Levi - Tax Collector Turned Disciple Series

[Reading Mark 2:13-17] In today’s passage out of the book of Mark, we don’t find Jesus throwing a birthday party for a prostitute, but we do find him hanging out with some unsavory characters called tax collectors and other sinners because that is really what Jesus would do and that is what Jesus did do. We are continuing the series called The Story. It is God’s story as told through the people, places, and events of the Bible. We stared in October and we are in the part where we are looking into Jesus’ ministry and his miracles. If you were with us last week, we began to look at his miracles. We looked at his very first miracle in Cana where he changed water into wine. You may recall that that probably was something that was a little bit upsetting to the Jewish people because Jesus didn’t use the empty wine bottles. He actually used the ceremonial jars; the ones they reserve for ceremonial washing. He used these to make the wine. So that was a little bit upsetting for the Jews. But we find that Jesus is one to not worry about upsetting people. Jesus was the one who would continue to push the envelope of what would be considered acceptable religious behavior. There is no exception as we see in today’s passage which is the story of the calling of one of the first disciples, Levi. A couple weeks ago, we looked at the calling of the early disciples. The four disciples that were fisherman. In today’s story, we see a calling of somebody from a different occupation. A guy that goes by the name of Levi, also known as Matthew. Calling out of a less than savory occupation called tax collecting. It opens by saying “Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him , and he began to teach. As he walked along, he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax collectors booth. ‘Follow me,’ Jesus told him. And Levi got up and followed him.” So here we have a situation where Jesus is beginning to get very popular and very well known. He is known as a teacher. He has these large groups of people following him. As the story goes, the Rabbi would often walk around. They would sit and teach and then get up and walk some more. Apparently, as he is walking along, he comes across this tax collector’s booth and meets this guy named Levi. They believe Levi is also the same guy that is referred to as Matthew in another gospel.

A little bit of background on this idea of a tax collector. We know that Levi was a tax collector. Back then, tax collecting was a little bit different than today. Today, when we think of tax collector, we think of the IRS. I imagine that when some of you think of the IRS you really don’t have fond imagery of the IRS. That is because the IRS tries to take away your money. As much as we don’t like the IRS today, they really didn’t like the tax collectors back then. The tax collectors really were in some sense considered thieves and in another sense actually considered traitors. Back in the first century, the Roman government actually had their hands in everybody’s pockets. They found their way to tax just about everything. They taxed animals, livestock, crops, imports, exports, any sales. Always finding ways to tax people so they could support the Roman Empire. Because the tax system was so large, the Roman government was forced to hire local tax representatives to farm out the job of collecting the taxes. This was a pretty good job. So much so that people would actually bid on the right to be a tax collector for the Roman government. The reason being is that not only would they collect the taxes for the Roman government. The tax collectors would be able to add on additional fees that they would be able to keep for themselves. Over time, some of these guys were really dishonest and they would tack on these enormous extra fees so they could line their pockets. Most of these tax collectors were pretty wealthy people. They weren’t liked the peasants because they were really considered thieves. They really weren’t liked by the Jews either because when the peasants were heavily taxed that meant more money was going to the Roman infrastructure and less money was going to maintain the Jewish temple. The Jewish people really didn’t like the tax collectors. Often times, these tax collectors were actually Jews by birth. The fact that these tax collectors were punching in the Roman clock, so to speak, they were considered traitors by the Jewish people. That is why we often see that tax collectors often get lumped in with sinners. Even though they are of Jewish birth, they are pretty much despicable in the eyes of the Jews. They are lumped in with the common sinner.