So there’s this tax collector named Levi, sitting at his booth doing what tax collectors did—which in that time meant collaborating with the occupying power and probably overcharging people for the privilege. Not exactly the guy you’d invite to dinner.
And Jesus walks up to him and says, follow me. Just like that. And Levi gets up and leaves everything and follows him. All his money. All his position, such as it was. Gone.
Then Levi throws a party. A great banquet. And he invites all his friends—other tax collectors, other sinners, other people who didn’t fit into respectable society. And the Pharisees, those careful, rule-keeping folks, they’re watching from the sidelines going, are you serious? This guy is eating with them? With the wrong people?
And Jesus says something that I think we’ve turned into religious platitude without letting it land in our bones: Those who are well have no need of a physician. I didn’t come to call the righteous. I came to call the sinners.
Not the people who have it all figured out. Not the people who are doing everything right. The ones who know they’re broken. The ones who know they need help. That’s who Jesus looked for.
And I wonder how many of us have been sitting in church for years thinking we’re not the ones Jesus came for, because we’re too messed up, or too aware of our own mess. When the actual invitation is to you. Exactly you. The parts of you that don’t fit. The parts you’re trying to hide. Jesus walked right past the righteous to find you.
A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope