Review

Over the past few weeks we’ve watched the Kingdom unfold as a conflict between Arkys:  the authority of Jesus versus every other form of authority.  We’ve said that true, original, primal authority – the exousia of God – is not a matter of “bossing people around” but of healing and liberation.  We’ve seen Jesus put this genuine authority to work by casting out the Rulers of darkness, curing a leper, and commanding a paralytic to rise up and walk.  In this passage He brings the same power to bear upon a very different group of invalids and slaves … and offers it to yet another.

Crossroads

13 And He went out again by the seashore; and all the multitude were coming to Him, and He was teaching them.[i]    

The scene shifts in verse 13 from the house in Capernaum (2:1) to the shores of Lake Galilee, where the first disciples were called (1:16-20).

In many ways the seashore was the perfect setting for Jesus and His message.  It was a kind of Crossroads:  a commercial hub where merchants dropped their cargoes, loaded them on beasts of burden, and set out for points north and south.  It was an agora, like the Areopagus in Athens – a busy marketplace of conflicting personalities and contrasting ideas, where the Kingdom of God might thrust itself in amongst the kingdoms of this world in a powerful, striking way. 

It was also just the right spot to set up a customs office. 

Shift of Allegiance

14 And as He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting in the tax office, and He said to Him, “Follow Me!”  And he rose and followed Him.

Levi operated such an office.  No doubt the people who worked around the seashore had all kinds of problems with one another, but everyone had a problem with Levi.  He was the kind of guy who shafted his own people for personal gain:  a Roman toady, a sell-out to the occupying Oppressor, “the very embodiment of anti-nationalism.”[ii]  The Rabbis said that repentance was especially difficult, if not impossible, for tax-gatherers, because they regularly milked their neighbors for more than they had coming to them. 

Levi, as it turns out, was a fairly common name among first-century Jews.  Most of the men who bore it were of Levitical descent, suggesting that they may have been priests, religious functionaries, or synagogue leaders. This Levi was anything but.  His name contradicted his life. 

To be fair, it’s possible that Levi didn’t choose this path for himself.  He may have been just another victim of the system trying to make a living any way he could.  He may have despised himself just as much as everyone else did.  That might explain why he later changed his name to Matthew (Matthew 9:9), a variant of Nathanael:  “Gift of God.”

The “Gift of God” dropped into his life when Jesus – whom Levi had probably seen many times by the lakeside – walked up and said, “Follow me.”  For whatever reason, he was prepared when the moment came.  Without a word he got up, abandoned his living, and went with the Master.  This may not be as odd as it seems.  As N.T. Wright observes, “It was perhaps the first time for ages that someone had treated him as a human being instead of a piece of dirt.”[iii]   

“We shouldn’t miss the deeper meaning of Jesus’ call to Levi,” Wright goes on to say.  “Levi had been working for the man who thought of himself as King of the Jews [Herod Antipas].  Now he was going to work for someone else with royal aspirations.”[iv]

In other words, Levi’s response to Jesus’ invitation, like that of Simon, Andrew, James, and John, signals a shift in allegiance.  It’s another victory in the battle of the Arkys. 

Dinner Party    

15 And it came about that He was reclining at table in his house, and many tax-gatherers and sinners were dining with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many of them, and they were following Him.

Now comes another change.  Suddenly we find ourselves at a dinner party in the house of Levi, along with Jesus, His disciples, and a big group of “tax-collectors and sinners:”  “for there were many of them, and they were following Him.”  

Why the crowd?  That’s easy.  These folks had observed Jesus’ behavior toward one of their number, and they wanted a piece of the action.  They, too, were longing to know what it felt like to be “treated as human beings instead of dirt.”  His kindness had won their hearts (Romans 2:4). 

There’s deep symbolism in this scene.  A dinner party, like a seaside market, is just the kind of place you’d expect to find Jesus and His crew.  A feast, a celebration with food and drink – this kind of fellowship is what His Kingdom is all about.  Of Moses and the elders of the people it had been said, “They beheld the God of Israel, and they ate and drank” (Exodus 24:11).  Something similar is happening here.                 

“Spiritual Distancing”

16 And when the scribes of the Pharisees saw that He was eating with the sinners and tax-gatherers, they began saying to His disciples, “Why is He eating with tax-gatherers and sinners?”

