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Mark 2:13 - 22
Not Quite . . . Acceptable

Levi, also known as Matthew, had been a tax collector.  He was also one of Jesus' disciples.  If you think about it, that's amazing, because tax collectors were thought of as traitors to their people.  To most Israelites it seemed like a repugnant thing to do to collect money for the hated Gentile Roman government.  What's amazing is that he was acceptable among Jesus' disciples, all of whom were Jews.

Matthew could only have become acceptable among Jesus' disciples because the Rabbi Himself had chosen him and because the disciples were in awe of their Rabbi. Since He could do no wrong, He must somehow have been right in adding Levi to their number.

But, left to themselves, they wouldn't have chosen him. Since tax gatherers were well known for cheating people out of every drachma they could get, the only people who would freely associate with them were other extortionists, tax collectors, and loan sharks! So there's not much question about it - if you went to the tax man's house, you were sure to meet some shady characters!

We don't know what Levi knew about Jesus before this time. It seems likely that he had heard Jesus teach and had seen some of the miracles of His healing ministry. And he had evidently been very, very impressed, because, just as Jesus apparently expected, Levi was actually wondering whether even a man like himself could perhaps follow Jesus as a disciple! It's likely that upon observing the sincerity, the truth, and the goodness of Jesus, he become sick of his own dishonest tax collecting and was desiring to learn more about this wonderful Rabbi Who was such an example of truth and love.

So - already deeply appreciating Jesus, trusting Him as a Person, and finding Him believable - he was very willing when Jesus called him to entirely leave everything related to his former life and to move out into a new and completely unknown life with Jesus! What an impression Jesus must have made upon him!  I think we have to conclude that it's possible for even the worst sinners in our world to come to know and love Jesus Christ.  What a change is made by a little acquaintance and a work of the Spirit in the heart.

Actually, we all need to come to the Lord with an attitude similar to that of Levi. We all need to have become sick and tired of our old lives. We all need to see Jesus as wonderfully good and holy. And we all need to give up our old ways in favor of following this wonderful new Master as Savior and Lord. How about you? Do you deeply need His goodness in your life?

The story of Levi's calling together with the similar one about Zaccheus reveal to us something very important about Jesus: He wasn't like many religious people - in that age or in any age - who shun association with those whom the world shuns. Instead, He sought them out, and they sought Him out, too, and they loved, heard, and followed Him.

How about us? Can we, without a twinge of disgust, or even of conscience, converse in a sincerely friendly way with the shunned of this world? Would we be willing to go to their homes, eat with them, meet their families, help them in some practical way, give them our precious time? Do we try to understand their joys and sorrows, and will we even show love to their unruly children?

The real question, I think, is whether we're merely "religious" or whether we're truly Christian. To be Christian means to follow Christ, to be His disciples, to learn from Him and to want to be like Him. It's to have a real and living relationship with a real and living Lord. It may involve eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners because we have Christ's love for them in our hearts. Looking ahead at the rest of the second chapter of Mark, we can see that it may at times also involve breaking religious traditions in favor of expressing real joy and love to our Lord.

Thankfully, Jesus identifies with us  - even in our sin of lovelessness toward the "tax collectors and sinners" of this world! Many of us are rather like self-righteous scribes and Pharisees, but, in His love, He takes even that guilt upon Himself. Shouldn't we, in return, take it upon ourselves to be as he was? Shouldn't we at least pray that He would move us by His Spirit to have a practical, caring love - toward all others, whether they are acceptable or unacceptable? Could we pray to love them even when our fellow church members think ill of us for it?

If we can't do that, if we aren't willing to assume Jesus' attitude, we run a great risk, a risk that Jesus makes extremely clear in His teaching here. He says, "The well don't need a doctor - the sick do. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." The scribes and Pharisees probably thought of themselves as falling only within the "well" and "righteous" categories - but in what category does God place them, and in what category does He place us?

