Tax-Collectors and Sinners

Scripture: Luke 5:27-32

27 Later, as Jesus left the town, he saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. 28 So Levi got up, left everything, and followed him. 29 Later, Levi held a banquet in his home with Jesus as the guest of honor. Many of Levi’s fellow tax collectors and other guests also ate with them. 30 But the Pharisees and their teachers of religious law complained bitterly to Jesus’ disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with such scum?” 31 Jesus answered them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. 32 I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent.” (Luke 5:27-32 NLT)

Jesus had healed a paralyzed man in response to the roof-ripping faith of four of the man’s friends. The religious leaders who had seen the miracle had accused Jesus of blasphemy for claiming to forgive the man’s sins. They were stumped and stunned when Jesus healed the man by God’s power! This left them with lots of unanswered questions, and Pharisees can’t live with unanswered questions!

But it gets worse! On his way out of town, Jesus passed by the tax-collection booth of Levi (Whom we will soon learn to call Matthew) and calls him to “Come, be my disciple.” So Levi does. Then in a few days he throws a big party at his house so he can invite his friends—mostly fellow tax-collectors and other sorts of sinners—to come and meet Jesus. The Pharisees were deeply offended and said to Jesus and his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with such scum?”

I was arrested by the word “scum” the Pharisees used for tax-collectors and sinners! Do you realize what happens when we begin to call people names? Whether it’s a racial epithet, or an epithet for their politics or their religion or their social values or their sexuality, or for whatever way they differ from us, we de-humanize them in our minds. We make them “less-than”; we make them “other”, “not us”, “Scum”!

Friends, Jesus said that the people the Pharisees (and sometimes us) think of as “Scum” are the people he has come call: to invite into relationship, into God’s Kingdom, into the family, to be his disciples! I’m examining my mind and heart to see if there’s anyone I’m calling “Scum”. And I’m repenting. That means by God’s grace I’m changing my mind and my attitude and my words as necessary! Will you join me?

Prayer:

Create in me a clean heart, Oh God. And renew a right spirit within me! Help me and my friends to remove name-calling, de-humanizing, “othering” words and attitudes from our thoughts and our vocabulary. And from our hearts! For your Kingdom’s sake!