A Call to Change

How many of you took the same route to church this morning that you used last week?

How many of you intentionally choose an alternate route just because it was different?

Frequently when I take Mrs. Ann on a date (because I am a hopeless romantic who prioritizes our relationship), I may defer to her and ask what she is hungry for. Most guys have received the, “I don’t care, you pick” But we know if we pick our favorite wing joint or burger grill, she won’t be happy. Mrs. Ann’s most common response is, “something different”.

I, on the other hand, am a creature who enjoys the familiar. I know what I like and hesitate to change, even if there is a good reason. Ann knows where I like to go and what I like to order.

While I am predictable, that also poses a potential problem. As we will find in today’s scripture, routines can become ruts and, as my friend Ron tweeted yesterday, “patterns become prisons.” Today we will encounter 3 who needed to be open to change.

A Change of Career (vv.27-28)

Identity (v.27)

1. Often identity is connected to our job, especially for men.

“Who are you?” is asked in many social situation to inquire on a person’s legitimacy to be present based upon their performance.

I’ve found myself in meeting halls with a flourish of activity and have been asked, “who are you”? in that situation my name is rarely an adequate answer. I am not being asked to describe my role within my family, I am being asked “what are you here to do”? In this situation there are many acceptable answers, I am the caterer, I am the floris, I am the photographer, I am the DJ, I am with the band, I am from the rental company.

2. Levi (also named Matthew in MT 9:9) is the disciple formerly employed as a tax collector. Why does Luke identify Levi in this way? Are there any other ways Luke could have identified him? The son of…, brother of …

3. Being a tax collector attached many assumptions upon his character, his loyalties, his wealth, and his priorities.

3 Tax Collectors in Scripture

1. Levi/Matthew – Used his wealth throw a feast for Jesus and to encourage others to follow Jesus

2. The Praying Tax Collector (Lk 18:10-13) – humbly prayed for mercy and was justified.

3. Zacchaeus (Luke 19:2) – 50% charity donation then 4x restitution

Leaving everything (v.28)

1. Perhaps the best description of the social status of a Tax collector can be found in Mt 18:17.

Matthew 18:17 ESV:2016

17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

a. This section on church discipline only appears in this Gospel

b. This Gospel is written from the perspective of a former tax collector who is now obsessed with God’s kingdom.

c. The worst penalty for an unrepentant brother is to be treated “as a Gentile and a tax collector”:

i. Those ignorant of God’s kingdom

ii. Those who betray God’s kingdom

2. We saw this same phrase in 5:11 as the fishermen followed Jesus.

a. For the fishermen, leave everything meant a new mission; For Matthew/Levi, leave everything meant a new master.

b. For Peter and his partners, leave everything meant a new business; for Levi, leave everything meant a new boss.

i. The whole life of a tax collector was to facilitate Rome’s authority.

ii. The whole purpose of Levi’s discipleship is now to promote Jesus’ authority.

3. Follow Him – “Throughout the Gospels, akoloutheō is the primary verb for discipleship (as also in 5:11; 9:23, 59; 14:27; 18:22)”.[i]

a. BDAG gives 5 senses of this word from “physically being behind a person” (like the children’s game “follow the leader”) to “coming later in time”.

b. The editors identify this use as “to follow someone as a disciple” or, in my words, “to follow in order to become like”.

c. Becoming a Christ-follower is not primarily about securing a home in heaven, in its essence it is about being changed so that we look more like Christ.

d. Levi leaves his tax booth as quickly as the paralytic last week got up, picked up his mat, and left.

Transition: It is impossible to overemphasize the change that happened in Levi in these 2 verses. While Luke states it rather blandly, it is more than a change of career because Levi wishes this same change to happen around him.

A Change in Companions (vv.29-32)

NOTE: I did not say “of”

Not Cancel Culture (v.29)

1. A large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. – Jesus was comfortable around irreligious people, and they were comfortable around him.

I don’t see this like a social hour as people mingle with a glass in hand and meander by the tables with the cheese and crackers or chips and dip. “Eating with” (NIV) misses the sense of the verb. The emphasis is not on the eating, it is on the reclining.

When we hear teens say, “I’m going to hang out with my friends”, this is the action of the verb in v.29.

2. While cancel culture seems to be largely a 2020 phenom, shaming and boycotts have long been a way of establishing distance between parties.

As many relationships, that used to be face-to-face, are becoming more virtual, it becomes easier to “unfriend” or to “block” the person with whom we disagree.

The decorum and civility that used to fence our interactions, has largely been replaced by “ghosting” or “flaming” those on our social media with whom we disagree.

3. I notice that Levi’s first action after deciding to follow Christ, is to gather his friends and acquaintances so that they too could have opportunity to be changed by Him.

Levi is introducing them not just to Jesus but to the new life he has embraced.[ii]

Hang Time (v.30)

1. Cliques and bullying are not new problems - 2000 years ago the Young Conservative’s club was drawing attention to the student leaders who associated with the social liberals.

2. Jesus chose to relax with them, and the conservatives jumped on the opportunity to call out the disciples for it.

3. Note that the pharisees grumble at the disciples for following their master’s lead. But Jesus hears it and steps in to defend them.

