Mark 2:13-17 Eating with Sinners

Calling of Levi

Once again Jesus finds a very normal person and calls them to be part of His work

Levi is the last person that an self-respecting Israelite would choose for this job.

He’s a traitor serving the Romans. This is the guy taking taxes from his own people to pay to the Roman empire and the way he’s paid is by taking a little extra for himself.

Who Does Jesus Hang Out With

Sinners and tax collectors.

In this context, “sinners” probably refers to people who have to spend almost all their available time working hard to eek out a living and therefore don’t have time to spend doing all the religious traditions of the day, especially the oral traditions made up by the pharisees over time.

The pharisees judge them harshly. Not the kind of people you want to be seen with to keep up appearances.

Have you ever heard the phrase “can’t see the forest for the trees”

Who Needs Jesus?

The sick.

That’s us.

Good.

Romans 5:6–11 NET

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. (For rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person perhaps someone might possibly dare to die.)But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, because we have now been declared righteous by his blood, we will be saved through him from God’s wrath.For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, since we have been reconciled, will we be saved by his life? Not only this, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.

I’ve had so many conversations with people where they say something along the lines of “Oh, I’m too far gone for God to love me” or “I’ve done too many bad things or I’ve been on this road for too long” and it’s so sad because that is exactly where Jesus wants to meet us.

When we are down in the pit, Jesus doesn’t stand there with His arms crossed waiting for us to climb out to Him.

He doesn’t even reach a hand down to lift us out. Jesus gets down in the pit with us and boosts us up out of it.

2 Corinthians 5:21 “God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God.”

Jesus was breaking down a society that had people in groups of “good” and “bad” and instead put them all in a box that need His love.