God wrestles in love with us everywhere

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/011820.cfm
1 Samuel 9:1-4, 17-19; 10:1
Mark 2:13-17

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
(Mark 2:17)

The poignant part of this verse is that Jesus likely addressed the sins of the tax collectors and other sinners in this part of the gospel with love, not with dismissive judgment. Jesus’ probable judgment had more to do with offering another opportunity rather than condemnation.

Jesus coordinated this intimate time with a scurrilous band of unbridled debt collectors at a feast in his honor. The meal was hosted by Levi, a very successful and respected tax collector. Levi was enamored with Jesus and invited his peers in tax collecting to meet Jesus after Jesus had reached out to him. Through the intimacy of the relationship he formed with Levi, Jesus preached to an unworthy crowd. Even as he had called Levi, Jesus “called” them, as he says to the Pharisee scribes who questioned his behavior.

Matthew, as Levi called himself after his remarkable shift from greed to discipleship, left his position as a tax collector presumably in a formal resignation at the meal he hosted for Jesus. As we know, Jesus invoked yet another scandal in the Jewish world by both recruiting Matthew, a known sinner, and by preaching to the organization of tax collectors itself. The “optics” of what Jesus was willing to do never fit the expected parameters for a Christ, the messiah as Jews had imagined for several thousand years.

In today’s politically incorrect culture Jesus’ act would be like Bill Maher recruiting Dennis Prager to be a pitchman for the liberal agenda, and then Dennis celebrating by inviting all his conservative friends to a dinner at his house. “You too can become a liberal!”

Or, for Dennis Prager to recruit Bill Maher. “You too can become a conservative,” Maher would announce to his Hollywood elites.

It’s unthinkable!

The situation for Levi-come-Matthew was worse than these examples. While liberals and conservatives joust over politics and money and culture, they believe in their agendas. Politicians and pundits today are under no misgivings about their philosophy and principles that link to their subsequent agendas. Tax collectors were more like mafia henchmen with the government in their pockets. Hmm, maybe the analogy is better than I thought.

In any case, in Jesus’ time, most of the tax collectors and sinners did their work under the weight of sinful awareness. Tax collectors were rogues, agreeing to rob their neighbors with the weapon of the law. “It’s just business,” they might say today. “Nothing personal. I’m just making a living. A good living, yes. But, it is what it is.”

So, Levi had more than a change of heart. By urging his former cohorts to join him at a feast honoring Jesus, Levi changed his name and raised the ante on his alliance to God. He courageously introduced his new Rabbi.

It sounds dramatic because it is. I think we too experience the same change of heart when introduced and called by Jesus. Whether through the Holy Spirit whom we may not know, or the authority of the Father whom we cannot see, we live in a sophisticated secular and spiritual wrestling match. The world’s way against God’s way. Spiritual legalism against holiness. Judgmental categorizations against love’s amazing blindness to class warfare. The battles are everywhere. God pins us down to the mat with everything from brutal strength to coaxed whispers. He is engaged in all of it.

Matthew, as Levi the money-grubbing grifter, needed more than finger-pointing and tongue-wagging to turn over a new leaf. I don’t believe his conversion had much to do with his sin. It had more to do with Jesus’ influential character and vision. This is Jesus’ stated message. He is more of a physician than the judge. I don’t think Jesus even pulled at Levi’s heartstrings, noting the corruption and lack of fairness in his cahoots with the Romans. He revealed the attraction of holiness, of a more exciting and eternal mission amid Levi’s working day. This is how most of us encounter God. Only when we hit rock bottom does the ugliness of our sin awaken us. Such a dangerous place to be. Suicide and its partner apathy carry more salving solution in our place at the bottom. More likely, we are convinced near the well of despair, not in it. The sheer wonder and glory of God is a much better reality than the ones we choose for ourselves. We do this right out in the open, at our desk in the crowds where everyone exists. That’s where God like he did with Levi, attracts most of us.

Surely, we recognize the darkness of sin in our lives, and even the ugly effect our self-centered focus our sin has upon those we love. That recognition, however, can be covered up. We can easily muddy the better seeming logic of restoring ourselves to holiness by the simple unworthy nature of our being. “Who can love me?”

We must see that God loves us to turn to God. That’s God’s way, too. If God loves us as we are, then it’s not just OK to change, it’s possible. We correctly know that our broken character cannot engage with holiness. Holiness must engage with us first.

I don’t believe that Jesus said he didn’t come to call the righteous because the righteous were narcissist fools. He knew that the righteous, the holy, were already in him. Of course, some (or even many) of the Pharisee scribes were probably legalist junkies, twisted in their notion of what the righteous and holy person looked like. His comment, though, properly placed the necessary location for his work. He was to be with the sinners, loving them, and calling them to follow him. The holy were already there.

Matthew saw Jesus in the crowds, certainly over several days, maybe weeks. He could see Jesus watching him. Matthew was attracted to something he didn’t have. He may have been the best at what he did, but Jesus offered something out of his reach that looked much more interesting.

God’s appeal surpasses anything we can come up with. Levi, a Jew with legal permission to improve his lot, spied the improvement of a lifetime — holiness. He changed his name to Matthew, meaning Gift of God — or Jesus did that — to seal his discipleship. From greedy thief to holy gift.

That’s when we go all in. And, why not? What could be better than righteous holiness with Jesus?