Sermon Tone Analysis

Turn to Luke 5. I found out last week that a friend of mine is preaching through Luke’s gospel as well though he is preaching his on Sunday mornings.

He is about two weeks in front of us.

He started chapter 6 this past Sunday morning and we are finishing chapter 5. Let’s read the passage and then go back over it.

27 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, 28 and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.

29 Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them.

30 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?” 31 Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.

32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

33 They said to him, “John’s disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.”

34 Jesus answered, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them?

35 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.”

36 He told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one.

Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old.

37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins.

Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined.

38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.

39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’”

(Luke 5:27-39)

Luke tells us that this took place after the events we read about last week.

In those verses we saw Jesus teaching in someone’s house, perhaps it was Peter’s, when he was interrupted by four men digging a hole in the ceiling above him.

The four men had carried a paralyzed friend to Jesus to be healed.

When they realized that the crowds were so large they would be unable to get the man to Jesus, they carried him up onto the roof of the house where Jesus was teaching and making a hole in the roof, they lowered the man down to Jesus.

Jesus then told the man that his sins had been forgiven.

The religious were taken aback.

Who did Jesus think he was?

Only God can forgive sins.

I think this is the point Jesus was trying to make because he then said that in order to prove he had the ability to forgive the man’s sins that he would also heal him.

Luke tells us that the people were filled with awe and talked about the amazing things they had just seen.

After this, Jesus went out and seeing Levi sitting at his tax booth invited him to become a disciple.

“Come,” Jesus said, “and follow me.”

Levi was his Jewish name.

It’s the name his parents gave him.

The name suggests some things about him.

First, it suggests that he was from the tribe of Levi.

Remember, the Levites had been selected by God to be the priests for the nation.

Was this the dream of Levi’s parents?

If so their dreams went unrealized.

Levi decided to become a tax collector.

Today, we know Levi better as Matthew.

While none of the gospels tell us this, some believe Jesus gave him the name Matthew which means “gift of Yahweh.”

Who but Jesus would consider a tax collector to be a gift from God? Everyone else cursed when they saw him but Jesus saw the potential in him and invited him to become a disciple.

We’re told that Matthew immediately responded.

He got up and began to follow, leaving everything behind.

When we read that Matthew left everything it means something different than when we read about Peter, Andrew, James, and John leaving everything in verse 11 so they could follow Jesus.

They left their boats but were able to come back to them.

In a few chapters we’ll read about Jesus getting into a boat with his disciples, whose boat was it?

In John 21, Peter, wondering what he should do, went fishing in his boat.

They left but they had the ability to return.

When Matthew left his tax booth it was for good.

There was no returning and taking his job back up.

Too, tax collecting was lucrative job that paid well.

Tax collectors were often the wealthiest people in the community.

It’s one of the reasons they were so hated.

A heard a preacher, talk about visiting Israel.

As they traveling the countryside their tour guide pointed to what he called the Wailing Wall.

Knowing that the Wailing Wall is in Jerusalem the preacher asked what he meant.

The tour guide clarified his statement saying that it was the tax office.

No one enjoys paying taxes and the Jews despised it because the taxes went to pay for the Roman government.

As a result, they hated the tax collectors.

They considered the tax collectors to be traitors because they were helping this foreign power.

They also considered the tax collectors to be thieves because that is in fact what they were.

The Roman government dictated how much revenue they wanted from a certain region.

It was then up to the tax collector to collect it.

If he was able to collect anything above what the government required he was allowed to keep it.

The system encouraged overcharging and there was nothing the people could do about it.

Really, the tax system wasn’t that bad though.

If our income tax was as low as that of the Roman government we’d all rejoice.

The Roman income tax was only 1%.

That doesn’t sound too bad.

The problem was that wasn’t the only tax.

There was also a poll tax or imperial.

Every adult noncitizen had to pay the tax.

You paid this tax for the privilege of living in the Roman Empire.

Then there was the agriculture tax of 10% on any crop you grew.

You were allowed to give them 10% of the crop or you could sell the crop and give them the money.

There was a 20% tax on oil and wine.

Then there were shipping and toll taxes.

At every major intersection you had to pay a tax for using the road system and you were taxed for whatever you were carrying.

And the taxes continued.

So you can see why the tax collectors were among the wealthiest in the community, the most crooked in the community, and among the most hated in the community.

And this is who Jesus invited to become a disciple.

He was not the person most would have invited.

It would just be assumed that Matthew would have no interest.

But Matthew was interested.

He got up from his table, left everything behind to follow Jesus and never looked back.

Matthew then held a banquet for Jesus and the other disciples.

Matthew naturally invited his friends who would have been other tax collectors.

Luke says he invited tax collectors and some others.

The religious leaders will define the others as “sinners.”

Matthew wanted his friends to meet Jesus too.

It’s a great lesson in evangelism.

We are most effective at leading to Jesus those we already know.

It was a good thing and Jesus was pleased to attend.

As one commentator explained:

We cannot call people to repentance if we are never with them.

We cannot reach sinners without going where sinners are.

They are not likely to come where we are.

They find our parties boring.

They find our fun boring.

That’s okay.