22 Calling Sinners

Luke 5:27-32

Before coming to Christ everyone has a spiritual need, though some have a greater awareness than others of the effects of sin in their lives. Sometimes the sense of need develops as we encounter difficult straits in our life — once-held morals fall, unhealthy appetites dominate us, our marriage falters, our family suffers, or our career sours. Guilt begins to choke us. Equilibrium, well-being, and peace become aching memories. Life becomes desolate — we are "without hope and without God in the world" (Ephes. 2:12). But thankfully, sometimes this sense of need drives a person into the arms of Christ.

Meeting Christ brings a peace previously unknown. "Peace I leave with you," says Jesus, "my peace I give you" (John 14:27). The soul then has a sense of rest and well-being it has never known, even in the best of times. Getting to know Christ better and better through his Word brings us divine wisdom for living (James 1:5), a wisdom that slows down or reverses the destructive patterns in our lives. We experience new stability, self-control, and discipline.

While it is true that much of the ravages of sin cannot be undone (such as the finalities of divorce and remarriage), we can develop personal qualities that enhance the capacity for friendship and intimacy. Rightly related to God, Christians experience increasing fellowship with each other (cf. 1 John 1:3). Strong friendships ensue. Marriages become stronger, and families more nurturing. Through the Biblical virtues of integrity, honesty, hard work, and prudence, God's people become pillars in their churches and communities. But unfortunately, Christians also sometimes become adept at maintaining a façade of spirituality that does not necessarily match what is going on within them. No one swears. Everyone is well-mannered. Biblical metaphors effortlessly flow through conversations. Being good, externally, becomes second nature. Everyone seems so "together." There are few evident needs, and those that do exist are skillfully disguised. But underneath . . .

It is too easy for Christian believers to forget that they are sinners — yes, justified, but still, in themselves, weak and vulnerable. "We all stumble in many ways" (James 3:2). The sinners are out there — not in the church. Church becomes an elite club that few on the outside want to join, even if they could.

The radical regenerating work of Christ sours when redeemed people lose sight of their continuing need — when they forget that though their eternal future is secure, in their daily walk they are frail and needy. The church can easily become a self-righteous subculture with no room or sympathy for "sinners."

This is a real danger to the evangelical church. We have been gloriously saved. We are hard-working. We are spiritually and perhaps materially prosperous. Many of us have few discernible needs. But are we seeing ourselves as we really are? Jesus' warning to the Laodicean church may apply to us: "You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked" (Rev. 3:17).

Jesus' calling of Levi speaks to this very issue, and a study of it can help us assess ourselves and know what to do.

LEVI'S CALL (V. 5:27, 28)

Levi was a tax collector for the Roman government. The Romans collected their taxes through a system called "tax farming." They assessed a district a fixed tax figure and then sold the right to collect taxes to the highest bidder. The buyer then had to hand over the assessed figure at the end of the year and could keep whatever he gathered above that amount. Such a system invited extortion. The potential for abuse was further aided by both the primitive record-keeping and the limited means of communication in the ancient world, both of which made it difficult for people to verify when they were being exploited or to appeal it.

There were two categories of taxes. Fixed taxes left little room for extortion. These included the poll tax, which all men and women paid simply because they were alive, the ground tax, which required one tenth of all grain, wine, and oil, and the income tax (1 percent of earnings).

It was the second area of taxes — namely, duties and tolls — that allowed the tax collectors to rob others. The people paid separate taxes for using roads and for docking in harbors, and also import and export duties, and even a sales tax on certain items. There was even a cart tax, in which each wheel was taxed!

The system was a breeding ground for graft and exploitation. A tax collector could stop anyone on the road, make him unpack his bundles, and charge just about anything his larcenous heart desired. If the traveler could not pay, the tax collector would offer to loan him money at an exorbitant rate. Such men were skilled extortionists. The Talmud classified them as robbers (Sanhedrin 25b). Not surprisingly, they often allied themselves with thugs and enforcers — the scum of Jewish society. So rare was honesty in the profession that a Roman writer remarked in amazement that he once saw a monument to an honest tax collector!

Jewish tax collectors were easily the most hated men in Hebrew society — despicable, rich vermin. They were classed with "robbers, evildoers, adulterers" (Luke 18:11), with prostitutes (Matthew 21:32), and with pagan Gentiles (Matthew 18:17). They were not only hated for their robbery, but also because they were lackeys of the Romans. Tax collectors could not serve as witnesses in court and were excommunicated from the synagogues. Low-life Levi and his friends were the lowest of the lowest.

