Mark 2:13-17, Luke 5:27-32
I’m just a minor character in the Bible, but Jesus didn’t consider me minor. Those five verses in Mark and six verses in Luke are all there is to my story in this gospel. Just two paragraphs, one about me following Jesus (that’s only two sentences), and the other about the party we had afterwards. Luke told that much of my story too, with one more verse.
But, of course, you know that there is more to the story than just that. Let me add some details, flesh it out for you.
Like everything else then, it starts with Jesus. That day when he passed by my tax booth, that was not the first time I had seen him. I had gone with the crowds several times, following him around town when he didn’t have such a large following and out into the fields when he did. I had listened to him teach, and I had seen him heal folks. But I had never spoken directly to him, and I didn’t know he had even noticed me.
He’s quite a person. Unusual, but not odd. Intelligent, but not scholarly. Wise, but not beyond us. He spoke at our level, using illustrations we could understand. And what he taught reached out to me. It made sense. It touched me in a way I had never been touched before.
But I had a job to do, a very practical job to do. And it didn’t leave room for the kind of neighborly care which he preached. People who knew me, well, let’s just say I didn’t have many friends. Other tax collectors, of course, because we didn’t have much choice. Nobody else wanted anything to do with us.
Well, then one day when I had stayed at my tax booth, he came by. He stopped, looked at me, smiled, and motioned to me. “Follow me.”
I didn’t know he had even seen me before. I was just one of the crowd, a single face among many. But apparently he had. He motioned again. “Come on, let ‘s go.”
Now he had a small group, five or six, who hung around him closer than the crowds. They were his disciples, folks who had left everything behind and went where he went, slept where he slept, ate what he ate. And I understood that he wanted me to join that small group.
These five or six folks with him, they weren’t exactly a high-class bunch. Some of them smelled of fish. None of them wore the kind of fine clothes that I usually wore. None of them had ever . . . or would ever . . . make the kind of money that I made. They wouldn’t have made as much in a year as I made in a month, maybe even in a week.
But those smelly, ragged fishermen, when they saw what Jesus was doing, glared at me. And I knew what they were thinking. They didn’t want me as part of their group. “Oh, Jesus, NO! Not a tax collector!” They didn’t say the words out loud, but I could see them in their faces.
They were standing behind him, so I don’t know whether or not he knew what was happening back there, but he smiled again at me, and this time reached out his hand. So what could I do?
I slipped out of the tax booth. I didn’t even hang up the “Closed for business” sign. I just closed up, walked away and followed him.
And a look of resignation crossed the faces behind him, as it would later, each time he called someone who did not fit their standards.
Now one thing I do know how to do, besides collecting taxes, of course, is how to throw a party! So I sent out word to my fellow tax collectors and some other folk who would come to my house. Now you know that anyone who would come to my house would not be what the religious leaders would consider to be respectful.
And, of course, they didn’t. Some scribes showed up … not to come in, of course, but they “just happened” to be walking by. They stood outside, in front of my house, and asked each other, in that kind of stage whisper that carries across the street, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
The key word here is “eat.” Now in your day, eating is important, but it’s not the same as in my time. In my day, Republicans didn’t eat with Democrats, liberals wouldn’t be caught dead at the same table as conservatives. Straight people wouldn’t even look at gay people, let alone share a table with them. Course, we didn’t have Republicans or Democrats, but we had Sadducees and Pharisees, and for sure we had liberals and conservatives, although we didn’t use those labels.
Anyway, the people you ate with identified you. You ate with the people of your class, of your religious persuasion, of your political affiliation. You didn’t eat with someone below you, someone who didn’t believe the same as you, who didn’t have the same connections. And here’s Jesus, a peasant, to be sure, but a craftsman, meaning that he did have SOME social standing, and he’s eating, he’s sharing the table, with folks who have a NEGATIVE social standing, folks who are considered traitors to their people.
Well, Jesus heard what those people outside on the street were saying, and he went out and spoke to them in that subtly sarcastic tone he sometimes used. “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Like, you folks think you are so righteous, there’s no sense in me trying to call you, because you can’t listen. These people do.
But did you notice the verb he used – “I have come to CALL,” to call to follow me. Not that I have come to rescue them from their depravity or to make them righteous. I have come to CALL them, to call them to me, to work with me.
Now those fishermen and their friends, they had been being kind of stand-off-ish, not really joining in the party, but when Jesus came back in, he pulled them into the group of tax collectors. And it wasn’t long before we were all eating and drinking together, sharing our stories and . . . well, we didn’t have pictures in those days, but the first-century equivalent of sharing pictures of our families.
See, that’s what Jesus did. He brought us all together, forming a bond between all kinds of people, all kinds of people who thought they couldn’t get along with each other. He made us into one family, the family of God.
Now this doesn’t mean we didn’t argue and have serious disagreements, because, like all families, we did. I don’t want you to think that it was always smooth sailing, because it wasn’t. But we still knew that, because we were following Jesus, we were family, that we belonged together.
So, no, we didn’t always get along. But it’s not a new battle for Jesus’ followers. It’s been going on since the middle of the first century, actually, since that first Sunday morning. You remember that Simon Peter had denied Jesus three times? Well, when Jesus arose, he made sure that the angel included Peter in the invitation to Galilee. Peter was still part of the family, even though he didn’t think he was. And to be honest, some of us didn’t want him back, either.
And the Thomas thing. When Thomas didn’t believe the others, when we were angry at him for doubting, Jesus brought him back into the fold, too.
And when Peter baptized the Roman centurion and all his household? The Jerusalem church really called him on the carpet for that one.
And when Paul started baptizing Gentiles? Wow! What a ruckus that caused! You can’t even imagine how heated that battle became. And every time they thought they had it settled, it erupted again somewhere else.
When they started having councils, they finished the council by throwing out everyone who disagreed with the majority decision. See, the church has always seen itself as all in agreement, as a uniform body, but it never has been.
It’s that same battle that human followers of Jesus have been fighting since the very beginning. Who’s in, who’s out? Who’s worthy? Who’s not? Well, I think we all know the answer to that last question. None of us are worthy, but that didn’t … doesn’t stop Jesus from calling whoever he wants. Jesus calls, but the church insists on limiting those who can respond to the call. In your time, it has been people of color, women, divorced people, the ones who don’t form traditional families.
And Jesus just keeps calling.
General questions:
1) How does this story follow its Scripture?
2) How does this story expand its Scripture for you?
3) What is the message of this story?
4) How does the message apply to us today?
Specific questions:
5) Why would Jesus call a tax collector?
6) Why would the scribes “just happen” to be in the neighborhood?
7) Who is not welcome in your church? Your denomination?
8) What would be the consequences of accepting such people?
