Love Like Christ
Luke 5:27-32
In the 18th 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. In the days
before microphones and speakers he preached 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 coaldarkened faces. Wesley didn’t want to be divisive, but because
there was no room in the established church for the common
people, he reluctantly founded the Methodist-Episcopal Church so
that these common people would have a place to worship.
Tragically, a mere 100 years later Methodist William Booth
noticed that the poorest and most degraded were never in church.
One day, Broad Street congregation never forgot that electric
Sunday in 1846: the gas lamps 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:
Foul I to the fountain fly; wash me, Savior, or I die.
The chapel’s outer door suddenly opened and in 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, segregated on benches without backs or
cushions, behind a partition which screened off the pulpit.
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Oblivious of the mounting atmosphere, Booth joined fullthroatedly in the service—even, he later admitted, hoping this
devotion to duty might rate special commendation. All too soon he
learned the unfortunate 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 14 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.
In Luke 5, we find Jesus breaking down barriers that had been
carefully constructed over the centuries in order to maintain the
purity of the people of God. Our text for today is the one of several
sections in this chapter alone in which Jesus breaks down the walls
that divide people. First, he calls Peter, Andrew, James, and John,
four commoners, fishermen, rough and tough, course, uneducated
seamen as his first disciples.
Then, and I don’t want you to lose the significance of this, Jesus
TOUCHES a leper and heals him. It’s important to understand
what happens there. Imagine someone living in the 1st Century,
with 1st Century medical knowledge, imagine someone from the 1st
Century living with a deadly AND highly infectious disease.
Everyone in the community knows he has it. His body is full of it.
For years he has had to live outside of the town. His family leaves
food out for him but stays well away when he comes to get it. If he
must come into town, he must cover himself, cover his face, and
yell “unclean, unclean” over and over again so that no one comes
near him. Even touching the hem of his garment can render you
ritually unclean, and will likely give you his disease as well. He’s
gone for years without ANY human contact. No tender caresses.
No pats on the back. No hugs. Nothing. No contact, period.
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Psychologists tell us that the need for human touch is one of the
most significant needs we have, and this leper had been deprived
of that for years. No touch at all. Think about the role of touch in
your life. Think about the human contact you and I experience
every day. Hugs, handshakes, embraces, a kiss, a light touch on the
arm. Much of human communication takes place in gestures like
that. For the first time in years, maybe decades, for the first time
since he had been declared unclean, this man experiences human
contact. Jesus reaches out and touches him, and he is healed. Jesus
could have healed him without touching him. But he didn’t. He
knew what the man needed. He needed healing. But he needed
more than that. He needed restoration. He needed acceptance. He
needed human contact. And Jesus reached out and touched him.
Then Jesus walks by the booth of a tax collector named Levi.
Believe it or not, tax collectors were often lumped in with lepers
and others considered unclean. Tax collectors have never been
liked. No one likes paying taxes. Never have, probably never will.
But in 1st Century Palestine, the hatred of tax collectors went far
beyond our everyday dislike of taxes. Tax collectors were lumped
together with robbers, evildoers, and adulterers (Luke 18:11), with
prostitutes (Matthew 21:32), and with the unbelieving gentiles
(Matthew 18:17). In short, they were considered as being beyond
the grasp of God’s grace, unreachable, hopeless cases destined for
hell. If a tax collector entered a house, that house was considered
unclean.
Tax collectors were a part of a system rife with corruption. The
Roman Senate set the amount of tax to be collected in each region
or territory, and then sold the rights to collect that tax to the highest
bidder. The tax collector then paid that amount up front and was
free to collect taxes from the people as he saw fit. It was a system
that allowed tax collectors to extort excessive sums of money from
the people. The Romans expected their tax collectors to collect
enough money to live on as well, but without the benefits of
modern day, lightning-fast communication, no one really knew
how much was supposed to be collected. Most tax collectors took
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exorbitant amounts from their own people and lived lavishly, and
no one could stop them. So corrupt were these people that one
Roman writer expressed amazement when he happened upon a
tribute to an honest tax collector.
