners: broken, yet healing;
grieving, yet laughing; beaten down, but built up because Jesus calls not the righteous
but sinners.
So we enter the door after all. We take our place at this fellowship and we call it the
church because he called it the church. It's warm inside and laughter abounds because if
you've ever been on the bottom or at least hit it with a glancing blow, you know that the
only place to be is in Levi's house and God's own house full of failed saints and
righteous sinners, brothers and sisters united only by our relationship to the God who
loves us in spite of our doing the things we ought not to have done, or not doing the
things we ought to have done. We are welcomed in for dinner by the God who loves us
because we're the company he keeps.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
