Intro
Over five years ago, we were preparing to move into this building, which was in the final stages of completion. For those of you who were around back then, can you believe it’s been 5 years? This building is a kindergartner! For a few months back then, our leadership team met to talk through a new vision statement so we could discern what direction we needed to take among so many opportunities. That was one of many times I’ve been reminded of how deeply I need the strengths of others to compensate for my own weaknesses. As we came up with ideas, all of my proposed vision statements were incredibly wordy and unmemorable. I wanted to squeeze every single idea of who we were to be in a paragraph that nobody ever would have been able to recite. Thankfully, someone else suggested our current phrase and the rest of the team breathed a sigh of relief, quickly getting behind it before I could protest. I’m so thankful for that. Thus, “we live to know Jesus Christ personally and to make him known” was born.
I love that phrase, and I know many of you do too. For the next 6 weeks, I want to focus on the second half of that phrase, which is about making Jesus known. I wonder what comes into your mind when you hear that phrase? What are the activities that would count as making Jesus known? Having evangelistic conversations with people about Jesus is an obvious one. We want to help people grow in that. We did a conference here at The Bridge this winter which equipped people for having evangelistic conversations, which is so good. However, in the New Testament we see that there are a whole bunch of ways we make Jesus known. There are all kinds of ways we promote the Gospel with more than just our lips. That’s what I want to look at in this series, and I’m hoping it will be an encouragement to those who find it especially difficult to start conversations with others about Christian faith. I’m also hoping that if you’re not a believer yet and you’re considering following Jesus, that this series will give you a fuller picture of what a Christian is called to.
By the way, if you’re wanting to dig into this more as we go, I’ve got a book recommendation for you. The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission is a book by John Dickson that he wrote more than a decade ago. Back then, I was a graduate student at Regent College and I took a summer school course with him on one of his visits from Australia, where he normally teaches. That course was one of my favorites at Regent, and I thought way back then that I’d love to do a sermon series inspired by some of the content. Many years later, here we are. I’m not preaching the book, I’m preaching the Bible, but the book would be a great companion as we go.
Today we’re kicking things off by talking about our social lives. We’re talking about how the friendships we pursue and the gatherings we participate in can promote the Gospel. We’ll look especially at a story from the life of Jesus in Mark 2.
13 Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him. 15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:13-17)
1. Jesus’ Approach
Let’s work through this story piece by piece and see what we find. The first thing we see in this story is that Jesus “went out”. This is what Jesus did. He did not sit in a private little monastery and wait for people to come to him, as long as they had the secret password. He spent his time in public spaces, like beaches and seasides, teaching and ministering there. I’m immediately convicted by this, because I’m pretty comfortable sitting in my nice little office, surrounded by my books, writing my sermons and meeting with people. There aren’t a lot of disruptions, but there’s almost guaranteed to be no interactions with the hungry and curious of the world. On the other hand, I’ve seen that when I do a Bible study with a few guys in Tim Horton’s, people pay attention. Some are weirded out but others want to know more. We’ve got some people in our church who have the boldness to strike up conversations with people at Lonsdale Quay or hand out clothing in the Downtown Eastside. I love that. That kind of thing stretches me, it gets me way beyond my comfort zone, but it seems to be the kind of thing Jesus did. If we are followers of Jesus, we’re going to want to be like him. We’re going to want to be God’s servants, to be His people, in public.
