Mark 2:13–17 The Call of Levi/Eating with Tax Collectors
I love Mark’s geography. It is both picturesque and theological. Here we find Jesus “out again beside the sea,” with “the whole crowd gathered around him.” I have been privileged to walk beside this sea. I experienced why Jesus must have loved it so. His life was so crowded and this sea is so inviting and expansive.
I imagine Jesus rising early before his disciples and simply looking out over this sea. In actuality it is a lake compared to many of the seas on our planet. But to the people of Jesus’ day, and to Jesus I imagine, it is indeed a sea of possibilities. Out of it comes industry. Out if it come a good number of Jesus’ disciples. He plucks Peter, James, John and Andrew from their nets with remnants of this sea still dripping from the webbing.
It is beside this sea that Mark places Jesus for a series of controversy stories. One must remember that, as Mark shared these stories, his audience was involved in their own set of controversies. Mark’s audience was the early church. They were embroiled in arguments over who might sit at the table with them, and who was allowed inside the community of believers. There were very definite standards of who was in and who was out. Against such a backdrop, Mark retold the stories of chapter two.
Levi is unknown after this story. He is not mentioned again. Early tradition equates him with Matthew the tax collector, but no such connection is made by Mark. Levi is simply a tax collector who has his table set up somewhere by the sea. This is rather like a first-century lemonade stand, except that the lemonade on offer to the people is really more just a bitter taste in their mouths—but they have to pay the price anyway.
The tax collectors are hated by the people and by the Jewish establishment. Tax collectors are usually Jewish locals who are under contract by the government. They siphon off some money for themselves when they collect the taxes, and siphon it off again before they pay their Roman bosses.
Who knows why Levi responds so quickly to Jesus’ request to “follow me”? Mark is a master at leaving it to the imagination. Can it be that Levi simply follows out of curiosity? Maybe he is tired of his way of making it. Is Levi so surprised that someone like Jesus makes such an offer that Levi simply goes along for the ride? Or is Levi, like others whom Jesus encounters, just ripe for the picking? Perhaps one of Jesus’ divine attributes is a kind of radar that can target those who are ready, as in the familiar saying, “When you are ready to learn the teacher will come.”
Mark uses this story of Levi to make a point. Jesus ends up in Levi’s house. The place is as full of sinners as a barroom is full of smoke. If you have ever been in such a barroom, and are not a smoker, then you remember that when you come out, you reek of smoke. If you get this picture, you will understand what the scribes of the Pharisees say next.
According to them, because Jesus lowers himself to eat with tax collectors and those sinners who do not keep the Jewish law, Jesus reeks with the smell of the company he keeps. He renders himself “unclean.”
The law-abiding scribes of the Pharisees point this out to Jesus. Jesus waves his hand just enough to clear the smoke from in front of his face and informs the non-smoking clergy that those who do not need to quit smoking are unlikely to need a patch. (For those of you who have lost my imagery, a nicotine patch is a smoking cessation aid. This is a good example of the maxim that if you have to explain an image it begins to lose something. This is why Mark does so little explaining in his gospel.)
Jesus responds to the scribes that “those who are well have no need of a physician.” Jesus is making it clear that he has come for people who are aware that they need help. Jesus also breaks the crystal vase that the religious establishment has been keeping on the shelf. The crystal container is meant to hold something very precious, but it has become a museum piece whose main purpose is to collect the dust of the ages.
Jesus breaks the container like the glass that is broken at a Jewish wedding. He announces to the keepers of the crystal that fine crystal is out and the cheap glass is in. He wants to offer water to the thirsty and he knows that the folks by the sea will not drink anything from crystal containers.
Jesus may as well have kicked in the door to Levi’s house and let everybody in. Jesus loves to kick in doors. When he kicks in the door on this particular night, smoke comes pouring out. After all, to continue with the smoking analogy, these are smokers. What did the Pharisees expect to see?
Although Jesus does not smoke, he smells like smoke his whole ministry. He never lights up but he still loves the people who do. Jesus ends up hanging out with them a lot, and many of them end up kicking the habit. Jesus has a keen sense of smell. He can smell the smoke on the Pharisees’ robes even when others cannot. He guesses that they are the kind who preach sermons about the evils of smoking only to light up late at night when no one is looking. Needless to say, the Pharisees do not like anyone blowing their cover or smelling their clothes.
The Pharisees either have to find another way to wash out their clothes and hang them out to dry so that the smoke will clear, or they have to find a way to hang Jesus out to dry. Guess which plan is on their minds?
Mark 2:18–28 Controversy over the Old and the New
Giving up things has a long tradition in religious practice. Fasting is like a Hallmark greeting card when it comes to piety. Fasting shows “you really care.” The religious leaders of Jesus’ day love to send greeting cards. Too often, however, they like to flaunt their faith by wearing T-shirts with slogans. John’s disciples evidently wear T-shirts that say “Fasting R Us.” Fasting is one of their defining traditions.
It seems that John’s disciples are lean and mean in their style. Some of them think the end is right around the corner and they want to be found ready by not being engulfed by the world. They fast regularly to be like first-century Boy Scouts; on the back of the T-shirts reads a complementary phrase, “Be Prepared.”
While Jesus acknowledges that there is value to the spiritual discipline of fasting, and that there are appropriate times for fasting, he does not so much appreciate the way they have of drawing attention to their devotion. Outward signs are important to them, but Jesus is more interested in the inward sources of their devotion.
Let us not misunderstand Jesus here. There is the danger of making him into yet another slogan, like the line from Forrest Gump, “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” Jesus affirms the practice of fasting, but declares that now is neither the time, nor the place for it.
Jesus takes a bite out of the way of viewing things of his contemporaries. They are concerned with outward signs of devotion and being prepared for the end, but Jesus asks, “Why fast when the party is going on?” He announces to the fasting groups of his day that “the time is at hand,” the bridegroom is present. This is not the time for fasting. Mark’s emphasis in these verses is on the joy and the abundance of life that Jesus is offering.
Change is hard for religious types. We get stuck easily within our comfort zones. In the next few verses of this chapter in Mark, Jesus speaks of how things need to change because old ways can sometimes be like oil that has not been changed in an engine. Things get sluggish and it is not at all good for the overall running of the engine.
Since the engine analogy does not quite fit (we are a long time from Henry Ford after all), Jesus uses what is at hand and understandable to his audience. He speaks of sewing an un-shrunk piece of new fabric onto an old garment. Jesus also uses the image of putting new wine in old wineskins. Both practices result in ripping or spilling.
Jesus is getting his audience ready for some ripping and spilling. The theological irony is that these two verbs describe what end up happening to Jesus. The old is not ready for the new. Trying to sew a Jesus patch onto existing fabric still has its problems. Jesus is speaking of the need for a whole new garment.
Can it be that what is happening in our present day is that many people want simply to sew a Jesus patch onto their daily outfits and go on about business as usual? When the laundry is done, the wearer may discover that the