We need to see ourselves as God sees us. In fact, if we want to be "called" by our Lord Jesus Christ, if we want to be made truly "well," if we want to live forever in His Kingdom and under His Lordship, then we're going to have to categorize ourselves as "sick" and as "sinners!" We can't be made well if we won't admit we're sick.

So here were Jesus and His disciples "pigging out" at Levi's house! We need to keep in mind that tax collectors, though they weren't socially acceptable, were generally quite successful in accumulating money, so when they dined, they feasted! So Jesus' disciples were enjoying themselves! Jesus was also displaying some of His wisdom with His disciples - these Jews were learning how to enjoy the company of outcasts!

Normally, that wouldn't have been a problem, but some of the people watching Jesus weren't sure good religious leaders should act that way! They had been around, and they knew that other rabbis didn't feast like this. In fact - not only didn't they feast, but they made their regular fasting an important ritual.  So why did this Rabbi Jesus, Who performed such wonderful works - a Rabbi Who even claimed to be the messiah - act so differently?

Jesus made His answer vivid and memorable with three metaphors. By the time His hearers had thought through the meaning of these metaphors, they would never forget the meaning! Our Rabbi teaches well!

So what was His answer?  Why didn't Jesus and His disciples fast? Why did they feast instead?  Our Lord says that they're like the bridegroom's attendants before a wedding. The attendants are called "sons of the bridal chamber," and they're the bridegroom's friends - the people who have charge of all the wedding arrangements. They can't fast during the time of preparation - it's a happy time, a time of rejoicing, and a time of eating and drinking to express their approval and joy. Fasting, in contrast, is a time of self humiliation and self denial.

It's the same way with Jesus and His disciples. Jesus is the Messiah, long awaited and now actually present. He's come from the very throne of God! His presence with the disciples has to be a time of rejoicing, a time of expectancy for the future, a time much like that of the preparation for a wedding. It's a time for feasting, not for fasting.

But our Lord goes on to say, "But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day." He's still talking about our age! Though we have a great expectation, and though we have good reason to celebrate our hope, yet our Lord hasn't yet returned. So, while we await the great celebration at His return, we would do well to prepare ourselves for that return by means of prayer and even of fasting, by means of concentration and focus on our Lord and forgetfulness of self. After all, we need to be sure we're part of the great wedding reception that's coming. In our present age, then, we can and should both celebrate on the one hand and fast and pray on the other. Then, when our great hope is realized and our Lord returns, there will be no fasting - only joy in the realization of eternity with Him!

Next, our Lord turns the focus back upon His questioners and upon their reason for asking the questions.  He says the disciples of John and the Pharisees are like an old garment, one upon which a wise tailor would not sew a patch of new, unshrunk cloth (the Gospel). But these people thought they'd be quite comfortable if they could just add some of His teaching to what they were already used to.  Doing that with cloth just results in a worse tear. Doing what they wanted to do would only have made their situation worse than it already was. They needed to throw away the old way of thinking - the Judaistic traditions of their day. He wants them to realize that they wouldn't have asked this question if they weren't still too much caught up in that Judaism.

Finally, our Lord says His questioners needed the "new wine" all right, but they needed to avoid pouring it into the "old wineskins" of their traditions. Otherwise, the "new wine" would be wasted upon them, because they wouldn't long be able to contain it. That was their problem: they couldn't understand the non-traditional behavior of Jesus' disciples because they couldn't "contain" the "wine" that had changed the disciple's lives. They needed to become "new wineskins," and to be filled with the new wine of the Gospel.

Now the question is this: do God's people today labor under anything like the Judaism of the disciple's day? Jesus wasn't concerned only about the Jewish ritual and tradition of fasting - He was concerned about hearts. In the incident before us, then, He's teaching His listeners to throw away all their religiosity - and to substitute for it heartfelt obedience and a living, vital relationship to Himself. That's what we need as well.

We need to love sinners, and we need to see ourselves as sinners.  O Jesus  change our hearts and make them humble and pure!

We should be grateful that God our Father sees us in Christ,  thanks Al.