Sermon from May 7, 2000
Describing another person is not as easy as we might think. The difficulty increases, if you cannot refer to the person's height, hair, eyes, scars, tattoos, mannerisms, and other physical attributes. How would you describe someone, if you could only report what the person did and said? Could you make the person memorable and vivid?

The four gospels do exactly that in their description of Jesus. We know nothing of His physical apearance, except that He was Jewish. The picture they gave of Him shows Him by His actions and His words. Mark's picture of Jesus differs conspicuously from that of Matthew, Luke, and John by how little, comparatively, that Jesus says. But with Mark, less is more. Jesus' few words carry disproportionate weight. Let me show you in Mark 1:14-2:12.

Mark 1:15 reports the first words Jesus speaks in the Gospel of Mark. "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near." To say that the kingdom of God was about to break into human affairs was either foolhardy, or else it was true and intimated Jesus' huge authority. His next two calls to action are commands. "Repent and believe the good news!"

Listen to the next sequence of words that Jesus speaks in Mark 1. Verse 17 reports His words to Andrew and Peter: "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." In verse 25 He speaks to the demoniac in the synagogue of Capernaum. "Be quiet!" said Jesus sternly. "Come out of him!"

The next time he speaks in Mark 1 is in verse 38, when Peter and the others urge him to return to Peter's house, where a crowd was waiting. Jesus replied, "Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages – so I can preach there also. That is why I have come." Finally, He says to the leper He heals in verses 41 & 44: "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" "See that you don't tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them."

And what was the first thing Jesus said to the paralytic in Mark 2:5? "Son, your sins are forgiven." The second thing He said to him in verse 11 established His authority to forgive him. "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home."

Nine short statements come from the mouth of Christ. Seven of them are commands. The other two – "The kingdom of God is near" and "Son, your sins are forgiven" – express great authority.

Jesus' message was, "The kingdom of God is near." The word in that message that put the fat in the fire was the word near. If someone tells you that God's power to exercise authority over a nation's life is about to show itself in the public arena, the next thought in your mind will be, "Show me! Prove it!" Mark has told his story of Jesus in such a way that every episode demonstrates the presence of God's kingdom in the daily affairs of Israel. Think again of how he did that in chapter one and the first twelve verses of chapter two.

He asked four fishermen, Andrew, Peter, James, and John, to abandon their source of livelihood and attach themselves to Him as His disciples, and they did it. He persuaded and illuminated the consciences of the masses by His teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum. He broke the power of irrational evil over a human personality by virture of His command. By a touch He dismissed a fever from an old lady's body. He got the undivided attention of an entire fishing village. He then declared that what He had done in Capernaum must not be confined to Capernaum. It served a model of what He had a mission to make happen elsewhere. In an act of love and authority He touched and healed an unclean leper, who represented the dregs of Jewish society. Then, in chapter two He spoke with godlike authority and forgave a person's sins.

The words of Jesus, which Mark sparingly reports, serve as fitting companions to the authority of His deeds. Deeds and words like His filled the bill, if anyone thought Jesus had come to carry out a revolution against the Roman overloads. Of course, authority like that might serve another purpose. The next episodes in Mark 2:13-17 point to another purpose.

Verses 13-14 begin with the story of Matthew. Mark 2:13: Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 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.

Mark tells us that Jesus taught a large crowd beside the Sea of Galilee, but he does tell us the content of Jesus' teaching. Jesus speaks two words in Mark's terse narrative: "Follow me." They are another command. Mark's picture of Jesus' authority continues, but as is always the case, Mark does not simply give another example of Jesus' authority. His example adds to the picture of Jesus' authority. It expands our slowly growing understanding of how Jesus intended to use His authority.

In this case the key to understanding is the man who obeyed Jesus' imperative to follow Him. Levi was sitting at the tax collector's booth. Levi, who is called Matthew in other gospels, was a tax collector. Tax collectors were right down there with prostitutes, the demon-possessed, and other "sinners" in first century Jewish society. These categories of outcasts were used in common Jewish parlance to label people who were "'no better than a pagan,'" (Jesus and the Victory of God, 264).

The stigma of taking Levi on as one of His disciples grew out of the desire of pious Jews to honor God. Among observant Jews of Jesus' day, keeping a kosher table was a powerful way of saying, "Our God is the only true God, and we, His people, are different from the rest of humanity." That meant, of course, that tax collectors were in for it, because they went about hand in glove with the Romans.

For Jesus to include Levi among His disciples offended pious Jews and ran the risk of creating tension among His own disciples. If someone wanted to find fault, it would be easy to condemn Jesus as being indifferent to the righteousness of God and the uniqueness of Israel. "God has it in for these tax collectors; so, Jesus' calling of Levi just shows His indifference to the righteousness of God, and who does He think He is anyway?"

If there was any doubt about Jesus' orthodoxy on that point, His subsequent behavior confirmed it. Maybe calling Levi showed bad judgment. Maybe it was even a good thing. After all, it took one more tax collector off the street. But what Jesus did next confirmed the worst fears of people who were starting to view Jesus with a suspicous eye. Verses 15-16 tell the story.

