And it came to pass as he lay at table in his house, that many tax-gatherers and sinners lay at table with Jesus and his disciples; for they were many, and they followed him.
Levi has just left the tax booth at a word from Jesus. The first thing he does is open his own house. He fills it with people no respectable teacher would eat beside. Mark tells us who was at that table, and the guest list raises the question: why does Jesus eat with tax collectors and sinners, and why were so many of them already following Him?
The meal is Levi's own idea. We treat a guest according to what we know of him, and the guests Levi picks show what he knew of Jesus.
A little while later we find Him sitting down in company with tax collectors and sinners. I do not know anything sweeter than the combination set out here. On one side is the grace of Christ, which would accept hospitality in such a company as that. On the other is the knowledge this Roman tax gatherer must have had of Jesus Christ, for he entertained Him in a way that suited that knowledge... So Levi says, in effect: I could not gather a better company to entertain this blessed Master. Nothing would suit His own heart more than the very lowest class of society, the tax collectors and sinners. How it speaks of His grace! And how well that man read the heart of Jesus Christ, and how he had profited by all the grace that shone in Him.
Older Bibles call these men "publicans." The name covered a real job, and a hated one.
Here stood the Government custom-house, where officials collected tolls and dues for Herod Antipas, who ruled Galilee, or for the Romans. The men who collected these taxes were Jews, in many cases if not in all. For this reason, and because most men hate paying taxes at all, their own countrymen saw the "publicans" as a hateful and disgusting class. Their work gave them plenty of chance to bully and overcharge people, and to get rich by it. They were not all equally harsh, though.
The Pharisees were the strict religious teachers of the day. In their eyes, Jesus could not have gone further down.
As Jesus reclined at table in Levi's house, He went as low in familiar love as Pharisaic eyes could imagine. He could have gone lower only by turning outright to the Gentiles. Shepherds were not more disgusting to the Egyptians than tax collectors were to the scribes and Pharisees.
The same grace welcomed Levi himself. It took him out of that trade and put him into the Lord's service.
The word to Levi was, "Follow Me." And Levi was a publican, a tax gatherer. That marks the great difference between Christianity and the law. In the eyes of a Jew, no job was more degraded and scandalous. Such a man made his living by squeezing taxes out of his own people for the hated Roman. For the Lord to call such a man was great grace. It lifts a man from the lowest place of degradation as a sinner into the highest place in the Lord's service, as an apostle. At once Levi answers the call. He makes a feast in his house, and invites many tax collectors and sinners to meet the Saviour of sinners.
Mark notes how many guests came. One changed tax collector was enough to convince the rest that the door stood open.
Levi the tax collector could testify to the grace that called him to follow Jesus. So other tax collectors took this as enough ground to believe that if they came too, He would never turn them away. A large company answered Levi's invitation and came to eat and drink with Him... They found Him to be the "Friend of publicans and sinners," "a Friend who sticks closer than a brother." It is good to read that at the end of the feast "many followed Him."
- Called — grace lifts Levi from the most despised trade in Israel to the highest place of service, and he obeys at once.
- Celebrating — his first act is a feast, and his guest list shows he had read his Master's heart.
- Company — to the watching Pharisees, eating with tax collectors and sinners was as low as Jesus could go. Only turning to the Gentiles would have been lower.
- Contagious — one man's welcome convinced a whole class that Jesus would receive them too.
- Crowd — many of those guests followed Him, so the meal ended not in scandal but in a crowd of followers.
And the scribes and the Pharisees, seeing him eating with sinners and tax-gatherers, said to his disciples, Why [is it] that he eats and drinks with tax-gatherers and sinners?
The scene is a meal at the house of Levi, the tax collector Jesus had just called to follow Him. His table is full of men like himself. The religious teachers watching do not challenge Jesus. They turn to His followers with a question about the company He keeps.
To feel the force of the complaint, you have to know who tax collectors were in Israel.
They were, as you know, the collectors of the Roman tax. Their own people hated them, partly because they stood as the constant reminder that Israel was under the Roman yoke. Only the very outcasts among the Jews would hold such a position — men thought to have lost all sense of respect, both for themselves and for the dignity of the chosen nation.
So how could the sinless Lord sit at their table? One writer draws a careful line.
Strange company indeed! We say among men that "like draws to like," but here we find that rule contradicted. What greater opposites could there be than the sinless Saviour and tax collectors and sinners? Yet He saw fit to eat and drink with them. But in doing so He stooped down in grace: He did not associate Himself with them. Fellowship of that kind grows out of shared thinking or feeling, and it would have spoiled all testimony to holiness. That was far from His mind.
Notice who they question, and who they avoid.
Such a display of grace stirs up the opposition of those marked by the pride of intellect and the pride of religion. That grace deeply offended them. It passes them by, takes a sinner far beneath them in moral degradation, and lifts him into a place far above them in blessing and power. These opposers do not come to Christ, as a troubled soul would have done. They turn to the disciples instead. The Serpent tried to shake the woman's confidence in God by asking what seemed a very simple question. In the same way, these men try to shake the disciples' confidence in the Lord by asking what might seem to them a very reasonable question.
Their whole religion rested on keeping distance from people like these.
Of course this outraged the Pharisees. The very essence of their religion consisted in outward separation from sinners. That was the badge of their piety. Their motto was, "Stand by, for I am holier than you" (Isaiah 65:5); their self-satisfied language, "God, I thank you that I am not like other men" (Luke 18:11). Take these two elements away from their profession and you leave nothing but outward show. There was nothing divine or reasonable in their religion.
(The ESV renders Isaiah 65:5, "Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.")
The gap between the critics and the men they scorned was smaller than they thought.
They are both children of fallen Adam. The heart of each is "desperately wicked." One follows a course of open sin; the other indulges it in the dark. One is at least transparent in his folly; the other disguises it under a cloak of deceitful holiness.
The question was aimed at the disciples, but Jesus answered it Himself. One writer sees in that short reply the line between two systems.
The scribes and Pharisees raise a question. How could a righteous teacher sit and eat with unclean men and sinners? Jesus hears this, and answers with divine wisdom. The simplicity of the answer equals its force... Here it is grace that is working; and the work of Jesus stands in full contrast to the law. The law demanded human justice from man. Christ and the gospel announce divine grace. That grace reigns and reveals God's righteousness.
There is one more turn, and it points back at the critics.
The gracious Lord stooped to eat with the sinner. Had He done otherwise, He would have cut off all ground of hope from the Pharisee. A Pharisee is, after all, a sinner, though he may despise the label, and the grace of Christ is his only hope. Yet sadly he must ask, "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?" Far better to adore the grace that led Him to do so.
- Company. Israel saw tax collectors as traitors working for Rome. Jesus sat at a table full of them.
- Grace. He stooped to them without joining them. Sitting at their table cost Him nothing of holiness.
- Offence. Pride drove the complaint. Religious men watched grace pass them by and lift a lower man higher than themselves.
- Mirror. Pharisee and tax collector are both children of fallen Adam. One sins openly; the other sins in the dark, under a cloak of holiness.
- Hope. A Pharisee is a sinner too. The very thing he criticised is his only hope, because the grace of Christ is all that is left for him.