Showcase For Saints Or Hospital For Sinners?

In most American churches today there is a pretty clear idea of what an ideal new member looks like; clean cut, socially graceful, money, nice clothing, married with kids. But, have you noticed, there are a whole lot of people out there who don’t fit that description? Maybe no one ever taught them nice manners. Is the church for them, too? Is the church for them, too?

In Jesus’ day people had their own ideas of who could go to church and who couldn’t. And everybody agreed that one type of people who did not belong in church was tax collectors.

In Jesus’ day, Israel was under military occupation by the Roman army. Where did the money they collected go? It supported the soldiers who made their life miserable!

We were in Boston about a month ago and walked the Freedom Trail to relive the events of our colonial period. One of the things that the British did that really irritated the Boston people was to fill the city with British troops. And there was friction between that occupying army and the citizens of Boston every day. That was one of the irritations that moved us to declare our independence from England.

And the Romans had a really nasty way of collecting taxes. They would sell the office of tax collector to someone, who basically paid the entire district’s taxes to the Romans up front. And then the tax collector was free to get back his investment by squeezing what he thought was a reasonable return from his neighbors. And what do you think the tax collectors decided was a fair return? Everything they could get. And the Romans soldiers were his enforcers.

In our Bible text this morning we meet a tax collector, named Levi. He was an employee of one of those big shots. The word used to describe him is somebody who sits beside the road on a trade route as it crosses a border from one jurisdiction to another. He collected customs tax. And he goes through everybody’s bags and decides how much they should pay. If you think it’s frustrating to go through our security checks at the airport these days, multiply that irritation by 20. They were notorious for taking bribes, letting their friends get off easy and really sticking it to people who they didn’t like. They were collaborators with the enemy. They were bullies. They were greedy cheats. They were crooks. Everybody hated them.

And Jesus invited Levi the tax collector to church. He even invited him to be one of his disciples, in training to become a leader in the church. And Levi took him up on it. He jumped at the chance. Maybe Levi was realizing that making all that money wasn’t worth it. Maybe it had been a long time since anyone had really spoken to him as a person. Maybe he just hadn’t been able to find hope for a new life anywhere else. Maybe he had been listening to Jesus in the back of the crowds for some time.

And the Pharisees thought it was terrible.

So in our text we see two views of the church. The Pharisees saw it as a showcase for saints. They would work very hard to be better than anyone else. They would stay far away from anyone who might leave smudgy fingerprints on the glass in their display case. And that impressed some people. They seemed impressed with themselves.