But even more than that, if you were a 1st Century Jew, a great deal
of your identity came from owning a piece of the Promised Land.
Many tax collectors had to sell off all or a portion of their land in
order to pay the Romans up front. In the eyes of the Jews, they had
betrayed their people and were collaborating with the Roman
people, had despised the temple, and rejected their God. In fact, tax
collectors were banished from the temple and therefore, access to
God. They were social and religious traitors.
If Jesus were playing by the rules, he would have avoided people
like Levi at all costs. No one would have batted an eye if he had
crossed to the other side of the street to avoid coming to close. But
that isn’t what Jesus did. Luke tells us that “he went out and SAW
a tax collector named Levi.” The English word “saw” there doesn’t
really capture what Jesus did when he caught sight of Levi. He
didn’t just catch sight of Levi in passing. The sense of the word
translated here as “saw” is of “careful and deliberate vision which
interprets its object.” Jesus isn’t just looking at Levi or noticing
him. He’s sizing Levi up with a gaze that makes the person
receiving it wonder, “What does this guy want with me?” That in
itself is more attention than Levi, having resigned himself to a life
of being despised, was used to receiving. For not only was Levi a
despised person, he was sitting at his tax collection booth. He was
engaged in the very activity for which he was despised. And Jesus
stops and takes a good hard look.
And then Jesus says to Levi, “Follow me.” It was probably bad
enough that Jesus, who at this time was known for being a popular,
up-and-coming, powerful rabbi who taught with authority and
performed miracles other couldn’t perform, had invited four
uneducated, uncouth fishermen to join his inner circle of followers.
But to invite a tax collector to do the same thing? That probably
shocked even the fishermen, Peter, James, and John, not to
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mention the people watching him. The Pharisees would have been
furious.
In his book The Gospel According to Jesus, Chris Seay
mentions a profound lesson he learned from his father about
loving the "bad people":
Growing up, we didn't have a lot of money, so we used to get
outfield deck seats (aka "the cheap seats") to see the baseball
games at the [Houston] Astrodome. Most of the people buying
the cheap seats did so to save more money for beer. After the
first few innings, they were drunk, and by the time the
seventh-inning stretch rolled around, there would be beer
mixed with peanut shells on the floor, spilled beer down your
back, and a brawl two rows over and back to the left. It was
ugly out there. As a kid, I learned from a lot people that we
were sitting with the "bad people."
There was one consistent drunk fan named Batty Bob. He was
a self-proclaimed Houston Astros mascot. He'd come to all the
games wearing a rainbow wig, and he'd lead slurred cheers in
the stands. I remember one time my dad went out to sit and
talk with Batty Bob. He spent the whole game with Bob, then
walked him out to the parking lot to bring him home with us. I
was more than confused, because this guy was one of the "bad
people."
When we got home, my dad came to me and explained how God
loved Batty Bob. I remember thinking, Really? Batty Bob? And
he stayed with us for a few days to get back on his feet. This is
when I started to realize that God did not despise these people;
he dearly loved them.
Now, look at what happens next. Jesus ups the ante. Not only
does he stop and size Levi up. And then, having done that,
which most would have thought would have led a rabbi as
savvy and discerning as Jesus was supposed to be to snort in
derision and move one, instead invite this Levi to join his circle
of closest followers. Now Jesus enjoys a meal with Levi and his
friends and acquaintances. And who would have dared be a
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friend to Levi? Other tax collectors and other unsavory,
hopeless, rejected souls. And this wasn’t just any old meal,
although as we’re going to see in a minute, that in itself would
have been enough to confuse and probably anger most religious
leaders. Luke tells us this was a “great feast.” It was a big
party. The kind of party that drew a lot of attention.