Understanding how much Levi was loathed, we can appreciate the drama in the opening description of his encounter with Jesus: "After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth" (Luke 5:27). They very likely had seen each other before as Levi had stood at the fringes of various crowds listening to Jesus. Perhaps they had even talked privately about spiritual matters. But now Jesus stopped and took a good look at Levi (the word "saw," according to Abbott-Smith, means "careful and deliberate vision which interprets . . . its object" ). Such a contemplative look from Jesus probably made Levi nervously wonder, "What does Jesus want from me?"

The answer came like a bolt of lightning: "'Follow me,' Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him" (Luke 5:27, 28). This does not mean that he never again returned to set his affairs straight. But what Luke stresses is that he made a decisive break with his old life (indicated by the aorist participle in the Greek) and followed Jesus — literally, "was following him" (imperfect indicative) — as a continuous pattern of life. In doing this Levi made a substantial sacrifice because he was wealthy. There were some quiet heroics here because, unlike the fishermen who had followed Jesus, he could not go back to his old job if things did not work out.

And, indeed, Levi did follow Christ for the rest of his life, for this Levi is none other than Matthew the Gospel writer (cf. Matthew 9:9; Matthew 10:2, 3). Whether he was named Matthew when Jesus first called him, we do not know. Many think that just as Simon was named Peter ("the rock") by the Lord, so Levi was likewise tagged Matthew ("gift of God"). If so, this was divine poetry, because this covetous rip-off artist would become, as his name suggested, a gift of God to his people.

This was utterly amazing, because of all the people in Capernaum, Levi was the most publicly unacceptable candidate for discipleship. Jesus sought out the man no one else wanted, the one who some wished would come under God's most severe judgment This is one of the glories of Jesus' ministry. And this is what Luke has been building toward in his Gospel arrangement — Jesus' healing the impossibly disfigured leper (thus demonstrating his power to heal the ravages of sin), then his pronouncement to those gathered around the paralytic that "the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" (Luke 5:24), and now this. Jesus offers real forgiveness for real guilt!

We also learn from this that Jesus sees what we can become even while we are lost in our sins. Christ saw in the disfigured life of Levi (tax collector) a Matthew (writer, evangelist, collector of souls). He sees sinners, with all their moral deformity, through his ultimate artist's eye. "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works" (Ephes. 2:10). No matter how scarred and ugly a sinner's life may be, Christ can make it into something beautiful for God. He has devoted his life to it!

LEVI'S BANQUET (V. 5:29)

Evidently Levi had no regrets about giving up everything to follow Jesus. He even hosted his own good-bye party: "Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them" (Luke 5:29). Levi had the means to do it big, and he did. The large crowd would have required extra servants and a substantial outlay of money, but that was fine with Levi. They feasted in the traditional arrangement and posture, reclining on their left sides, fully enjoying the cuisine and libations of Palestine. Levi's reasons for the big bash relate to our own experience as believers.

Levi hosted the feast, not for selfish reasons, but as a celebration of what had happened to him. Feasting is for laughter and merriment (Eccles. 10:19). The ex-tax collector regarded the change in his life as an occasion for rejoicing, as indeed it was. Nothing is a greater occasion for rejoicing than conversion! Bishop Ryle had it right when he said:

It is a far more important event than being married, or coming of age, or being made a nobleman, or receiving a great fortune. It is the birth of an immortal soul! It is the rescue of a sinner from hell! It is a passage from death to life! It is being made a king and priest for evermore! It is being provided for, both in time and eternity! It is adoption into the noblest and richest of all families, the family of God!

Coming to know Christ is a great reason to party!

Levi also put on the banquet for Jesus, for the Savior was the guest of honor. Without him, there would have been no celebration. The desire to honor God is the natural reflex of the soul that has received the divine touch. Jesus was everything to Levi (Matthew)!

The retired tax collector also hosted the feast for his friends' sake. The soul that has received God's grace does not want to go to heaven alone. This is the way it was with Andrew too, as the Apostle. John records: "The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, 'We have found the Messiah'" (John 1:41). Remember too the Samaritan woman's invitation: "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" (John 4:29). Levi knew that if his needy friends would meet Jesus and hear his words, they would be moved and perhaps follow him. Levi's changed heart longed for this.

As courses were served, cups were filled and refilled, and the lamps burnt low, Jesus engaged needy souls in conversation, and Levi's satisfaction swelled.

JESUS CRITICIZED (V. 5:30)

The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law did not share Levi's joy. Of course, they had not been invited to the party, but they had gotten a full report. Some may have even watched the proceedings, unseen, through an open window. The Pharisees were the separatists of contemporary Jewish culture. From such Old Testament passages as Leviticus 10:10 ("You must distinguish between the holy and the profane [common], between the unclean and the clean"), they developed the idea of "salvation by segregation." They were deadly serious about their lifestyle, which had strict rules about ceremonial purity in regard to places, objects, people, and food. Their legalistic mind-set had no room for parties like the one Levi threw for Jesus.

