Sym's Blog: March 2007

Recently I found a list on the internet. It is all the things you have to watch out for when going to a new church.

For instance…

You Might Be In the Wrong Church If....
• The missions budget just got cut in half, but the church treasurer just bought a new Harley.
• New "Purpose-Driven" mission statement includes vague reference to Jell-O-wrestling.
• On your second Sunday as a visitor they ask you to be their pastor.
• On the offering envelopes is printed "Please make cheques payable directly to the pastor."
• Everyone is handcuffed together at the ankles before preaching starts.
• The confessional has a coin slot and a hand lever.
• Bill Clinton is the speaker of the day and his topic is "Morality In America - How To Be A Shining Example".
• The minister falls asleep while delivering his own sermon.
• The Choir wears black leather robes.
• The media refers to the church facilities as a "compound".
• The ushers passing around the offering basket are wearing ski masks.
• The Bible they use is the Dr. Seuss version.

So… I hope you all feel comfortable this morning because none of these apply here. Although I have to say I have always liked the idea of filling the baptismal pool with jelly!!!

This morning you might be wondering why I have entitled this sermon… “ Why you should never patch Levis!”. Well, people have taken components from the passages we are studying today and drawn this conclusion. As we will see today, this is NOT what the passages are about.

In saying that, what we will see is that the “approach of patching” is not what we are called to.

Anyway… hopefully the title got your interest and caused you to read the verses over the last few weeks… which as an aside, is something I would encourage everyone to do as we go through this series in Luke.

So… This morning we are going to look at Luke 5:27-39.

Jesus Calls Levi
27After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, "Follow me." 28And leaving everything, he rose and followed him.

29And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. 30And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" 31And Jesus answered them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 32I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."

A Question About Fasting
33And they said to him, "The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink." 34And Jesus said to them, "Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? 35The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days." 36He also told them a parable: "No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. 37And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. 38But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. 39And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, 'The old is good.'"[a]

This is a story about a guy named Levi. Levi was a tax collector, when Jesus found him. He went on to be known as Matthew. He wrote a Gospel…

Any guesses of what Gospel he wrote.???

…Yip… the Gospel of Matthew.

And he was the one apostle whom we have no record of whether he was murdered or whether he lived a long life. All the rest were topped.

So the story this morning finds Levi… I prefer this name as it is pretty cool… in his tax booth.

Now tax collectors back then were not the highly regarded professionals that we think of today. The job was highly financially rewarding but society looked down on you if you were a tax collector. This is because you generally had to muscle people into paying their taxes. Break a few legs. Burn a few houses. Chuck a few people in prison. Really stick it to someone who could not pay… That type of thing.

This generally got you off side with your neighbours. You were not the most popular person in town.

In fact the religious people would avoid you all together. You were collecting taxes for the occupying Roman Empire and you were a traitor.

I guess some modern day equivalent positions could be:

• Whalers
• Nuclear waste contractors
• Brothel owners
• Chemical weapons manufacturers
• Landmine sales people
• Loan sharks
• Tobacconists

These are people you would prefer not to mention you were friends with. Not the social elite.

So Levi is sitting in his booth, creaming in the cash. He has done his leg breaking rounds. He only had to burn two houses that day. A nice quiet day. Although there have been a whole pile of people talking about this Jesus guy. Everyone is saying He healed a paralysed man.

And then Jesus wanders passed and calls to him. “Follow me.” A couple of amazing words that would change Levi’s life forever.

Now… we are about to see the whole point of this section of Luke.

What does Levi do?

Does he “ummm and arrr”?

Does he go… “one minute while I gather up my cash and close down my booth”?

Does he go… “hold on while I get my Uncle Bob to come and run things while I am away”?

Does he take a second to think… “I’ve got 25 years of high income, then someone will knock me off… verses… years of poverty, threats of murder, have my life turned upside down, probably get disowned, almost definitely get knocked off… but get to be with this amazing Jesus guy?

Does he think… I don’t even know this guy Jesus… although there is something certainly special about Him?

Does he hesitate?

No. He ups and follows Jesus. He leaves everything and follows Jesus.

Goosh… you say. That’s pretty impulsive.

Yes. Exactly.

It’s like he has no attachment to his old life… he is happy to dump everything.

Oh… definitely!

I think we can see that in this first section of our verses a pattern is demonstrated.

1. Jesus calls.

2. We drop everything and follow Him.

This is not just some obscure story.

Jesus teaches this same principle elsewhere.

Firstly, in Luke 5:3-11 with the story of the calling of Simon Peter that Ian covered a few weeks ago…

3Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. 4And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch." 5And Simon answered, "Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets." 6And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. 7They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. 8But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." 9For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, 10and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men." 11And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

Yes you heard right. Simon just got the haul of a lifetime… fish for Africa… yet he left it. He left his boat. His gear. His job. His family. He left everything!