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. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked the disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

We have met the teachers of the law before. Back at Simon Peter's house in chapter 2, when Jesus forgave the paralytic his sins, Mark told us in verses 6-7: Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" Jesus in His wonderful ability to read people spoke directly to their unexpressed thoughts.

After the dinner at Levi's house, He did not have to read their thoughts. They did not keep their thoughts to themselves this time, but neither did they say them to Jesus' face. They cornered Andrew, Peter, James, and John and (perhaps in an effort to intimidate them) expressed their objections to Jesus' choice of company. They did it in the form of a question. "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" "There are lots of other people, who would like to hear what he has to say about the kingdom of God. Why does He waste his time with these disreputable people?"

When Jesus heard about that unpleasant exchange, He went right to the men that had raised the issue. His response is full of grace and truth. 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." Stay with me for a few minutes. This powerful response opens a window into the soul of Jesus. Look with me.

First of all, it addresses the attitude that says Jesus was a political revolutionary. Some in His day thought of Him that way. Some in ours have thought the same. Nearly all Jesus did and said in Mark 1 could be construed as supporting that attitude. Healing the sick, driving out demons, and drawing overflow crowds belong to the career of someone who has come to drive out the Romans.

On the other hand, nothing in Mark 2 supports that conclusion. Revolutionaries, who had set their sights on delivering the Jews from the Romans, did not go about saying, "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." That would be especially offensive to Jewish patriots who saw revolution as a righteous cause. Jesus' statement reveals an intention of His heart quite removed from the intentions of a political revolutionary. If He came to bring a revolution, it would be a different kind.

That in turn causes us to think again about the meaning of the kingdom of God. "Don't be so cocksure you know what the kingdom of God is." Some think of it as a political overthrow of the oppressors of Israel. Others think of it as the accession to power of the righteous. Others think it will be a Jewish thing or an American thing or a Protestant thing.

Jesus said in effect to people of all opinions, "Have a closer look." If we want some intimation of what human life is going to look like when God's love an authority govern all human life, then we need to pay close attention to the actions and words of Jesus Christ in the gospels. Judging from the swift reaction to His dining with the down-and-out, there will be surprises at what it will look like.

Second, His statement about calling sinners tells us what He thought about the attitude that dismissed "sinners" and tax collectors like Levi as no better than pagains. One thing that every group of people does is to demonize another group of people that it does not like or that it considers a threat. It often does so by calling them names.

We do it today. How do you react when you hear someone call a group of people fundamentalists, or liberals, or neo-nazis, or fags, or terrorists, or racists, or (for that matter) Pharisees? Labels like that drive wedges between groups of people. They create an us-vs.-them mentality that prevents people from talking to each other or working together. They rouse anger and hatred and rejection.

Jesus challenged such demonization of people. He said in effect, "I came to call the very people you hate." The word call carries its own punch. He did not say, "I came to socialize with sinners," or "I came to be friends with sinners." He meant, "I came to draw into the kingdom of God the very people that you are in such a hurry to leave out of the kingdom of God."

Fourth, Jesus' statement about calling sinners addresses another, very modern attitude. Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." I don't know that anyone else has ever combined compassion and conviction so adroitly.

On one hand, He had the conviction that sinners need a savior like the sick need a doctor. That contradicts the modern attitude that gags on the idea that one person could call the behavior of another person evil behavior. On the other hand, His prescription for the treatment of sinners was not to shun them but to dine with them. That is, He connected with them by accepting their existence, as it was given to Him by God, and thus loving them as those particular sinful persons, (Brunner, Divine Imperative).

Accepting their existence did not mean He condoned their existence any more than a doctor condones disease. Accepting their existence did not mean He intended to leave them in their sinful state any more than a doctor would leave a patient in a state of suffering. Accepting their existence did mean His willingnesss to dine with them in the full knowledge of their sin as a doctor is willing to see a patient whatever his illness. Accepting their existence did mean His willingness to dine with them and enjoy their company despite their disreputable social character, as a doctor will treat an enemy of the state because the calling of a doctor is to heal.

Right here, the story of our journey through this world merges again with the story of Jesus' journey through the world. The merging takes the form of two powerful challenges to us, who say we are His followers.

First of all, in our circles of influence, whom do we know that are on the margins of those circles? They may be there for good reasons. Do we have enough of Christ in us to reach out to those people without condemnation or condescension?

Second, do we have anything to say to non-Christians in the circles in which we move? In a world in which we are free to do anything we can get away with, it is easy for Christians to look and act just like the world. Is there anything distinct about our uses of money, sex, and power?

There is a second half to this question, and it is the most difficult part of all. Can we be distinct and attractive, or will we be distinct and repulsive? We know what repels people. It is a stuffy, pious attitude that fails to connect with people. Jesus stands us by the fact that He held to the great truths of God, did not compromise His convictions, and at the same time He did not drive people away.

Can we become a congregation of people that is marked by that rare, Christlike combination of compassion and conviction? Christian love means intending and (where possible) doing for the sake of Christ what is best for the other person regardless of the cost to us, regardless of who the person is, and regardless of what we get for our trouble. Treating other people in this vulnerable manner is a powerful embodiment of God's love and authority that will someday cover the earth as water covers the seas.