Projected Language (vv.31-32)

1. Jesus does not belittle Levi’s friends. The way he interacted with them, they willingly reclined with Him.

2. Jesus uses the pejorative labels that the Pharisees preferred. They had already called the group “tax collectors and sinners”. Jesus uses two contrasts: well/sick and righteous/sinners. The Pharisees would have assumed themselves to be well and righteous. But Jesus knows them to be sick and sinners.

3. Even in Jesus’ response to their social elitism, Jesus is inviting his critics to honestly humble themselves and receive mercy as well.

Transition: In the first 2 verses today Jesus invited Levi to align with a new master. In these 2nd 4 verses he has called both conservatives and liberals to repentance and righteousness. In the remainder of the chapter, Jesus speaks about…

A Change of Containers (vv.33-39)

The Regulative Principle

1. When we understand freedom in Christ, we find the same beliefs can be honored and practiced differently.

I like brownies and Chocolate-chip cookies (preferably made with milk rather than semi-sweet chocolate). How many of you like these baked goods? How many prefer them with nuts? How many prefer them without nuts? How many think a brownie loses it’s “browniness” when nuts are added? How many think a chocolate chip cookie loses its “cookiness” when optional nuts are added?

2. The regulative principle is a practice that attempts to separate form from function in order to define what is essential—that which cannot be changed without altering the thing itself.

3. Reactions to the pandemic have highlighted this regulative principle in every pastor and many lay Christians as well.

a. Can communion be communion if it is celebrated with a different type of bread?

b. Can communion be communion if celebrated by less than the whole church (and what defines the “whole church”, especially in churches with multiple services or multiple venues)?

c. Can worship happen without instruments? Without music?

d. Can worship through giving be done without the passing of the plate?

e. How much water must be present for a baptism? Does it matter if it is flowing (what the Bible often calls “living”) or stagnate (as in a pond or pool)?

f. How many people need to witness the event for it to be a baptism?

g. Can communion or baptism be observed without an ordained leader?

4. The Pharisees were unwilling to discuss any changes to their idea of how the Law was to be lived.

Transition: When we ignore the regulative principle our preferences become established (in our minds) as precedent.

Preference vs. Precedent (vv.33-38)

1. Jesus uses 3 contrast to illustrate his point

a. Fasting/feasting; new/old cloth; and new wine/old containers

b. A challenge to the container that the Pharisees had wrapped around prayer and fasting

c. Jesus was noting that His way and the way of the Pharisees simply are unmixable. The Pharisees would refuse to try the new way for they assumed that their old way was better. Jesus’ teaching was considered by the Pharisees and religious leaders to be like new wine, and they wanted no part in it (v. 39).[iii]

One restaurant may press ground beef into round patties. Another (that doesn’t cut corners) choses to form square patties. Yet others may portion meatballs that get squashed by a spatula when the meat is put on the flattop. Any teenage cook who gets a job at Braums who then latter moves to Freddy’s will most likely require retraining because he “does it wrong”. If the same cook come out here to work in Chase county for one of our sole-proprietors, he will require retraining again. Because there are several ways to cook a hamburger.

2. Experiences that we like can quickly become established traditions. Those we dislike may be always open for review.

o Some have questioned the legitimacy of the SCOTUS hearings this past week, citing 2016 as precedent for delay. But how was 2016 similar/different from the 28 times earlier when a SCOTUS seat opened in an election year?

I learned this week that there are levels of precedent. “Established law” is the way principles are settled in a particular situation. “Precedent” becomes a way of transferring the principles of one case to other situations. And the talking point this week was “Super Precedent” which refers to a principle that it is unthinkable that could be challenged by another case.

3. Not all decisions are final in our judicial system. Each decision only stands until it may be overturned by a higher or later court. And the mandates of one group of Biblical experts do not prohibit God from overturning their minority opinions.

4. Their human preferences do NOT establish Divine precedent!!

Your preference may be overturned (v.39)

1. V.39 seems to say “there are things that you (Pharisees) consider to be SuperPrecedent, that are being overturned in the new covenant in My (Jesus’) blood.

2. We (Christians in 2020) MUST learn to separate our preferences from God’s SuperPrecedent.

a. For some of us, worship would be “better” if the room was +5/-5 degrees.

b. For some of us, worship would be “better” if the service started 2 hours earlier or 6 hours later.

c. For some of us, the service would be “better” if the sermon was minutes longer/shorter.

d. Some of us would prefer if the projector and computers totally went away.

e. Some would prefer if percussion was added, others would prefer only human voices.

f. Some prefer that only XYZ translation be used.

3. May God protect each of us from becoming the stubborn, crusty curmudgeon described in v.39

Transition: Let’s review real quick…

Conclusion:

Jesus’ lordship over Levi meant a change in master, a new boss. Is there any area in your life that He is calling you to surrender? Any habit, any secret, any attitude?

Jesus’ lordship over Levi provided an opportunity for change to happen within Levi’s friends. Rather than cancelling or unfriending those who disagree with us, how might God use you to bring about the most important changes that He desires in your friends?

Jesus’ lordship over FHCC means I surrender my preferences and pursue the unity of the Body because the whole body is the Bride of Christ and He is our Head and He has the right to bring about any changes that He sees fit.

[i] Grant R. Osborne, Luke: Verse by Verse, ed. Jeffrey Reimer, Elliot Ritzema, and Danielle Thevenaz, Awa Sarah, Osborne New Testament Commentaries (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 145.

[ii] Ibid., 146.

[iii] John A. Martin, “Luke,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 218.