So Jesus is out by the lake, teaching the crowds that surround him, and he comes to a toll booth run by a Jewish man named Levi. Traditionally, Levi is the same man as Matthew, who is one of Jesus’ 12 disciples and the author of the Gospel of Matthew. Before any of that, though, Levi was a tax collector. The indication here is that Levi is stationed on the border between regions, collecting taxes on any business that’s being transacted between these areas. He would have been doing this on behalf of Herod Antipas, the ruler who represented the Roman Empire here. Tax collectors like Levi were expected to deliver a certain amount of tax revenue to their overlords, but they were free to charge above and beyond that rate, which was the source of their own income. Think about it like a mandatory tip, which maybe isn’t too unlike our day. You’ve experienced tip creep, right? This is the way just about any service comes with the option on the card machine to tip- apparently even those robot coffee shops at some airports, where you’re entirely served by robots, ask for tips. Even the robots want in! And the percentages just get higher and higher. You feel this deep shame if you tip anything less than 20%. You keep your head down and hope the person on the other side of the counter doesn’t slay you with their angry glare. By the way, one really nice thing about European countries like Greece is that tipping isn’t expected, it’s not even an option when you pay with a card. Oh, I miss Greece.
Anyway, imagine that when you pay your income tax to the government, there’s a tip option on the form. That would make you upset, wouldn’t it? You hate taxes. The government is already taking your money and now they want a tip? Are you kidding me? And then imagine that the tip isn’t optional, it’s required. On a scale of 1 to 10, how mad would that make you? And now imagine, if you can, that the government collecting these taxes is one that has occupied your country, oppressed your people, and violates everything you hold dear, and that the person you’re required to tip on top of these taxes is one of your own people who has sold his soul to the invaders. Where’s your anger scale at now?
If you can imagine something like that, you might understand the status of tax collectors among first century Jews. They were despised. Later Jewish writings lumped them together with thieves and murderers and disqualified them as witnesses in court. You saw someone commit a crime? Too bad, your testimony doesn’t count because your whole life is one extended crime. Those later writings, known as the Mishnah and Talmud, expelled tax collectors from the synagogue and deemed them a disgrace to their families. A touch from a tax collector rendered a whole house ritually unclean and Jews were forbidden to even receive alms from tax collectors. If they wanted to donate to the building of a synagogue to compensate for their betrayal, too bad. No matter how rich you are, it’s dirty money and we’re not touching it. There were two Jewish rabbis in the first century named Hillel and Shammai who often disagreed with each other about issues. One thing they agreed on, however, was that Jews were allowed to lie to tax collectors with a clean conscience. There might be a lot of moral gray areas out there, but lying to a tax collector ain’t one of them.
That’s a lot of context, but the point is that Levi is one of the most profoundly unattractive and undesirable people for a faithful Jew to associate with. When Jesus sees him sitting at his toll booth, though, what does he do? He doesn’t ignore him, he doesn’t treat him with cold contempt, he doesn’t run the other way. He approaches him. Now, a few verses earlier, Jesus had been approached by a man with leprosy. According to the law of Moses, lepers were to stay far away from everyone because any contact with them would render someone unclean. When this man approached Jesus, Jesus also didn’t run. Instead, Jesus reached out and touched the man and declared him to be clean. Think about that. Jesus does not fear that people around him will make him unclean, whether they are lepers or tax collectors. He doesn’t fear their messiness, he doesn’t think their unholiness will be contagious to him. Instead, he seems pretty confident that his holiness is what is contagious. He can confidently approach someone, even someone who everyone else stays far away from, because of his security in who he is. He won’t compromise to fit in with others. He is who he is but he’s confident that others will be drawn to that. Can we say the same about ourselves? Are we willing to associate with the socially unclean and undesirable, trusting in the compelling holiness of Jesus? Are we secure enough in our identity in Christ that we will risk social disdain and reach out to the rejected of the world?
Back to Mark 2, Jesus not only approaches Levi. He makes an invitation. It’s actually the greatest invitation someone could receive: to follow him. It’s an invitation that will transform Levi, that will set his life in a new direction, that will bring him into a new family and a renewed relationship with God. Levi would not have seemed like a prime candidate for that kind of calling, but this is the kind of thing Jesus does. He finds those who seem to be farthest from the Kingdom and he draws them near. Again, as I said last week, his calling doesn’t leave them in that place. Instead, through humble faith in him, there is real transformation from the inside out, into his image.