Aghast at the motley gathering, they came, not to Jesus, but to his followers: "But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, 'Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and "sinners"?'" (Luke 5:30). The coupling of tax collectors with "sinners" took their indictment beyond Jews, who had some hope if they repented, to Gentiles, who were characterized as lawless, godless, and hopeless.

In their view, Jesus had defiled himself by consorting with the collective Hebrew and Gentile scum of Galilee. His eating with them indicated friendship and full acceptance.

It never occurred to the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law that their lack of concern for sinners and their cavalier mercilessness had distanced them from God. These experts had the Scriptures, but they had failed to truly read them. For example, when the prophet Micah stated the Lord's case against Israel in the sixth chapter of his prophecy, he concluded by asking, "And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8). From Micah's perspective, the Pharisees' lack of concern for others indicated that they were completely out of sync with the heart of God.

The parallel account of Levi's calling in Matthew 9:13 records an extra line from Jesus: "But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'" This is a reference to Hosea 6:6 where Hosea, like Micah, condemns Israel for its attention to ceremony without caring for others. The whole of Hosea 6:6 reads, "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings." Evidently Hosea's words were immensely important to Jesus. They lay at the heart of his mission. He had come to call those who knew they were sinners, not those who thought they were righteous.

Those who did not care about sinners were not only out of accord with Christ but were separate from him. Their mercilessness was a sign of their unregenerate hearts. The truth of Hosea 6:6 meant so much to Jesus that he apparently referenced it again in the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy" (Matthew 5:7, nasb). Superficial religious observance of rites and rituals without love and mercy for needy sinners means nothing (cf. Amos 5:21-24).

The Pharisees had religiously taken themselves right out of their faith. They had all the civilities. Their conversation was a collage of Scriptures and holy allusions. They never swore. They kept their homes in order. They regularly attended synagogue. They were "good people." They had no apparent need.

Does this ever happen to Christians? In the eighteenth century the Church of England had become so elitist and inhospitable to the common man that in 1739 John Wesley had to take to graveyards and fields to preach the gospel. We have poignant accounts of his preaching to 30,000 coal miners at dawn in the fields, and the resulting saving power of the gospel evidenced by tears streaming white trails down coal-darkened faces. Wesley was no schismatic, but because there was no room in the established church for the common people, he reluctantly founded the Methodist-Episcopal Church. Tragically, a mere 100 years later Methodist William Booth noticed that the poorest and most degraded were never in church.

Richard Collier in his history of the Salvation Army, The General Next to God, describes Booth's experience:

Broad Street congregation never forgot that electric Sunday in 1846: the gas jets, dancing on whitewashed wall, the Minister, the Rev. Samuel Dunn, seated comfortably on his red plush throne, a concord of voices swelling into the evening's fourth hymn:

The chapel's outer door suddenly shattered open, engulfing a white scarf of fog. In its wake came a shuffling shabby contingent of men and women, wilting nervously under the stony stares of mill-managers, shop-keepers and their well-dressed wives. In their rear, afire with zeal, marched "Wilful Will" Booth, cannily blocking the efforts of the more reluctant to turn back. To his dismay the Rev. Dunn saw that young Booth was actually ushering his charges, none of whose clothes would have raised five shillings in his own pawnshop, into the very best seats; pewholders' seats, facing the pulpit. . . .

This was unprecedented, for the poor, if they came to chapel, entered by another door, to be segregated on benches without backs or cushions, behind a partition which screened off the pulpit. . . .

Oblivious of the mounting atmosphere, Booth joined full-throatedly in the service—even, he later admitted, hoping this devotion to duty might rate special commendation. All too soon he learned the unpalatable truth: since Wesley's day, Methodism had become "respectable."

This experience, followed by many similar rejections by the "good people" in the church, led to William and Catherine Booth's expulsion by the Methodists and fourteen years of poverty before founding the Salvation Army.

We too must beware — we can be "Christianized" right out of our Christianity. We can become a club — an elite society that has all the right externals but has forgotten to show mercy to the lost.

We must never forget that we are sinners, and that each of us can honestly say, "I am the worst " (cf. 1 Tim. 1:15). We dare not forget that people without Christ are lost sinners, "without hope and without God in the world" "dead in [their] transgressions and sins" (Ephes. 2:12, 1). We must keep preaching the gospel to a lost world, inviting sinners to come to Christ and into his church. Following Christ requires getting our hands dirty, believing Jesus' words, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Luke 5:31, 32). He did not come to call self-righteous people like the Pharisees. Christ has given us his righteousness, but we are not intrinsically, in ourselves, righteous (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Cor. 1:30; Phil. 3:9). Christ is our salvation and our life!

Sinners without Christ have only one hope — Jesus. They must look nowhere but to him. If you have not come to Christ but are now hearing his call, will you come to him today?

—Preaching the Word