Eating any meal with someone like Levi and his friends was in
itself a significant act. Most of us could stomach sharing a meal
with someone we found unsavory if we had to, but things were
different in 1st Century Palestine. In the Mediterranean region
in the 1st Century, mealtimes were more than just times to
receive nourishment. Being welcomed at a table to eat food was
a symbol of friendship, of intimacy, of unity. If the people
sharing the meal had been estranged, if that relationship had
previously been severed, this meal was an invitation that
paved the way for reconciliation. Because of that, most people
invited only their social, economic, and religious equals to
share a meal.
Remember that people like Levi had been excommunicated,
banished from the temple? That they were viewed as hopeless,
sinful unreformables? That they were viewed as the enemies of
God? Jesus’ invitation to Levi to “follow me” was an invitation
to reconciliation and Levi’s leaving everything behind and
beginning to follow him was Levi’s acceptance of that
invitation. The meal together with all of Levi’s friends was
evidence of that offer of reconciliation and a very symbolic
action on Christ’s part that those who had formerly been
shunned were now being openly accepted in the Kingdom of
God he had come to establish. And so Jesus laughed and
shared stories with Levi and the notorious sinners Levi hung
out with. Jesus embraced these untouchables as friends.
In his book A Meal with Jesus, Tim Chester shares the
following stories about how various church communities in
England are sharing Jesus through shared meals:
To celebrate the Kurdish New Year … we provided kebabs and
live music. Over one hundred Kurds from across the city
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converged on the party. Our main worry was whether the floor
would hold. Standing in the basement, we could see that the
Kurdish men dancing in sync above was causing the floor to
flex by at least an inch. The floor held, and the evening ended
with my friend Samuel telling everyone we'd put this party on
to express God's love for Kurds.
Every month one of our missional communities hosts a curry
night for Pakistani men. A dozen or so come to enjoy
homemade curry and conversation. That's it …. Except that
relationships are growing and gospel opportunities are
increasing. More recently they've started a similar venue for
Pakistani women.
In a community hall underneath [a soccer stadium], more than
a hundred people of all nationalities gathered. Our church had
paid a Pakistani friend to make biryani curry, and church
members provided desserts. At a couple of points in the meal
we told stories of meals—the story of the woman who washed
the feet of Jesus in Luke 7 and the story of the prodigal son
in Luke 15.
Chester concludes: These are all forms of mission Jesus would
recognize. They are the kinds of events he might have attended
…. But they are also ways of doing mission that you could do
…. When you combine a passion for Jesus with shared meals,
you create potent gospel opportunities. Who will you be sharing
a meal with today?
Now look at what the Pharisees do. They go to his disciples, at
this point that would have been Peter, Andrew, James, and
John, who were likely as confused, perhaps even as angry, as
the Pharisees. Remember, tax collectors were lumped in with
murderers, prostitutes, and other social outcasts. They were
the bottom of the barrel. Social scum. These fishermen
probably didn’t want to be disciples with a tax collector any
more than the Pharisees wanted to see Jesus was eating with a
bunch of tax collectors and other losers. They go to Jesus’
disciples and angrily ask “Why do you eat and drink with tax
collectors and sinners?” They neither understood nor liked it.
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I would guess that at this early point in his ministry, Jesus’
other disciples couldn’t answer the question all that well
themselves. This was new to them too. So Jesus answers
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who
are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to
repentance.”
Nowhere can Jesus be accused of tolerating sin. He knew very
well how corrupt and evil the Roman tax collection system was.
He knew exactly what Levi and his friends were doing. The call
of Christ wasn’t a call to cheap grace. It wasn’t a call to join
Jesus with no change in life. Look at Levi’s response. “Leaving
everything, he rose and followed him.” First, Levi left everything.
He shut down his enterprise. Fishermen might have been rough
and rough around the edges, but there was nothing inherently
sinful about their work. Peter, James, and John could always go
back to being fishermen if this following Jesus thing didn’t work
out. But not Levi. He couldn’t go back to being a tax collector.
