Where do you turn to find wisdom today? We now have access to incredible amounts of information, but how do you sort out what is important? We have the technology to do so many things, but how do we decide which of those things are worth doing? We can travel very fast, but as we race through life, how do we know if we are going in the right direction? We have more things than any generation before us, but has it all made us happier or more useful or better people? We are charting the human genome, figuring out many of the processes that go on in the human brain, but how much do we really understand about what it means to be created in the image of God? Where do you find wisdom today? How do we know what to do with all the possibilities before us?
In our skit the confirmands went to listen to the proverbial wise man in the Himalayan Mountains. I can tell you about that, I’ve been there. We lived in Nepal for two years, in the Kathmandu Valley in the Himalayas. I used to visit at a Buddhist training center on the edge of the valley. They twice asked me to speak to their students about Christianity. We had some of the monks over for supper. We had great discussions. It raised some questions for me that I had never thought of before. But I came away more convinced than ever that Jesus Christ is head and shoulders above Buddha as a source of truth and wisdom. Buddha was a man of incredible dedication and insight. He worked out a system for coping with the suffering of the world, and it helps in coping with suffering. But Buddha didn’t claim to know real truth. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” And I believe him.
Log on to the Internet and you can find many millions of bits of information and every crank idea under the sun. But where can you see wisdom that is integrated, a system that you can live with where the different ideas fit together? Where can you actually see it lived out? Not on the Internet.
I look to Jesus Christ as the source of wisdom for life. And he invites every one of us, our confirmands and every worshipper here to follow him, to be his disciple, to learn from him.
That’s our number one goal here, to work together to become faithful disciples of Jesus, to help as many people as possible to know Jesus personally and live like he did. Confirmation is a big part of that.
Our text for this morning is Luke 5:27-32. “After this, he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, `Follow me.' And he got up, left everything and followed him.
Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house; and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and sitting at the table with them. The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, `Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and `sinners'?' Jesus answered, `Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.'"
Imagine with me two 1st century Jewish rabbis having an argument about who was better at training his students, his disciples. The argument might end with a challenge. Let one of them put together a list of the hardest people to teach about the things of God and then let the other one prove his skill by molding people from this list of most difficult people.
Tax collectors would have made any top ten list of the hardest people to teach about godliness. Levi’s boss would have paid the Romans all the taxes they had assessed for the district in advance, out of his pocket. They had their money and didn’t care much how he reimbursed himself. He and his employees were pretty free to collect any taxes they wanted on anything they wanted to tax, and what they could get went into their own pockets. And did they ever take advantage of that! They charged taxes on things like walking on the roads, how many axles on your wagon, and admission to markets for shopping, crossing bridges, buying imports or selling exports. There were taxes everywhere. And each agent had a lot of power to decide how much you should pay. The system just begged to be abused.
According to Jewish laws tax collectors were not allowed to give testimony in court, because it was just assumed they were liars. We actually have a comment written by one rabbi that it was especially hard for a tax collector to come to repentance before God.
When we talk about the great educational institutions of our county, we might put the Ivy League schools at the top of the list. But think about it. They take in only the best students, who have been very successful in high school and have reference letters talking about their success in other pursuits, like sports or music, as well. They have huge budgets available with money for everything. Students are with them for four years. Then they send them out into the world with the high prestige of an Ivy League diploma and a network of fellow alumni who will give them extra help. Is it any wonder that they turn out successful? Is that the test of a great educational institution?
Jesus took men like Levi, a despised and crooked tax collector, Peter, a head strong, peasant fishermen, and Simon the Zealot, a violent revolutionary, none of them successful, and with no money, no buildings, no textbooks, and in just three years, he equipped them to turn the world upside down. Now that is a skilled teacher! That’s someone that every one of us can learn from.
Jesus speaks this call, “Follow me,” to everyone who will listen. He has different plans for different persons, but he calls us all.