In Luke 9:57-62, Jesus calls a number of men and they have things of life to deal with first.

57As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go."
58Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."
59He said to another man, "Follow me."   But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father."
60Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God."
61 Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family."
62Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."

And again in Luke 18:18-30 with the story of the rich young man.

18A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
19"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone. 20You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.'"
21"All these I have kept since I was a boy," he said.
22When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
23When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. 24Jesus looked at him and said, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! 25Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
26Those who heard this asked, "Who then can be saved?"
27Jesus replied, "What is impossible with men is possible with God."
28Peter said to him, "We have left all we had to follow you!"
29"I tell you the truth," Jesus said to them, "no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God 30will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life."

The rich young man had so much stuff he did not want to leave behind. His wealth.

So we have a core principle… one of those global truths.

When Jesus calls… drop everything and follow.

Now I am not suggesting that when you become a Christian you must sell up everything, give it to the poor and move to Zimbabwe. I don’t think it is necessarily the case that we are all called to drop everything.

But I AM suggesting that we need to be prepared to give up everything…

So I have a question or two:

Are you prepared to drop everything for Jesus?

Are there things, people, relationships, pride… that you are holding on to?

Can we take a moment in silence, with our eyes closed and invite God to bring to mind those things that we are not prepared to give up…

I would encourage you not to ignore what came to mind or reason your way out of it. My experience is that our God is endlessly patient but also quite persistent. And it is a lot better to address things He points out NOW rather than later.

Someone once told me an analogy of what it meant to be a follower of Jesus.

A follower of Jesus should have their hands out like this [cupped hands]…

This is because it is the only way someone can receive something… Jesus’ calling, mercy, grace and love.

But having your hands like this also means that you are not clinging onto anything.

Back to the story…

Levi then does something else.

He is excited about following Jesus.

He wants to introduce everyone he knows to Jesus.

He wants to celebrate.

So what does he do?

He holds a great feast.

And who does he invite?

All his friends! And anyone else who is around!

Let’s focus on his friends…

And who are all his friends?

Other members of the local tax collectors union. His contract leg breakers… for times when the prospective tax payer was a bit bigger than him. Prison guards. Maybe some tax payers whom he had come to alternative payment arrangements with. Basically a whole pile of unsavoury types.

Levi wants everyone to share in what he has been shown.

At this point we are joined in our story by the Pharisees. The critics! These are the “na” sayers. The rules people. The legalists. The modern day letters-to-the-editor writers. The talk-show callers. The bloggers with a cause. The people who have nothing better to do than to pile expectations on others while living the opposite themselves. The hypocrites.

Have you ever met one of these people? Are you one of these people?

We are going to see in the course of this series in Luke that Jesus never really escapes these guys. They follow Him everywhere… eventually to His crucifixion.

And we will also see that Jesus never lets them escape from their hypocrisy. Jesus confronts them.

These verses are the first of some very hard and direct words to the Pharisees.

While the Pharisees challenge Jesus, they are also intrigued by this man. He is a powerful teacher. He knows his scriptures. He has real authority. Amazing things happen when Jesus was about. He acts like a rabbi. He has followers… disciples.

So what, they ask, is He and His disciples doing at a feast with the low life of society. He should know… being a rabbi and all that… that it is not right to associate with such scum. A number of translations actually use this word… scum… I think through this word you get a sense of how the Pharisees saw people like Levi.

Jesus then uses a parables or word imagery to say that what Levi has done was bang on the money.

Jesus says

… "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." (Luke 5:31-32, ESV)

The NLT puts it a bit more clearly.

… “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent.” (Luke 5:31-32, NLT)

Jesus says… I am a doctor with the cure for sin.

Do you think that this might have been what Levi saw when responded to Jesus’ call? Jesus the doctor with a cure for his sins?

Levi knew he was a sinner. Everyone had told him he was a sinner for so long. Most often they said this either just before or just after he broke their legs or burnt their house down. And normally quite colourfully.

On the other side we have the Pharisees. These were guys who thought they were not sinners. They lived under rules and regulations to keep them from sinning.

I want to take a little siding for a moment and talk about sin.

Now when we think of sin… what do we think about?

Most often we think about things that we do or say.

• I killed this person
• I burned down the neighbours chicken shed
• I thought that not nice thought
• I told that person a lie
• I gossiped
• Etc. Etc.

In technical speak these are sins of co-mission. We are active in them. We are doing or saying something that is wrong… that is not honouring of God.

The Pharisees tried to wipe these sins out of their lives through rules.

• Thou shalt not kill people
• Thou shalt not burn thou neighbour’s chicken shed down
• Thou shalt not think
• Thou shalt not do this.
• Thou shalt not do that.
• Etc. Etc.