Talk about a step of faith from the kind of person not known for
such a thing. He shut down his unethical practice, left it behind, to
follow Jesus.
The word translated as “followed him” is in a verb tense that
indicates that Levi began to follow Christ. The participle here
is in a tense that points to a decisive break with his past. And
the verb is in a tense that indicates a continuous pattern of life.
The point here is that Levi re-orients his life toward Christ and
begins an adventure of following Jesus. And that is something
he would never turn back from, for Levi is also known by
another name, the Apostle Matthew, one of the Gospel writers.
To respond to the call of Christ to “follow me” is to experience
an embracing, welcoming acceptance and restoration unlike
any we have received before. And it requires a repentance and
change of direction unlike any we have made before. Levi isn’t
making “New Years’ resolutions” hoping to do better this year
than last. He’s making a decisive break with his past. The
orientation of his life has changed, from being oriented toward
dishonest gain and the accumulation of wealth to an
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orientation toward Christ and consistent repentance to the
point where the best description of their actions is that of
“following Jesus.”
Frederica Mathewes-Green says this about repentance: “The
first time Jesus appears, in the first Gospel, the first
instruction he gives is "Repent." From then on, it's his most
consistent message. In all times and every situation, his advice
is to repent. Not just the scribes and Pharisees, not just the
powerful—he tells even the poor and oppressed that repentance
is the key to eternal life.”
In Christ’s calling of Levi and his party with Levi’s friends is a
call to the Pharisees, the religious establishment, to repent as
well. In Matthew’s telling of this, his own story, he adds this
phrase to Jesus’ response “Go and learn what this means, I
desire mercy, and not sacrifice” (Mat. 9:13). Here, Jesus is
quoting from the Old Testament prophet Hosea (6:6). It never
occurred to the religious establishment that their distancing of
themselves from sinners and those in need of healing had in
fact distanced them, the religious leaders, from God. They had
the Scriptures, but had failed to really read or understand
them. Hosea condemns the religious Israelites for attending to
their religious ceremonies, to putting on a religious show,
without caring for others. According to one commentator,
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.”
At Christ Church, we’re committed to loving like Christ. We’re
committed to repenting of our elitism and tendency toward
separatism. We’re going to really love and get to know those
Christ loves. We’re going to pray, asking God to help us to see
our city, our co-workers, our friends AND our enemies with his
eyes, to love them with his heart. So what does that look like?
Let's suppose that on your way to work each morning, you
usually stop at a Starbucks. You tend to get to the store at the
same time each morning, and you usually see a young girl who
gets there about the same time you do. On many mornings you
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find yourselves standing next to each other in line. In fact, you
both order the same thing—double espresso with skim milk.
She seems to be into the gothic culture—black hair, black
clothes, knee-high jackboots, black fingernails, black lipstick,
piercings in the nose, lips, ears, and eyebrows, and scattered
tattoos. She usually has a backpack that she has to take off to
get her money, and sometimes it seems hard for her to hold the
backpack, get the money, and pay for the coffee all at the same
time.
She doesn't make too much eye contact with others. You
wonder whether you should strike up a conversation with her—
maybe offer to hold her backpack while she pays. You're not
sure what to do with the whole gothic bit, and you don't know
whether she'd give you a dark look and not say anything.
Should you try to be friendly? Maybe find out what brings you
both to the same Starbucks each morning? See if she ever tries
any of the other specialty coffees? Move toward greeting her
each morning? Learn about other parts of her life? Yes! Offer to
hold her backpack while she pays. A couple of days later, tell
her your name and ask for hers. If she misses a few days, tell
her you hope she wasn't sick the next time you see her.
