The Undesirable

Mark 2:13–17 ESV

13 He went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them. 14 And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him. 15 And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 17 And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Have you ever had something that you did not want? It could be a sickness, it could be a house. Have you ever had a car that was not the one that you really wanted? Maybe it was a neighbor. We have all probably had the neighbor that just wasn’t the best. There is a word for things that you do not want to have or want to associate with. Undesirable.

I can remember growing up, when we would play sports at school and would be choosing teams, that I knew that I would be one of the last ones chosen. We just had one of the greatest displays of sports in our nation with the super bowl. One of the quarterbacks that was playing was deemed “Mr. Irrelevant”. This title goes every year to the player that gets drafted very last. The title deems them to basically be undesirable.

But each and every one of us not only can think of things that we would deem undesirable, but we too have at some point felt undesirable. Maybe it was with playing sports in school, maybe it had to do with dating someone, maybe it was while you were going through a divorce, maybe it has been with parents. This is not some foreign concept to us.

Maybe you have felt undesired by God. I want to assure you that this is not something that is true. This is a lie that Satan wants us to believe. In fact, God desires you so much that he sent Jesus to the cross in your place so that you would be accepted by him. I don’t know about you, but aside from God, no one has ever desired a relationship with me so much that they were willing to sacrifice someone else to have it. We will get into more detail with that in a little bit.

In our passage today, we deal with people who, to society, are undesirable.

In our time together this morning, I want you to see that Jesus shows us 3 different things in this passage that he does with the undesirable. But if you can remember one thing about this sermon, remember that we should not shy away from the undesirable because that is who Jesus came to save.

Jesus Calls the Undesirable

Mark 2:13 ESV

13 He went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them.

Once again, Jesus goes out by the sea. This is where he called his first disciples. And now, a crowd was following him. There was a group that would just follow him everywhere he went. Growing up, I always thought that since the bible talked about Jesus’ 12 disciples, that he really didn’t have other people that would follow him. As I got older, and read the bible, I saw that Jesus had a lot of people that followed him around. As we have seen in recent texts in the book of Mark, there were many that followed him to see the miracles that he did. But, right in this moment, he was not preforming any miracles, but he was doing what he came to do.

Jesus was teaching. This was the primary ministry of Jesus, to teach God’s word. This was the common thing for Jesus to do. Last we saw him, he was in the house teaching to a room full of people. Now, he has moved from the confines of the house and is out in the open teaching to a crowd that we should rightly assume has grown. We should think that because after the man who was healed from being paralyzed left, people would have seen him walking around and heard who it was that healed him. And it was Jesus. If it were us today, and our friend was paralyzed and was healed, and he said that this man healed him from it, we would want to go and hear what this guy was saying.

So he is going down the seaside and he is teaching. Verse 14

Mark 2:14 ESV

14 And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him.

He is going down the shoreline and comes to this tax booth. For us to really understand who Levi is as a person, I want us to dive into what a tax collector in this day was. The Romans would collect taxes through a system that was called “tax farming”. This is a lot like a franchisee buying into a franchise of a restaurant. The Romans would assess an area to figure up a tax figure and then they would sell the right to collect taxes to the highest bidder. The collector would pay the Romans the assessed figure at the end of the year, and anything extra, would be theirs to keep. There were two types categories of taxes that would be collected.

Stated taxes

poll tax on men ages 14-65 and women 12-65 just for being alive

ground tax on 1/10 of all grain and 1/5 of win and oil. In some areas, there was also taxes on fish. This is likely why the both was on the shoreline.

Then an income tax which was 1 percent of someones annual income

Separate taxes

rock use

harbor dock use

sales tax

import and export

cart tax (tax on each wheel actually)

Sounds a lot like the system we operate in today. Because of what they did to their own people, the Jewish tax collectors were the most hated people. They were stealing from their own people to give it to the enemy. They were traitors.

So, when Jesus stopped to talk to this man who was collecting taxes, how do you think the people felt? But not only did he talk to him, he makes a pronouncement to him. “Follow me”. Now, if you have been with us as we have been going through the book of Mark, this should sound familiar. In Mark 1:17 when Jesus came to the fishermen, this is the same call that he gave them. To follow him. What did it mean for this man to follow Jesus? What were the implications on his life.

