A Supper for Sinners
Text: Mark 2:13-17.
Introduction: Have you ever been to some social function, perhaps a wedding reception or anniversary meal or something of that nature where all the guests don’t quite click? Many years ago I was officiating alongside another Pastor at a wedding in Dublin. It was an unusual gathering of guests. On the one side were the few members of the groom’s family who were arty types, and on the other the brides family, a huge clan who resembled the Mafioso, albeit they turned out to be very nice people indeed. I remember as someone was singing, or there was some kind of interlude in proceedings that the other pastor, who was quite a posh type, leaned over and asked, “Are you going to the reception?” “Yes,” I replied. “Rather you, than me,” he said. Well the reception turned out to be a very nice affair and all the people concerned were a pleasure to be around.
But we have all been at functions where some people don’t seem to fit. Maybe there has been a divorce and a former spouse is there with their new family, or there has been a falling out and there is awkward conversation. Perhaps, a young couple is tying the knot and she is from a rather well-to-do home, but he is considered to be from the wrong side of town, and the two families just don’t mingle well.
In our text this evening we come to a similar such occasion. I have labeled it a “Supper for Sinners”, for that is what it is. It’s the occasion when Matthew (or Levi) as he is called here, determines to introduce his friends and colleagues to Christ by means of a meal. We might call this a “pre-mission event.”
Let us begin then by considering:
I. A Conversion – vss 13-14
A. You will recall from our previous studies that Jesus was living and ministering in Capernaum, a town in Northern Israel that was situated along the banks of Galilee.
1. This was also home to Levi (indeed it was home to many publicans or tax collectors).
2. You see, outside of Jerusalem, Capernaum was the second most important town in Israel for raising revenue.
a. It was a border town between two tetrarchies, on the main route north from Jerusalem, and it had a healthy port life with many ships docking at the city harbour.
b. Consequently it was ideally placed as a customs post, thus we find Matthew at the receipt of custom – effectively he was a customs officer.
c. Of course taxation and customs duty was regulated a little differently than in our day.
d. Today a civil servant working for the Inland Revenue receives a set wage, regardless of how much tax his work raises, but in Bible times the Romans set a certain quota, and anything over that limit went to the tax collector.
e. Naturally tax collectors then were highly motivated to exact the last possible penny from the working population, and oft times they would be guilty of excess, overstating the necessary payment and pocketing the difference.
f. They were Jews, Israelites, but they were serving Imperial Rome and pocketing a handsome reward for it.
g. They were considered swindlers, cheats, extortionists and traitors.
h. Indeed, such was the antipathy towards them that their tithe was not accepted in the synagogues, being considered as dirty money, and their testimony was not admissible in a religious court.
B. So this was the situation Matthew was in, he was an outcast in his own country.
1. Not only that, but he may well have been a disappointment to his own family.
2. You see his name is Levi, and many of the Levites went on to become the nation’s lawyers.
3. In all likelihood this was the expectation on young Matthew’s shoulders, his father Alphaeus probably looked to him to become one of the legal guardians of the land and its heritage, but no, Matthew instead followed after money, and that at any cost.
4. So he was more than likely a let down to those who loved him most.
C. This was the man Jesus encountered as he ministered at the banks of Galilee.
1. Now understand, Jesus has been busy in this area, he has been preaching and teaching there and healing in that place.
2. He was a celebrity in the region, and undoubtedly Matthew knew of Him, had heard of Him and possibly even had heard Him preach or witnessed his miracles.
3. So, when the Lord happened by Matthews’ post that day, the tax collector was not totally unacquainted with Him, and when Jesus said “Follow me,” there was something in Christ and something within Matthew that made it so he wanted to follow him.
4. He wanted to leave behind this nasty business of his, he was weary of it, he had had enough, he was looking for something better, something richer, something deeper, and so “He arose and followed Him.”
a. Luke puts it this way, “He left all, rose up, and followed him.”
b. Perhaps more than any other disciple he left all.
(i) There would be no going back, his seat at the table of custom would now grow cold whilst awaiting another to fill it. No, he would soon be replaced.
(ii) Peter and John could go back to fishing, but there was no going back to Matthew.
(iii) Out of all the disciples he had the most, in material terms, to loose.
c. So Jesus found this man, an outcast to his people, a disappointment to his father, and He took Him in, and Matthew gave Himself to Christ without reserve.
(i) What about you tonight?
II. A Celebration – vs 15.
A. Now here is an interesting dinner party.
1. Tax collectors and sinners (other elements of society’s lower strata) on the one hand, and the taxed, Peter and John among them, on the other hand.
2. And mingling among them, spying out this new prophet the Pharisees, and Jesus in the middle.
3. What a get together!!
B. This supper was being held in Matthew’s house – and it would seem that he was a wealthy man, who would have owned a larger than average home, and who was used to giving such dinner parties.
1. We can almost see in our minds eye the suspicions of the other disciples, a bit wary of this new guy, and the disgust of the Pharisees as they rubbed shoulders with those they deemed the scum of the earth, and the raucous laughter of some of Matthews more uncouth and worldly guests.
2. It was quite something, and Mark emphasises that this was a supper for sinners, it was a meal at which Jesus was guest of honour but the majority of guests were publicans (tax collectors) and sinners.
