Remember what it’s all about, Good News. Let’s look to see if we can find the good news anthem in this story.
“After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.
Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
If we look back at the verse Jesus read to his friends and family in Nazareth back in Chapter 4, what do we see as the role of messiah?
‘“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”’
Where do tax collectors fit into this messianic mission? I would suggest Good news to the poor. The poor? Sometimes rich people can be poor in spirit. Jesus was reaching out to the despised sellouts, the tax collectors. We know that everyone needs God’s forgiveness because we know that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory.
How does the saying go? I think at one point in my life I lost the plot.
Back in the day We had a single mom across the street, a single mom next door and a single dad on the other side of us. I saw the need and didn’t help. I could see that they were hurting but I didn’t see my role in helping them.
I was at the point of insulating myself and my little family against the evil of this world. We were all tucked in and safe. We had cut ourselves off from the world and its influences. While doing that, I believe that we may have lost sight of the needs of the sick and dying souls around us. There were kids in the neighborhood that needed to know that there is a Father in heaven who loves them. There were neighbors who needed help and to know that Jesus loves them but I was too busy isolating myself from the evil of the world to see their need.
Leprosy is a contagious disease. You can get it by exposing yourself to it. Lepers are not to be touched.
Yet earlier in chapter 5 we have Jesus doing this:
“While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him.”
Sin is a disease that affects us all. Am I willing to go to those who are covered in sin like this man was covered in leprosy?
Am I willing to “touch the lepers”? Am I willing to reach out to the unloved and unlovable like tax collectors? Am I willing to go to the spiritually sick because they need the doctor Jesus?
It is the sick that need a doctor.
Jesus is the doctor. Jesus is willing to heal. Am I bringing the people that need Jesus to Jesus?
Something to think about today.
Peter’s Posts 