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."Mark 2:13-17
Introduction:
There is a challenge here, as we read this passage. I don’t know about you, but when I recently have been reading the gospel of Mark, I have seen Jesus in something of a new light. I have been noticing a Jesus that I have not been taught about. Or if I have been taught about, It’s been in spiritualised churchy kind of language, that only reaches my mind and heart. What I’ve been confronted with in Mark’s gospel is a Jesus that far exceeds my own thinking and actions.
I would like again to re-visit this text with the question what would it look like for us to Re-positioning ourselves with Jesus.
1. The Focus of the Pharisees.
Before we do that Id like to say a few things about the focus of the Pharisees, and where they were coming from.
Now, if Jesus was having fellowship with tax collectors and sinners in order to preach to them, the Pharisees would not have been all that alarmed. After all, who would have objected that tax collectors and sinners were forsaking their sinful lifestyle, making restitution, and seeking a life of righteousness? The Pharisees believed and worked within the idea that God offered forgiveness when sinners repented. They would rejoice that a wretched sinner saw the light, repented and was converted from a life of debauchery and made restitution in the community. But what infuriated the Pharisees was that Jesus was not explicitly or directly asking tax collectors and sinners to do any of this. Some of them no doubt did repent, such as Levi (Luke 5:28). But Jesus seems to have accepted them as they were and was freely having dinner with them without requiring that they first clean up their lives.
2. Repositioning ourselves with Jesus.
Lets look in more detail at what it looks like to Re-position ourselves with Jesus.
Scripture calls us to follow Jesus, like the call of Christ to Levi. We all are called to be Disciples of Christ, In effect to live a life as a little Jesus. The call of Christ is to join a conspiracy of little Jesus’.
History records a conspiracy of little Jesus’ imitators of Christ.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, joined the resistance during the rise of the third Reich in Germany.
Soren Kierkegaard a Danish Christian who came out in his country fighting against every phoney form of Institutionalised Christianity.
Jean Vanier a native of Geneva, shocked at the treatment of people with deteriorating mental health bought a house in framce and began his life’s work. He called the house L’arche.
Janani Luwum, appointed as the archbishop of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Boga Zaire in 1974. He stood against the Bloody regime of Idi Amin in Uganda. Janani convened a meeting with Catholic and Muslim leaders in 1976 signing a resolution deploring Amin’s atrocities. The official news was that he died in a car accident, but he was shot.
To re-position ourselves with Jesus is a great challenge.
1. We are challenged us to see the kingdom as he sees it.
To open our eyes and have a good look.This week Take a look at Mark’s gospel and record how many times Jesus places himself with the marginalized, the outcast and the helpless.
2. We are challenged to operate as he operates.
Live as he lives, do as he does, get involved in peoples lives.
We cannot Ignore what it happening around us, we cannot assume that someone else will take the responsibility for community work, for crime prevention and reduction, for care of vulnerable people, for carbon reduction, for working with children in our local schools, the list is endless. We can Engage and take it as part of our responsibility as a gathered community to operate as Jesus operates.
3. We are challenged to accept people as they are.
Not to simply accept from a distance but to align ourselves with them.
This is the difficult one. For we are called to a life of sacrifice if we are called to re-position ourselves with Jesus. To going the extra mile. To putting ourselves out on behalf of others. To significant friendships, to finding opportunities to get along side.
4. We are challenged to learn a new language.
The language of hospitality and welcome. If we are being called to join the conspiracy of Little Jesus’ then learning and practising hospitality and welcome should be one of our goals. A wonderful book written by Conrad Gempf called “Mealtime habits of the Messiah” It’s about the times in the NT that Jesus sat down with people and ate with them. It’s a good book to read that will help fuel our idea’s of hospitality and welcome.
5. We are challenged to live a life of vulnerability.
Living with our own human-ness, our own weaknesses, humility combined with tiredness and the fact that it is not about my own power and ability.We need rootedness, (Resilience if you like) to function in vulnerability. Jesus displays this in his lifestyle, his times in prayer, his times with his disciples, his times resting. His constant openness to the spirit of God. His times connecting with the communities around him. All these things helped in him being rooted. To be truly vulnerable, means to be secure and confident in yourself. (Rooted) We see this in Jesus. It is strange but true, that we see the real Jesus in the gospels, he is really Jesus. We are called to be really us, not a sanitised person, but the real deal. One of the ways we can begin to display to others the real us, is to be rooted, we get that from prayer, from community, from friendships, from fellowship, from connection with the world around us not from separation from it.
Conclusion:
We are called to follow like Levi, We are given the task of calling to others too. As we read the gospels we are confronted with a Jesus who challenges and inspires us to re-position our lives with his. With his kingdom, his ideals, his vision. His mission in the world.
What would our community, our city, our country and our world look like if it was over run with a conspiracy of little Jesus’. Now there really is a thought.
Amen.