If you’re here today and carry shame because of uncleanness, whether real or perceived, there is good news for you here. Jesus sees your uncleanness. He knows it fully. There is nothing hidden from his sight. And yet he is not fearful of it. He comes to you, he touches you, he calls you. In Revelation 3:20, we hear these words from Jesus: “here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” He’s knocking. Open the door. Respond to his call. Follow him. The Lord and King over all wants to be your friend, no matter where you’re coming from or how you’ve been treated by others.
2. The dinner party
Levi has received this call and answered it. He has become a follower of Jesus, he is now part of Jesus’ family. What’s the first thing he does? He throws a party! He celebrates! And who does he invite to this party? Well, he invites his friends, and naturally, his friends are other people who were just as socially undesirable as him. I mean, who’s going to hang out with a tax collector? Probably only other tax collectors! So now Jesus isn’t just guilty of connecting with one of them, he’s surrounded by them.
a. Receiving hospitality
There are two angles I want to look at here, both of them having to do with hospitality. The first is from Jesus’ perspective. Notice that he is willing to receive the gift of hospitality, even from a tax collector. This is significant because when you receive hospitality from someone, you don’t have control. You can’t decide who else is going to be invited or what food is going to be served. You might become very uncomfortable. It’s a risk. The host might have very different traditions than you’re used to. For example, a while back we were invited over for dinner by some of our neighbours who aren’t religious. As Christians, we begin every meal with a prayer of thanksgiving. That’s just what we do, and it kind of signals the beginning of the meal. I mean, if you’ve taken a bite of supper before praying, that food has not been properly blessed and will probably kill you, you know what I mean? When you eat with people who don’t have that practice, the meal just kind of…starts. It feels a bit weird! It’s not a big deal, but when you’re receiving hospitality, your own traditions and preferences are out the window.
However, the further outside your cultural confines you move, the trickier the issues. Paul gets at some of that in the first letter he wrote to the Corinthians. Around Easter this year, we spent a few days in the outskirts of modern Corinth and visited the old ruins there. As I said last week, it was another reminder of how central idolatry was to those ancient Greco-Roman cities and how uncomfortable it would have been for Jews and Christians. So in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul writes, “I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people- not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave the world” (5:9-10). In other words, the only way to avoid any contact with immoral people is space travel. Go live on Mars by yourself. You’ll be the only immoral person there. But as long as you’re on earth, it’s inevitable you’ll interact with people of very different convictions and ethics. That’s ok. It’s actually how we bear witness! A few chapters later, Paul addresses the same issue we’re talking about here. In Chapter 10, he writes, “if an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. But if someone says to you, ‘this has been offered in sacrifice,’ then do not eat it, both for the sake of the one who told you and for the sake of conscience.” (10:27-28)
What’s Paul saying? That you are free to enter the home of an idolater and eat with them. Receive their hospitality even though you’re on totally different pages. You can have confidence in that home because of the supreme holiness of Jesus. Now, if your host lets you know that the food has first been sacrificed to the gods, you should abstain from eating it. You don’t want them to think that you approve of idolatry. Again, your witness is at stake, don’t give them the wrong idea. But receiving hospitality does help make Jesus known. A few verses later, Paul concludes, “so whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God…for I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.” (10:31, 33) Seek the glory of God, even in your willingness to eat. Lay down your own preferences so that those who invite you into their homes might be saved.
Just one more thought on this before I move on. I believe we often have the mentality that we make Jesus known when we serve others. We share the Gospel by giving to others. That’s true. That’s powerful. But is it possible that we can also testify to Christ through our willingness to receive help? Years ago, I did a summer internship at a church in south Vancouver where there is a huge Punjabi population. I wanted to learn how a church could engage that group, which seems pretty closed to the Gospel, and so I asked a local missionary who had a lot of experience. He said that many Punjabi people won’t receive charity from a Christian, but when a Christian is willing to receive assistance from a Punjabi person, that is an act of humility that can open up previously closed doors. Accepting a dinner invitation or asking for help on a little reno project from a non-Christian neighbour might provide an unexpected opportunity for witness.