The book of Mark and the book of Luke both give this man the name Levi. But you would know him as Matthew, which is addressed in the book of Matthew when that was the name given instead of Levi. So, we know that him following Jesus would lead to him writing one of the gospel accounts, but what else did it mean. One of the big implications was that the life that he knew, was now gone. He would no longer be able to corruptly collect taxes from the Jewish people.

This is something that most of us would not understand today. Because he is following Jesus, he has no life anymore. He is leaving his old life behind to follow this man. And he is giving up his very lucrative job. All to follow a man. But this man offered something that the things of this world would never satisfy.

This comes back to what Jesus was preaching. Levi would not have been a stranger of what Jesus was teaching. He would likely had been there the day that he called his first 4 disciples and heard what he was saying then. He would have heard the stories of what Jesus was doing. He would have heard about demons coming out of people, of sick people being healed, and of a paralyzed man walking. All of this because of their encounter with Jesus. He would have known about his teaching and preaching of the word of God. He would have know that Jesus’s call was to repent and believe.

And this is his response to Jesus’s call. He followed Jesus and left his old life behind. This should be our response when we hear the gospel as well. Because I mentioned the gospel, I want to share with you what the gospel is. (gospel presentation)

His response, and our response as well, is to turn from what this world has to offer and turn to Jesus. And believe that he is our Lord and savior. Maybe you feel undesirable. Maybe you have just heard the gospel and you feel that call that God is giving to you to come to him. Today is the day of salvation. Do as Levi has done and leave the old life behind and follow Jesus.

Jesus Dines with the Undesirable

Mark 2:15 ESV

15 And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.

The setting has now changed. They are in Levi’s house and it says that Jesus is reclined at the table. I want us to really think about the table of our homes. Growing up, the kitchen table was where we gathered as a family nearly every evening and shared a meal. This is where we really got to know each other. When you are at the table with others, this is where you learn about each other. This is where we get to know each others struggles, where we can encourage each other. This is where council is given. When we invite others to our tables, we are opening our lives to them.

I truly believe that the church in the future will be built around the table. In the culture that we are in today, people do not just walk into a church to see what is happening. We have had numerous people move into our neighborhood here in the last 2 years and none of them have just stumbled into the church. I would argue that most of us are here today because we knew someone here and that is why we came. In the future, I believe that the table will be the front door to the church. The way the church is going to grow is when we open our tables to the undesirable. You have heard me say that our mission as a church is to build the kingdom and impact our community. And that to do that, we need to see people know, grow, and go. When we invite the undesirable to our tables, we are opening the door for them to know. For them to know who Jesus is and what he has done for us. But even more than that, to know that the love of Christ lives in us and we are showing it to them.

How do we do this? I am not the best at it either. For me to do this, and maybe you too, the first think I need to do is clean off my dining table. This is not metaphorical, this is literal. Our table is the catch all when we come in the door of the house. As long as our tables are cluttered, we will not want to invite anyone to sit at it. Who do we start with. Each of us have neighbors. Invite your neighbor to share a meal. Invite a co-worker to share a meal. Invite an unbelieving family member over. But when we share meals, we need to take the time to get to know who we are sharing a meal with. When we are able to hear the stories of others, we can understand their struggles. And when we have empathy for others, we look for opportunities to share the gospel. Be like Jesus, share the table with the undesirable. And share the gospel with them.

So Jesus had the tax collectors and sinner sitting at the table with him. This was a celebration. What were they celebrating? Levi becoming a Christian. He began to follow Jesus, so he is throwing a party at his house to celebrate. What a better thing to celebrate. And Levi invited all of his friends over to this party. All of his colleagues and sinner friends were there.

Think about a church celebrating someone getting baptized. I know of some churches that when someone is getting baptized, you better not make a sound. This is the greatest celebration. We should be hooping and hollering, screaming and shouting when someone is celebrating their life change through baptism. We should have a building full of tax collectors and sinners when we are celebrating someone being brought from death to life. But with the rise of a cultural type of Christianity, we want a church that is void of the undesirable even walking in. In most churches, the undesirable walk in and we want to give them a side eye. James warns us against that.

James 2:1–5 “1 My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. 2 For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, 3 and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” 4 have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?”