Unfortunately they ignored the other side of sin… sins of omission. Sins of omission occur when we don’t do something or we aren’t being someone we should, even though God would have us do or to be this.

The classic biblical example is the story of the Good Samaritan. Both the Levite and the Priest pass by the injured man. Both are concerned about not breaking the laws around contact with blood. But in being so concerned about one law they did not care for their fallen brother. Their inaction was a sin. This did not honour God.

Have you thought about this before… your inaction… your not getting involved… might be sin?

Most of the Pharisees did not see this. They thought they were right with God because they followed their rules. They thought they were righteous.

Unfortunately they were deceiving themselves.

I’m going to leave that thought there and move on. I would invite you to think some more about this issue.

Luke carries on with his two themes of giving everything and celebrating but in a different time in the next section. In some translations the Bible uses the word “later”.

Here we see the Pharisees challenge Jesus directly. Up until now they had muttered under their breath… although Jesus always seem to hear their thoughts.

Now they ask directly… why aren’t your disciples behaving like John’s disciples… or ours for that matter? Surely all this feasting is not the way to God? Aren’t we meant to be fasting and praying?

Jesus gives another parable that illustrates that Levi’s recognition of his state as a sinner and his response was the right way.

… "Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? 35The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days." (Luke 5:34-35 ESV)

Jesus hits them with a rhetorical question. Of course you can’t expect wedding guests to fast while the groom is with them. A wedding is a celebration. When the groom is there, it is time to celebrate.

It would be like asking… “can you make dancers at a rave not dance?”. Of course not!

Jesus is saying directly that what His disciples are doing is right.

With the issue of the feasts and celebrating out of the way, Jesus returns to our theme of leaving everything and following Him.

He tells two parables… the first is about patching old clothes. The next is about re-using old wineskins.

Let me explain them.

… "No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. 37And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. 38But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. (Luke 5:36-38 ESV)

If you cut a piece of cloth out of your new shirt and use it to patch an old shirt, what happens?

Firstly, the new shirt will have a hole in it. Unless you are looking for a bit of natural air conditioning built into your shirt, your new shirt is stuffed.

When you sew the patch onto your old shirt, what happens?

The colours will be different. If they aren’t different to start with, the new section will fade while the old material will have already faded. Also the new section will loss its stretchiness and it will distort the shirt.

In short you will stuff the old shirt and the new shirt.

Now is Jesus teaching Sewing 101? No!

He is saying, chuck your old shirt… symbolic of your old life… away and put on your new shirt… symbolic of your new life. Or more specifically… you can’t drag bits of your old sinful life forward with you or you will end up destroying both.

In short… Levi’s example of simply walking away from his old life… his old ways… and to follow Jesus is right.

What about the wineskins?

Wineskins were the skins of animals, like sheep. They were sewn together and grape juice was put inside and they were sealed. The grape juice fermented into wine. As it fermented, it would expand. However the animal skin would be new and stretchy and therefore they would expand with the fermentation. Eventually the fermentation would stop and the skins would harden with time.

So you would end up with a hard case with old wine in it.

This was the natural process. New wineskins. New wine. Old wineskins. Old wine.

Guess what would happen when you put new wine into an old hard wineskin?

BANG!!!!

The new wine would ferment, expand and blow the old hard wineskin apart.

The wine and the wineskin would be destroyed.

Again the message is simple… you can’t mix your old life… symbolised by the old wineskins… with your new life… symbolised by the new wine… or you will destroy both.

Again… Levi’s example of leaving everything and following Jesus was right.

But these parables… stories… were not for the benefit of Levi. Levi did not need to be told he was right to up, leave everything and follow Jesus.

No… these stories were for the Pharisees.

An interesting question is… do you think they… the Pharisees understood what Jesus was saying?

I think so.

Jesus finishes this section with what almost seems like a sad comment or reflection. One of those comments made as one leaves… made almost under ones breath.

He says…

39And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, 'The old is good.'

No one who tries to follow the laws and regulations seems to desire the new way Jesus is offering… the way made possible through His grace.

I sense Jesus is heart broken by this.

The irony that sinners are more attaching to His message and His person than those who claim to be followers of God devastates Him.

This morning we need to take care of some business.

Have we been called by Jesus… has Jesus said… FOLLOW ME!?
Then it is time to get off our backsides, stop making excuses, let go of our old life and follow Him.

Are we following Jesus but we are still holding on to things… ways… relationships? Are we wearing a patched shirt?
Then it is time to chuck that shirt and put on a new one… follow Jesus in all areas of our lives… not just those areas where we are comfortable in.
Because a half-way, mix and mash approach is going to lead to a lot of spilled wine sooner or later.

And finally, no matter where we are at… if Jesus is in the house… it is a time to celebrate. So let’s do that now because this is His house and we are His family.