3. It is interesting the people Jesus attracts:
a. In my time in ministry the Lord has allowed me to rub shoulders with some people that, perhaps, I might never have otherwise met, and what a colourful gathering they make.
b. Some were murderers, some thieves, some homosexuals, some adulterers, some fornicators, some blackmailers, some had had abortions, some terrorists, some gun runners, some gamblers, some drunkards, some drug addicts, all sorts.
c. Where did you meet these people? I met them in church!!
d. Paul said much the same thing, “Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you…” (1Cor 6:9-11)
d. The murder I spoke of is a Christian youth worker today, the blackmailer a police officer now, the one who had an abortion is married to a minister, the thief also a pastor’s wife, just two weeks ago we all met a drunkard who is now a missionary, and we support another who was himself a heroin addict but now reaches out to addicts and I could go on.
e. I will tell you what, that verse that reads, “as Jesus sat at meat in his house, many publicans and sinners sat also together with Jesus and his disciples” sounds almost like the Lord’s supper to me!!
f. What a glorious truth it is that we serve a sinner loving God. But some do not like that, and some have trouble with it, and some look at a gathering like that and they question that such people could now be Christians at all!
g. Something’s never change.
III. A Consternation – vss 16-17.
A. We saw last Sunday evening how the scribes were present in Peter’s house, having come some distance to report on events in Capernaum, now we see the Pharisees are present in Matthew’s house observing this new preacher.
1. The scribes were the custodians of the text of Scripture whereas the Pharisees were custodians of the traditions of Scripture. Either way, their presence is telling, for it shows that from the earliest days of his ministry Jesus was a threat to the religious establishment in the land.
2. Earlier in this chapter we find the scribes mentally debating as to the authority of Christ to forgive, now we find the Pharisees audibly complaining about the company Jesus chooses to keep.
3. There was no way they could question the power of his message, nor indeed the reality of his miracles, but here they raise a question about the character of His morality.
4. Surely the Messiah would not keep company with publicans and sinners?
a. We would be surprised at some of the people God keeps company with.
B. Now that there was a clear social divide in this gathering is evident by what happens next, the Pharisees approach Jesus’ disciples and ask, “How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners?”
1. You see how difficult this gathering was? The disciples were not socialising with those around them, each group had retreated to the safety of its own social stronghold.
2. Any conversation between tax collectors and the taxed was strained, shallow, polite but forced, and so the Pharisees were enabled to approach the disciples as a group with their question, but before they could answer, and undoubtedly say something they shouldn’t, the Lord who hears all, even in the hub bub of a dinner party spoke up:
3. “They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
C. Now he was in no way inferring that the Pharisees were righteous people, though they certainly thought of themselves as such, but he was making a point about the sinful.
1. He was saying it is not good people who need a Saviour, but bad.
2. Now the Pharisees thought of themselves as good people, and in many ways, humanly speaking, they were, but they did not see themselves as God saw them.
3. Illus: I was interested to read a comment by the golfer Tiger Woods this week.
a. As we all know Tiger Woods had a spectacular fall from grace, so to speak. One minute he was this squeaky clean, highly paid sports star, the toast of the golfing world and the next it was revealed he was a serial adulterer, who sponsors no linger wanted to know and a laughing stock all over the world.
b. This week in his first interview since that scandal broke he said this, “I was living a lie, I really was. And I was doing a lot of things that hurt a lot of people. And stripping away denial and rationalisation, you start coming to the truth of who you really are and that can be very ugly.”
c. Tiger Woods is a Buddhist, not a Christian, but what he said here is very true. A lot of folks are in denial about their true condition – they think of themselves as good as, and often even better than, others. Certainly the Pharisees thought that, and I trend to think there is a little bit of Pharisee in all of us.
d. But once we stop justifying ourselves, and stop rationalising our sins as things we do “just because that’s the way I am,” or because “that’s the way God made me,” or whatever, and strip away the pretence and the hypocrisy we come to an ugly truth, that deep down inside every one of us is a carefully concealed individual who is self seeking, totally depraved and deeply sinful.
D. The difference between the Pharisees and the publicans was the publicans could see that and the Pharisees could not.
1. You see, no one is too bad to be saved, but some consider themselves too good to be saved, and heaven is going to be peopled by a lot of bad people saved by the grace of God, and hell full of good people who were too proud to admit their need of Christ.
Conclusion: Maybe you are here tonight, and you feel like you are an outcast, maybe even a disappointment, and you have done some things you are ashamed of. Maybe you feel like there is little or no hope for you, that you are destined to stay as you are, that nothing ever changes. Well, I am here tonight to tell you that Jesus loves you and that he came to call sinners to repentance, that He does business with people just like you. You could be saved tonight, if you would but call upon the Lord. That is His business. He is in the sinner saving business, and someday in the future the Lord Jesus will host a supper for sinners, which is referred to as the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, and you could be there, you are invited to come. But you must turn from sin and trust Him.
Maybe you are here tonight and you think of yourself as a pretty good person, and maybe you are, compared to others or me, but you are not good enough. The Psalmists says, “The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” (Psa 14:2-3). In God’s sight we are all sinners in need of a Saviour. Only when we strip away the outer veneer of respectability and self-righteousness are we able to see that, and come to Him.
