You have to ask, at the very start, what made someone like Levi the tax collector (who gained the nickname Matthew meaning “Gift of God”) do what he did. To walk away from a prosperous business as an independent agent collecting taxes for the Romans.
He certainly wasn’t a loner: he had a fairly wide circle of friends who were ready – at moment's notice – to come and feast at his house. Maybe not the type of people you would want at a the Sunday school tea-party. A bit loud, especially after they had had a few drinks; language could be a bit off. But they are having a great time. In fact, Levi had a pretty good life. He was well off. The Romans would look after him if – or when – he got any trouble from his fellow-Jews.
He would probably not be one naturally to agree with Jesus. He was a hard-headed, pragmatic businessman who didn’t mind cheating people to line his own pockets . Jesus was spiritual, an idealist, who never pulled his punches. He believed in taking the Bible seriously. He believed in the life everlasting. He believed in the reality of the spiritual world: in miracles, in deliverance. He believed in high standards.
But Levi had probably heard what Jesus was doing. The thing immediately before the calling of Levi (in Matthew Mark and Luke) is the healing of the man who was lowered through the roof. Matthew probably knew something of what had happened. Jesus had healed the guy. Jesus had forgiven him. Jesus had behaved like a bit of a rebel, an outsider, risking everything. Power to heal. Authority to forgive. Courage to be different. Jesus had some qualities that piqued Levi’s curiosity. So when Jesus said “Follow me” Levi was up for it. “I’m in.”
And “I’m in” meant “I’m ready to change!” The words Luke records in verse 28 are clear and explicit. Levi left everything, stood up, and began following Jesus. There was going to be some sort of handover of the job he had been doing. That was taken care of immediately. That done, he stood up, in a decisive and meaningful action. Billy Graham’s famous catch-phrase when he made an appeal at the end of his talk, was “I want you to get right up out of your seat.” We need that – whether it’s standing up, going to the front, getting baptised, receiving the bread and wine of communion – we need decisive moments when we articulate decisions by doing something. Levi stood up and followed Jesus. Followed isn’t a one-off action, as though he followed Jesus down the street. It is an “imperfect” verb. That is to say, it describes an incomplete action. He stood up and began to follow Jesus. He began, as he stood up from his desk, a journey of following Jesus, a journey of discipleship.
The next thing he did was invite all his friends, colleagues, acquaintances, to a banquet, a huge feast, so they could get to know Jesus too. He was a fairly well-off sort of guy. That was about to change. But at this moment in time, Levi had the resources to throw a party with Jesus as guest of honour. He was new to following Jesus; he was utterly unjesus
Now word gets around. The Pharisees heard that Jesus had gone to eat with this crowd of tax collectors and others – the implication being "other low-lifers, other undesirable types”. Two questions emerged from what people observed, and they’re sharp, searching and aggressive questions, fired at the disciples but answered by Jesus. What is thrown at Jesus is thrown at his People, and vice versa. “A servant is not greater than his master” (Jesus said Matthew 10. 24).
1. “Why do you guys hang around with tax collectors and sinners?” Luke may be delicate and sensitive about how he describes Levi's friends. But he doesn’t mind letting us know that the Pharisees weren’t so delicate.
2. “Why do you guys not fast like John the Baptist’s followers do, but eat and drink?” Jesus knew he couldn’t win with these people. See Luke 7. 33f For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, “He has a demon.” The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, “Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”
Jesus was no more able to avoid contact with broken people than a doctor is able to avoid contact with sick people. And he was no more able to suppress celebration, than a bridegroom is able to prevent a wedding feast. Jesus’ presence with the broken was a healing presence. And his presence with them was the centre and the cause for celebration. Jesus is here. He is present…. Isn’t he? So the life of the Church, as it experiences the Kingdom of God and the presence of Jesus, is a life of celebration. We are together, guests at the same sort of outrageous banquet, as the one Jesus went to at Levi's house.
To answer the question about fasting versus feasting, Jesus finished off with two short parables, almost word-pictures, that say the same sort of thing…
1. ‘No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old.” (v. 36)
2. “And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’” (v. 37ff)
There’s a golden rule for interpreting the parables. They are not allegories. We are not meant to find meaning in every detail. They have one main point. And in this case, both parables have the same main point. The new clothes of the Kingdom and the fresh young wine of the Kingdom don’t match the old clothes and old wineskins of traditional Judaism.
Levi’s banquet was a celebration of the new thing – the new Kingdom – that had come with Jesus. A celebration of the healing, the joy, the forgiveness. A celebration of clothing for people’s nakedness and wine for their thirst. But sometimes, in that banquet, there is a sense of the sweet and sour: things we don’t want to accept. There’s a cost. New means change, and change can hurt. For the Pharisees, “the old was better”. They preferred to old, the familiar, the comfortable, the controllable and predictable, to the new, unfamiliar, slightly gritty and edgy and surprising. Their mindset, their assumptions, their rules and structures – keeping themselves separate from dodgy people, washing before they ate, fasting regularly, keeping the Sabbath, and so on – that was better. And sometimes we do as well!
The Kingdom, the banquet, the new cloth, the new wine, the healing and forgiveness that Jesus. brings, are not there to patch up the old structures of religion. For religious people, that’s the “sour” bit. The DNA of the Kingdom is reaching out to the lost. It doesn't think we are better than they are. The Kingdom won’t be boxed in by our Baptist – or any other – structures. And the Kingdom, the banquet, the new cloth, the new wine, the healing and forgiveness that Jesus brings, are not there to patch up our old lives. Sure, it makes life better. But we don’t just buy it to make life better – like hair colour or Thomson holidays or whatever. The Kingdom challenges us to full commitment. To a process of inner transformation. Living for self, to living for others. Grasping to giving. Isolated to connected. Individualism to community. Critical to encouraging. Hatred to love. Prejudice to open-ness.
The Kingdom banquet, the new wine needs new wineskins. New ways of thinking. New ways of living. Religious or not, the message of the Kingdom invites us to a life of celebration – of transformation – and of mission. We hear Jesus' invitation to feast with him, to know the joy, to celebrate the grace, to undergo the transformation that the Kingdom brings.
© Gilmour Lilly 7 May 2017
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