Why move into her world? Because with the eyes of a doctor,
you see a hurt that God can heal. You see an anger and
alienation. Maybe it's because of sexual abuse from a
stepfather, a brother, or an old boyfriend. But you see the
heaviness, the sadness. With the eyes of a doctor, you see a
hurt that God can heal.
There's a man at work that everybody shakes their head at.
He's been divorced a couple of times, and both of his ex-wives
are suing him for past child support. He's a deadbeat dad—way
behind on his support, sending them just a little bit, every so
often. He's been living with another woman and her small
child, but a couple of weeks ago, he slapped her around pretty
hard. She called the cops, he spent a couple nights in jail, and
she kicked him out and now has a restraining order against
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him. He's currently living in one of the cheap motels that rents
by the month.
Every day at lunch, he goes out by himself to get a hamburger
or a burrito, always coming back with mustard or chili on his
shirt. Nobody talks very much to him, because he's too quick to
complain about how everybody's taking advantage of him,
everybody's pushing his buttons, everybody's squeezing him
dry. Who wants to listen to that?
You've often wondered about being nice and offering to go to
lunch with him. You like the same fast food he does—Burger
King and Taco Bell and Subway. And you know Subway has a
sale going on—three foot-long sandwiches for $10. You couldn't
possibly eat that much, but it seems like a shame not to take
advantage of such a bargain.
Should you invite him along one day? Yes! Move into his world.
Go to lunch with him. When you get to Subway and you both
sit down with your sandwiches and chips and drinks, ask him if
he's watched any of the baseball playoffs. Who's he rooting for
in the World Series? Mention that it's been just about the worst
umpiring you've ever seen.
Why move into his world? Because with the eyes of a doctor,
you see a hurt that God can heal. You see a bitterness at life,
failing at relationships, blaming others instead of knowing how
to change himself. You sense his fear of the future—no money,
a criminal record on the books—and his desperation over being
all alone in the world. With the eyes of a doctor, you see a hurt
that God can heal.
Your company has a co-ed softball team that competes in the
city league, and they're looking for a couple of extra players.
You like softball. You like the feel of connecting on a pitch,
running down a fly ball, making a clothesline throw on one hop
to home plate to nail a runner trying to score. The first game is
next Tuesday, and they're pushing you to join them.
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But you're not sure. You like softball, but you don't know about
playing with the people in the office. You went to a company
picnic a couple of months ago, where there was a pickup
softball game, and some of the guys were drinking a lot of beer,
getting pretty raunchy in their comments about some of the
women on the other team. Some of the wives of your coworkers
were loud-mouthed, and they flirted with other husbands. The
parents yelled mean things at their children but did nothing to
control them. And in the parking lot, one of the married men
from the office who had come to the picnic by himself was
behind his pickup truck going at it pretty heavy with one of the
single moms in the office. Do you want to deal with all that
every week? Should you join the team? Yes! By all means!
Move into their world. Get to the park, shag those balls, and
run those bases. Bring some Cokes to put in with their beers.
When one of the women on the other team lines it into a gap
between center and left for a stand-up double, instead of
questioning her sexual preference, shout out, "Great hit! Did
you play in college?" Buy a cheap glove for the single mom's
kid, ask if he wants to be batboy, have him sit beside you on
the bench, and teach him the strategies of the game.
Why move into their world? Because with the eyes of a doctor,
you see their hurts that God can heal. You see that the
machismo and the raunchiness merely disguise insecurity and
failure. You see marriages where there's no love and children
that don't have the security of boundaries. You see the single
mom's loneliness and vulnerability that puts her at risk of
being deeply hurt. With the eyes of a doctor, you see the hurts
that God can heal.
In life we can have the eyes of a judge or we can have the eyes
of a doctor. The eyes of a judge see a gothic girl, a deadbeat
dad, and a foul-mouthed team, leave us thinking, Why have
anything to do with them? The eyes of a doctor see the hurts
that God can heal.
Let me leave you with this question: “Who will you be dining
with today?”
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