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.”
18 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?”
19 Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. 20 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.
21 “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. 22 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.”
Leaving the house, Jesus goes to the lakeside. The crowds that have now become ever present are quick to form. And Jesus does what Jesus wants to do, he teaches them.
But even while teaching, Jesus can not stay put. And so as he walks along, he sees Levi. Just like the earlier accounts of the calling of the fishermen, it is Jesus who comes upon the unsuspecting tax collector who is busy at his work.
And what a work it is. Tax collectors were held in great contempt by both the Romans and the Jews. They were given a flat amount of money by Rome that they were to provide. The Romans saw them as traitors who had turned on their own people. The Jews liked them even less, as their wages were whatever they could collect beyond the amount determined by Rome. They were considered to be unscrupulous thieves who used the force of the empire to protect them from the laws that would punish someone who demanded money in any other form of strong-armed robbery.
So tax collectors kept to themselves and enjoyed their riches even as they were rejected by all polite society. Jesus calling a tax collector would have been a great social faux pax. His detractors would see this as further proof that Jesus was straying from God's guidance.
The call is made even more interesting because it has no content. Jesus didn't tell Levi what he was being called to do. Jesus didn't tell Levi here is a list of all the things you have to believe to be my disciple. Jesus didn't tell Levi here is a list of all the things you need to give up to be right with God. It is merely--follow me. When he does that none of the other things seem that important.
Levi is so thrilled with Jesus accepting him and calling him to follow that he prepares a large banquet in his home. He invites his friends--who of course are the other tax collectors and ne'er-do-wells. The crowd is quite large what with Levi's invitees, the disciples and those who are following Jesus.
The Pharisees who are now on Jesus' tail, watching him and hoping to get back at him for embarrassing them when he forgave and healed the paralytic. But they are afraid of Jesus, so instead of addressing him, they confront Jesus disciples. "Why does he eat with people like this--the unclean and the outcasts?"
But Jesus who previously heard the muttering of their hearts has no problem overhearing the audible words spoken to his disciples. "You don't go to the doctor unless something is wrong with you. I came to sinners not the people who think there is nothing wrong with them." The Pharisees may have considered this a compliment, but only because they failed to understand that they were sinners just like everyone else. Jesus came for everyone, but some are like the Pharisees and see themselves as righteous and without the need of forgiveness.
The case against Jesus continues to be built when the disciples both of the Pharisees and of John are involved in religious fasting. But Jesus' disciples freely eat and drink. "Why?" he is asked. And Jesus answers that at a wedding party, people celebrate. It is only when the bridegroom has gone and the party is over that people return to their normal lives. But Jesus already knows that he is headed toward the path of sorrow so he tells them there will be a time for fasting later when the bridegroom is taken away.
The passage concludes with a reference to storing wine. Old wine in old skins and new wine in new. During the process of fermentation, a wine expands. New skins expand with the wine but old skins that have already stretched tear and burst.
This remarkable saying indicates that the teaching that Jesus brings will not fit in the religious orthodoxy of the Pharisees, but that their traditions will burst under the new strain of God's teaching and revelation. It is not only a warning to them, but a warning to us that whenever our doctrine becomes so rigid that their is no room for God to do new work within it that God's work will not be constrained but that our structures will burst trying to contain it.
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