Thursday Thought -- December 20, 2012

Good Morning Friends,

“As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector's booth.  ‘Follow me,’ Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.  While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and ‘sinners’ were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.  When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the ‘sinners’ and tax collectors, they asked his disciples:  ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and “sinners”?’  On hearing this, Jesus said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’” (Mark 2:14-17)

This is an awesome story of Jesus’ willingness to accept anyone as a disciple – anyone who is willing to follow Him.  We have a little difficulty in understanding just how much of an outcast Levi was to the Jewish people around him.  Some of us know IRS employees and although we don’t like to be audited, many of those employees are fair and honest people who aren’t out to hurt us.  They are just doing their job.  That’s not the kind of tax collector Levi was.

The best comparison I can think of to the attitude we might have to someone like Levi is to think of him as a debt collector.  He’s not just a hard working employee of a legitimate debt collection agency, he’s the owner of a collection agency that has a special arrangement with those to whom the debt is owed.  Those who hold the debt tell the debt collector how much they want out of a particular debtor and then the debt collector tries to collect as much as he can and gets to keep whatever is above the amount the holder of the debt wants.  That’s a situation that is ripe for abuse and tax collectors like Levi were very quick to abuse it.  They collected taxes for Rome and whatever amount they could collect above what Rome wanted was theirs to keep.

The people of the town in which Levi lived would have hated Levi.  He was working for the enemy – the Roman government.  And on top of that, he was extorting extra money from the people for his own pocket.  He deserved punishment from God, not acceptance.

But Jesus loved Levi just like He loves you and me.  After all, we’re sinners, too.  Levi and everyone like him was welcome to become a disciple of Jesus – all they had to do was start following Him.  That’s the same invitation Jesus makes to us.  None of us are too full of sin for Jesus to accept.  He wants everyone – even us sinners.

His, by Grace,

Steve