13 Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.
15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Question 1
If you were allowed to be friends with anyone in the world, what kind of person would you choose?
Question 2
Looking at yourself, would you say you are a strong person or a weak person, healthy or sick, a sinner or a righteous person?
Has anyone ever asked you the question, ‘If you could have a meal with any three people, who would they be?’ How would you answer that question? One of the things that may strike us is how strange the kind of people Jesus chose to spend time with and eat with. No doubt we would expect the Son of God, King of the world, to be accompanied by the celebrities of the time and eat with important people. But no. So far we have seen Jesus call fishermen to be his followers. Now he goes a step further and calls Levy, the tax collector, to be his disciple. Tax collectors were seen as some of society’s worst people. They worked for the Romans who controlled Israel at the time, and often cheated and took too much money from their own people.
Because they were so unpopular, we’re not surprised that the Pharisees respond looking down on the kind of people Jesus called friends. But Jesus’ attitude is completely different, and his response to the Pharisees is crystal clear. He tells them that if they fool themselves by thinking they’re perfect, then they’ll never realize they need help. People who think they’re healthy aren’t going to see the doctor. The Pharisees’ problem was that they didn’t see that they had a problem, and therefore needed someone to save them.
The kind of people Jesus calls to himself are those who know full well that they are dirty, weak, sinful, and that Jesus needs to save them. They are people who have seen that they are sick, that they cannot heal themselves, and that Jesus is the doctor who can heal.
Question 3
In what ways can we deceive ourselves about the kind of person we are? Do you ever think you don’t need a saviour?
Question 4
Why do you think so many such people follow Jesus?
Pray
for help not to look down your noses at other people, but to realize that everyone is dirty in God’s eyes and needs to be washed clean by him.