b. Giving hospitality
That’s one angle of the Mark 2 dinner party. Jesus enters a home that would make a lot of his fellow Jews uncomfortable and he receives hospitality. In the process he makes himself known. The other angle is from Levi’s perspective. He has been invited to follow Jesus, he’s said yes, he is filled with a new kind of joy. As we’ve seen, the first thing he does is throw a dinner party and he invites all his friends. Some of them, we’re told, were also followers of Jesus but almost certainly not all of them. Do you notice what he’s done here? He has created space for other people to meet Jesus. By opening up his home and providing a meal, he is facilitating an encounter between people and Jesus. This is what offering hospitality does. In fact, I wonder if we could even say that this is a Christian definition of hospitality: like Levi in Mark 2, it’s simply making space for someone to meet Jesus.
Some of you have heard of Rosaria Butterfield and her testimony. Years ago, she was an atheist professor in a romantic relationship with a woman, dead set against anything to do with Christian faith. She hated Christianity. At one point, she wrote a scathing article in the local newspaper tearing Christians to shreds. A local pastor read this article and did something totally counter-intuitive. He didn’t write a rebuttal, he didn’t gather Christians and march outside her home with picket signs. He invited Butterfield over for dinner. After much consideration, she decided to say yes, but only for “research purposes”. She was going to courageously enter the lion’s den and see for herself just how dastardly and evil these Christians were and then share her findings. What she encountered shocked her. Now, it was a bit sneaky on the part of the pastor because he didn’t just invite her over for a casual dinner. After dinner they pulled out their Bibles, sang a hymn and began speaking about faith. She had stumbled into a post-meal Bible study! Each week the invitation came again, and each week Butterfield joined, exploring this unique little community that loved Jesus. Eventually she came to faith in Christ and she and her husband have now made hospitality a cornerstone in their life, which has resulted in much fruit.
Conclusion
Let’s wrap this story from Mark 2 up. Levi’s hospitality, and Jesus’ reception of it, causes a stir among the teachers of the law. They even confront Jesus’ disciples about it. Now, a quick but important note there. It would seem that Jesus’ disciples are part of this dinner party, doesn’t it? And we’ve already noticed that Levi has other followers of Jesus there too. In other words, being social with those outside of faith isn’t necessarily a solo activity, it’s something you can do with other Christians. Think about Rosaria Butterfield’s experience in Ken Smith’s home Bible study. Think about Acts 2, where the early church meets together in the temple courts- they’re together, but they’re in public, which enables people to see what this community is about. Think about how Jesus says you- you collectively, as a plural- are the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Being in the world but not of it is also a communal activity. Hospitality can be a communal activity. In some ways, that’s what we do when we host an Easter Fair or Fall Carnival here at The Bridge. We are working together as a church to create space for our neighbours to encounter Jesus. It’s what happens when groups from our church are who they are, praying, singing, laughing, eating in public where people can see their distinctiveness. Be social with those who need to hear the Gospel, and be social together in that way as God’s people.
Back to Mark 2, these teachers of the law ask the disciples why Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners. If he’s holy, why does he risk contact with those who clearly aren’t? Here’s Jesus’ response: “it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
This is where we started and it’s where we end, because this is the beginning and end of our desire to grow friendships with those outside of the church. It’s because we ourselves are sick and in need of a doctor, the great healer, Jesus himself. It’s because of the heart of Jesus, who loved us sinners so much that he gave his life for us. This is who Jesus is and his posture towards us. He doesn’t run from us, he’s not afraid of our uncleanness, instead he approaches us, touches us, and calls us to follow him. It’s in response to his incredible grace that we do the same for others. I heard Professor Rikk say a few times in his sermons here in April something along these lines: I can’t save you, I can’t make the deaf hear or the lame walk, I can’t raise the dead, but I know someone who can. Let’s do whatever we can to introduce the people in our lives to Jesus, amen? Let’s promote the Gospel by loving, serving, hosting, and receiving from those God has placed in our lives.