I want us all to hear today that Jesus, the master disciple maker, can take anyone who will follow him, and mold that person into something special. Nobody starts too low for him. Nobody is too untalented for him, too young or too old, too ignorant or too educated. It doesn’t mater what other people think of you or even what you think of yourself. You can start at any point on the journey of following Jesus today and he will move you forward right from where you are.
And how does Jesus teach his disciples? He often spoke broad, general messages to the large crowds. But for those who would be disciples, he worked with them individually a great deal. He looked deep inside of them and spoke to the personal things in their hearts. He answered their individual questions. When they were wrong, he challenged them. He pushed them into situations where they would be forced to grow.
How much we need that personal mentoring today. Our public school system has so much information to communicate in order to function in the economy and the classes are so large that the teachers who really want to invest in their children are limited in what they can do. But Jesus has no limits. The core of his teachings is written down for us so that any one of us can sit at his feet and feed ourselves on his teachings every day of our lives. His Spirit is here to guide us to those parts of the Bible that we need today, to open our eyes to see how they apply to us, personally, every day, on the most important issues of life. What can I do with my deepest fears and shame? How can I dare to believe that I can make any difference in this world? How can I break free of the personal habits that pull me down? Who am I? Is it really safe to be joyful in this world, or is hope a sham? Jesus speaks to us at the points of our deepest needs.
One of the things I most appreciate about him is that I trust that he knows me better than I know myself. He knows what I can do better than I know myself. He knows how to care for me better than I know how to care for myself. He knows what is good for me better than I do.
You can start on the path of following Jesus at any point and he’ll move you forward. And he will be your personal guide along the way.
And Jesus paves the way for following him by personally sharing himself with us. He told Levi, “Follow me.” He didn’t say to follow rules or institutions. We follow Jesus and all valid Christian rules and institutions flow out of following Jesus. They only find their life in following Jesus.
We believe that God gave us this wonderful gift of what theologians call the incarnation. God didn’t just give us instructions or commands. He came himself. You don’t have to be a great intellectual or highly talented to be a follower of Jesus, although he will put every talent you have to good use. All we have to do is play follow the leader. Be like Jesus. Do what he did. Learn to think with his mind. Learn to see the world through his eyes, to love the things that he loves and hate the things that he hates.
I suspect some folks get frustrated that I spend a lot of time in some sermons giving the background of Bible passages and what Jesus was going through. For me that is not just historical information. That information is life. It helps us to know Jesus and to understand him. He is “the way, the truth and the life.”
He shows us what to do when we face difficult situations. He shows us God’s antidote to conflict due to ambitions and inflated egos. He shows us the source of joy for daily life. He shows us how to get recharged when our energy is drained. He shows us what one human can accomplish who is open and obedient to God.
I don’t know how many times I’ve been stuck with computer problems. Having help screens that are supposed to explain it all usually isn’t that much help for me. But I get my sons and they listen to my questions and they show me how to do it. And then it comes clear.
Well Levi received this invitation to become a follower of Jesus. My guess is that he had heard Jesus teaching before. This wasn’t their first encounter. And he understood what a gift it is to be invited to come under the hand of the master teacher. And our text tells us he left everything and followed Jesus.
And what became of him? Here Luke calls Levi by his Hebrew name. In other places we know him by his Greek name, Matthew, one of the inner twelve disciples. An early church tradition says that he was the one who wrote out the Gospel of Matthew, although there is no name on the earliest copies. If may very well that this despised tax collector in a very few short years was used by God as author of one of the four gospels that tell us about Jesus.
What can Jesus do with us when we answer his call? Our goal is to follow him. He shows us how to live. He doesn’t just tell us. He shows us how to live.
There is a wonderful chorus. If I had the music and copyright permission, I’d have us sing it. But let me just read the words for you. They are very simple.
To be like Jesus. To be like Jesus.
All I ask, to be like him.
All through life’s journey, from earth to glory,
All I ask, to be like him.
Amen