This reminds me of the story of William Booth. In the mid 1800’s William Booth was attending a church service. As the pastor sat in his very plush chair, the doors of the church swung open and in came a group of men and women while being stared at by the congregation full of wealthy people. The pastor noticed that Booth began to usher in the crowd of raggedy dressed people into the very best seats in the church. This was not normal because if the poor decided to attend church, they would have been segregated into benches that did not have backs or cushions. William Booth would end up being expelled by the Methodist church and 14 years later, would found the Salvation Army.

We should not stand for this happening in a church. We should be like Levi and bring our undesirable friends to Jesus. It says at the end of this verse that many people were following him. I want to be someone who increases the size of the kingdom. Build the kingdom. Let us build the kingdom around our dining tables. Let us open up our doors to those who would not darken the door of the church. Let us be like Jesus and dine with the undesirable.

Jesus Came for the Undesirable

Mark 2:16–17 ESV

16 And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 17 And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

“Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” If you adopt the lifestyle of Jesus, the lifestyle where you are associating with tax collectors and sinners, then you will be judged. You will be judged most greatly by the religious elite. We see that even in Jesus ministry. The ones who were questioning Jesus’s associations. The same ones will question them today. The world is not going to hate you for inviting the undesirable into your life. It will be the professing Christians. And that is something that I don’t know if many of us are ready to endure. The ones who have been our brothers and sisters, who we possibly had been in church families with, will not approve of our associations to the undesirable. But don’t lose heart. Jesus gives us an encouragement in his response.

Jesus tells them that he did not come to save the righteous, but the sinners. He equates this to a doctor. Doctors do not treat people who are healthy. They don’t need a doctor. Doctors treat people who are sick. You don’t make a doctors appointment, go into the doctor, and when he asks what brings you in today and say, “Well, doc, I have been feeling really good. My weight is down, my blood sugar is good, my blood pressure has come down, and none of my joints are hurting. So I figured I would come in and see you.” This is not what a doctor is for. A doctor is for the sick.

The same with Jesus. He didn’t come for the righteous. This is not something that we need to overthink but there is something that is underlying here. Jesus is not contradicting scripture. Romans 3:10 tells us that no one is righteous. So if we take Jesus’s words literally, of course he didn’t come for the righteous because there isn’t any. But that isn’t what Jesus was saying. He is speaking to the religious elite. The ones who saw themselves as righteous. They just stuck their noses up at Jesus for hanging out with the sinners. He is answering these people by telling them that their opinion didn’t matter because they weren’t the ones that he came to save.

This is hard words for someone to hear. This is rejection like we talked about earlier. But this rejection would not effect them. Because they were accepted by the ones they wanted to be accepted by. This rejection from Jesus did not bother them. Just the same, when people reject you because you are opening up your life to the undesirable, don’t let their rejection get you down. Because you have the love of God in your heart and you are showing it to them. Let your actions speak louder than words. Don’t talk about it, be about it.

Jesus came for the undesirable. Jesus came not for the righteous but for the sinners. If you feel undesirable, I want to assure you that Jesus came for you. Do not think that you being undesirable will keep Jesus from you. We have seen in our passage today that Jesus came for the worst of the worst.

Jesus, what a friend for sinners.

Conclusion

This passage today is very convicting but it is also very encouraging. It is convicting because it gives us a template of how we are to treat the undesirable. We are to love them and be willing to sit at the table with them. But it is also an encouragement because in it, the pressure to see people come to Jesus is taken off of us. Jesus is the one who calls Levi and tells him to follow him. Jesus makes sure to tell the scribe that he is the one who has come to call the sinners to him. This is not our duty. It is our duty to love and to share the gospel.

For the believer, here is my simple challenge for you. Open up your table to someone to share a meal with.

For the unbeliever, repent and believe. Turn from your sin and turn towards Jesus. Believe that he came and live the perfect life in your place, died in your place, and then rose from the grave. Believe that Jesus came to save you.

Jesus! what a Friend for sinners! Jesus! lover of my soul; friends may fail me, foes assail me, he, my Savior, makes me whole.

Hallelujah! what a Savior! Hallelujah, what a Friend! Saving, helping, keeping, loving, he is with me to the end.