The Gospel of Mark: Follow Me Mark 2: 13-17

The Gospel of Mark is perhaps the most fast-paced of the recollections of Jesus. It is almost as if Jesus knows that his time on life is limited time on this earth and he wants to make the most of each moment. Already before we enter into today’s scripture in the chapter 2 of the gospel, Jesus has been baptized, tempted, called his first disciples, taught in the synagogue, healed folks, and taught throughout the country side. 

Sometimes with the rapid pace of the Gospel of Mark we can miss the beauty of what is happening and how it effect us, here, today. For the next three weeks we are going to engage the Gospel of Mark together, sinking into smaller passages. Today we pick up in the second chapter of the Gospel with the call of Levi to discipleship.

When Jesus called the first disciples, back in the first chapter of Mark, they were fisherman. Not exactly the most high up of occupations at the time. Simon, Andrew, James, and John would have had some education about the scriptures, but because they were on the boat that day, we can assume that they were rejected from going to further education at some point. So they entered into the trade of their kin, fishing on the sea. 

While fishermen would not have been the most high up occupation, tax collectors, like Levi (who Jesus calls to follow him next) were just despised. They were seen as being apart from the Jewish people, an arm of the Roman government. If that wasn’t bad enough the occupation of tax collector had a reputation that went with it for ripping people off - charging more for folks taxes then what Rome issued, thus getting wealthy at the expense of other people who couldn’t afford it. 

We live in a mindset it today’s world that we want the absolute best to fill positions - at works, in the community, anywhere there are volunteers. But here is Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, not going to the synagogues to find the people who like him, at the age of twelve, asked deep questions, knew scripture instead and out and followed the religious rules and regulations to a ’t’. No, he is going down to the docks and picking out people who didn’t make it the whole way through religious education and then going to the tax collecting booth and asking this man who was probably known more by words such as “liar”, “cheat”, and “robber” then by his name, Levi son of Alphaeus. What in the world is Jesus doing?

Jesus, I think is not picking the best as the world may define them, but the best people to follow him. The people that he would later use to proclaim his message to the very end of the world.

But the problem we face is that even here in chapter 2, pretty early in Jesus’s earthly ministry, the folks watching what Jesus is doing are missing the point. Jesus’s ministry in chapter 1 really starts in the synagogue when he enters and teaches - so you have some folks wandering if Jesus is going to be the next great prophet or teacher, coming into the synagogue to proclaim the word of God to those who already believe they got it all together. Then as many people started to hear about his ministry they realized that he also had the authority and power to heal, so they start to bring their sick to Jesus in droves, so folks started to think that was what Jesus was all about, offering physical healing. 

But then Jesus does this thing in today’s scripture passage and calls a tax collector to follow him and then sits down to eat with him and a bunch of other sinners. Now people are getting upset. This isn’t what they though this ministry of Jesus would be all about. They thought it would in “the right places” like synagogue, and that he would associate with “the right people”, blessing what they are already doing, and that he would heal some people on the side, and that everything would be good. 

Instead, Jesus is telling them that what he really came to do was offer complete healing, healing for the sin sick soul, and that the healing that has taken place so far is only a sign of the larger mission, to bring people to God to receive forgiveness and turn their lives around. And that, brothers and sisters made people uncomfortable.

In fact, that mission of Jesus can still make people uncomfortable today. I was at a training once where the speaker was talking about how Christians miss the point sometimes of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Sometimes we want to spend all of our time in church buildings, where we can be with people who are like us, apart from the world. And we want our pastors to spend the majority of their time on us - visiting, counseling, drafting sermons that are for us. But if we are truly going to model the mission and ministry of Jesus, we as Christians and our religious leaders need to be spending less time with people like us, and more time out with folks who do not yet know Jesus, meeting them where they are at.

After this meeting, I left and started to think about how I spend my time, and who I encounter on most days, and I started to be incredibly intentional about making sure I was in places where I could talk to non-Christians. I would go to coffee shops to write my sermons. I would offer prayer for folks in the local pub. I taught Bible studies at the University, where I interfaced with a lot more students who weren’t quite sure about this Jesus thing then those who would consider themselves Christians. Some folks got it. They realized that I needed to be spending time in the community so I could meet folks who didn’t yet know Jesus and invite them to come and see what Jesus is all about. And because of that, some of those folks who got it started to think about who they spent their time with and how they could interact with people who were searching and didn’t know Jesus yet, too. But a lot more people didn’t get it. They wanted a pastor who was there all the time for them, instead of out talking to folks who may never come inside of their buildings. They wanted the folks who were already here to come first.

That is exactly what the religious leaders wanted as well, from Jesus. They wanted someone they could contain and control to the “right places and right people”. They wanted Jesus to interact with the acceptable and the well, instead of realizing that just by raising the question of “why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” they probably had some sin sick souls that were in need of the healing that Jesus was offering as well. 

Brothers and sisters, today’s passage is a challenge to all of us. It asks, first and foremost, if we are aware of the healing that we need in our souls? Because the truth is, friends, that as much as we may be able to project to folks around us that we have it all together, Jesus know the true state of our hearts. He knows where we are sick with sin. And he has come to offer us forgiveness and new life, but we have to realize that we are in need first. We need to humble ourselves enough to invite Jesus to come into our lives. 

Second, we need to get out - to get out of our comfort zones, to get out of hanging out mostly with Christians, to get out into the places where people are in the world so we can form relationships where we can tell people about Jesus. Because we care about them. Because Jesus cares about them. Because this is what the ministry of Jesus is all about - not coming for those who are already well, but for those who are in need of healing. And because when we stop going where Jesus would go, we’ve stopped being the church. Let us reclaim being the church of Jesus Christ in the world! Amen.