a                     portrait

      of                   

   jesus 

            

A PORTRAIT OF JESUS:

                        Friend of the Outcast

                        

“He saw a man named Levi at his work collecting taxes.  Jesus said, ‘Come along with me.’ And he did—walking away from everything and went with him.”  Luke 5:27-28

                  

      Levi, also known as Mathew, was a tax collector for Rome. There was probably no one more despised in Jesus’ day than a tax collector.  Tax Collectors not only collaborated with Rome, they usually stole money from their own people to line their own pockets. Their greed sucked their neighbors dry.  The Pharisees taught that to associate with a tax collector in any way was to make yourself spiritually unclean. If you were a respectable Jew, you had nothing to do with a tax collector. 

 

      Can you imagine what emotions Levi had as a Rabbi calls him to be his disciple?  Someone who is considered unclean by all his own countrymen is given such a special invitation!  Levi doesn’t stop to think that he is being called from wealth to poverty.  He has been ostracized from society as long as he can remember. Jesus, on the other hand, stops to talk to him, not because He is forced to because he owes taxes, but because He chooses to.  He engages Levi’s heart and with two simple words, “Follow Me,” and grabs hold of that heart, never to let go.  The despised Levi is now wanted by a holy man and invited to join this incredible teacher; the thought overwhelms him and without hesitation he walks away from the life he knew to begin a walk with a new Master.

     

      The passage continues to tell us that Levi invited Jesus to his home for dinner. The self-righteous Pharisees are appalled and let Jesus know it. However, Jesus cares little for what they think of Him; He is comfortable with sinners, for they are the ones who need Him most.  He tells them that He is here to invite outsiders, not insiders—with an invitation to a changed life, changed from within.  The Pharisees saw no need for change in themselves, so Jesus did not waste His time on them.  Sinners, who ache for acceptance and love, those are the ones that Jesus reached out to, and in doing so changed their lives.  Jesus continues to reach out to the outcasts and the unloved because He came to rescue the perishing and lift up the fallen. Levi knew how it felt to be unloved and looked upon as an outcast, but through Jesus, he learned how wonderful it was to be chosen, loved and to have his life dramatically changed.            

 D. Mathewson