As in the time of Christ, so today there are people who don’t like this picture of the Kingdom.  They don’t want to rub elbows with “undesirables”.  The Pharisees were of that stamp.

The Pharisees practiced “Spiritual Distancing.”  Their very name derives from a Persian word meaning “separate”.  In the beginning it was a derogatory term; but like many other names of the sort – “Puritan”, for example, or “Yankee” – it was eventually adopted as a badge of honor by the group to whom it was applied. 

The Pharisees prized moral and spiritual purity.  “Touch no unclean thing” (Isaiah 52:11) was the foundation stone of their code.  That’s why they demanded that the disciples give an account of their Master’s actions:  “Why does He eat with tax-gatherers?” they wanted  to know.  “Why does He make Himself a ‘companion of sinners?’” (1 Enoch 97:4).

“Sinners” (hamartoloi) was a kind of technical term among religious professionals of the day.  It could refer to flagrant immoralists, like thieves and prostitutes and murderers.  But more frequently it was applied to the “common folk” (Hebrew ‘am ha’aretz) who failed to live up to the Pharisees’ rigorous standards of ritual purity:  moral “lepers” who might give you the spiritual “cooties” if you got too close to them.  From this point of view, a “sinner” was somebody who simply wasn’t “good enough.”                           

Sick or Well?

17 And hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not those are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” 

Jesus hears what the religious professionals are saying and gives them a direct reply.  As was often the case in His interactions with such people, His answer is laced with irony and sarcasm.  “I’m a doctor,” He says coolly.  “I’m here to heal the infected.  If you’ve tested negative, you don’t need my services.  You can go about your business.”   

Incredibly, some very astute Bible scholars don’t seem to get the joke.  “Is He excluding scribes and Pharisees?” wonders commentator Eckhard Schnabel.  “That hardly seems plausible.”  Schnabel concludes that Jesus’ main concern is “not exclusion but priority.”[v]

But is that really what He’s trying to say here?  I don’t think so.  On the contrary, Christ’s “main concern” in this passage, as in the “Parable of The Pharisee and the Publican” (Luke 18:9-14), is to stick a thumb in the ribs of “those who trust in themselves that they are righteous and view others with contempt.”  His point is that everyone is infected (Romans 3:10).  Everyone needs the doctor.  Unfortunately, only those honest enough to admit their infirmity are likely to seek a  cure.           

Final Thoughts:  Called to Jesus

Interestingly enough, the deeper meaning of this passage is powerfully illuminated by what might otherwise appear an abstruse question of textual criticism.  In some of our Bibles – most notably the original King James Version – the concluding sentence reads, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” 

This rendering is founded upon the Textus Receptus, the edition of Greek texts established by Erasmus of Rotterdam in the 16th century and used as the basis for most Protestant translations up until the 19th century.  But older, more reliable manuscripts don’t include the words “to repentance.”  They simply read, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”  In a sense, this is the key to the whole story.

“Christ,” says Alfred Edersheim, “came not to call the righteous, but sinners – not ‘to repentance,’ as our common text erroneously puts it, but to Himself, to the Kingdom; and this is the beginning of repentance.”[vi]

Why is this so important?  Because Jesus, in contrast to the scribes and Pharisees and almost every religious system in the world, befriends sinners while they are still sinners (Romans 5:8).  He makes a special point of extending Himself to people who normally wouldn’t be considered “good enough” for Him.

As Edersheim explains, “All other systems know of no welcome to the sinner till, by some means … he ceases to be a sinner and becomes a penitent.  They would first make him a penitent and then bid him welcome to God; Christ first welcomes him to God and so makes him a penitent.”[vii]   

“Jesus!  What a friend for sinners!”  And what a model for those of us who aspire to represent Him in the world!  His first priority is not to call people to “clean up their act.”  Instead, He draws them to Himself.  And out of the context of that friendship He becomes their Savior.        

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[i] This week’s Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible.   

[ii] Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Vol. I, Book III, Ch. XVII, p. 515.

[iii] Wright, Mark for Everyone, p. 20.

[iv] Ibid., pp. 20-21.

[v] Eckhard Schabel, The Tyndale Commentary on Mark, p. 73.

[vi] Edersheim, Vol. I, Book III, Ch. XVII, p. 507.

[vii] Ibid.