The Scandal of the Kingdom (Mark 2.13-22)

Introduction

This week, I learned about a man called Dez. Dez is from Scotland. This is his story in his own words:

“I was a doorman; a bouncer. I was quite a violent guy. I took a lot of drugs and became a cocaine addict. My life revolved around fighting, taking drugs, partying and living in that cycle. One night, I took a massive overdose. I felt like I was having a heart attack. My heart was jumping out of my chest. And I cried out in what I didn’t know then was a prayer - to live. I woke up the next day and I never touched cocaine again.”

After that scary experience, for some strange reason, Dez kept meeting Christians. One in particular was called Fiona. He wanted to get to know her better so he asked her out a few times, but she declined, mainly because he wasn’t a Christian. She didn’t agree to a date but she did give him a Bible and he started reading it. This is what he said about that. “I started tearing through it, trying to find something, and I ended up finding Jesus. Suddenly, my whole life made sense.”

He called Fiona and asked if she would take him to church. He saw some publicity for the Alpha Course and signed up. “On Alpha,” he says, “I met Jesus and it changed my life. I was this drug-fuelled, violent person and now I love people and love God. I just want to share my story.”

Dez is now married to Fiona and they are parents of an eleven-month-old baby.

“Jesus”, he says, “turned the questions I had about whether God exists into a belief that God cares about me. I have changed from a violent, loveless drug addict to a man who is happily married and full of love. I’m now running Alpha for all types of people, from gang members to grannies, and I’m seeing their lives changed too.”

Dez, as he was before, is perhaps not a man you’d expect to be attracted to church, particularly as it is usually portrayed in the media. Church: old-school, self-respecting, a bit pompous and a bit judgemental. Dez: messed-up and violent. Square peg, round hole.

But Dez found that Jesus is nothing like what he had imagined. What he found is exactly what the Bible says about Jesus.

There are three things in our passage that tell you a lot about Jesus...

1) In v13 - a large crowd came to Jesus. So it’s not niche spirituality for the chosen few. Jesus is attractive, interesting, good company. Everyone loves being around him.

Unlike the highly qualified religious leaders whose bored congregations are dwindling fast, Jesus has no proper qualifications. That’s the scandal of the kingdom. He didn’t go to theological college. He doesn’t wear the proper robes. He hasn’t got the impressive doctorate in advanced theology, but he is anointed by the Spirit to transform lives - and that’s what people want.

2) In v14 - Jesus sees Levi sitting at a tax collector’s booth. ‘Follow me’ Jesus says and Levi gets up and follows him. So Jesus is charismatic and influential. He’s a leader of men. People leave well-paid jobs, they renounce their decent pension; they resign on the spot, giving their employers no advance notice. It’s the scandal of the kingdom. Levi hands his boss his keys and is out of there.

3) In v15 – Jesus is having dinner… not with well-heeled and upstanding citizens but with many tax collectors and sinners. Jesus raises eyebrows and ruffles feathers. Jesus breaks all the rules. No one has seen anything quite like this before. He goes out of his way to mix with some pretty messy people; call girls, alcoholics, petty thieves, lap dancers, pickpockets, drug addicts, street fighters... People are outraged and offended. They gasp with shock. That’s the scandal of the kingdom. (Some of you are thinking “how does our vicar with the sheltered life he leads know about lap dancers?”)

People were perplexed. No one had seen anything like it. As we saw last Sunday, they said, “Hang on, what’s this about? He says he can forgive my sins? How can that be right?”

Then today in v16, it’s “Wait a minute, what’s all this mixing with the riff-raff? You’re supposed to be a man of God! Don’t you think it gives the wrong impression? What about your public image? We can’t see how this is helpful.”

Then in v18, there’s a genuine question. “Why aren’t you more like John the Baptist? He was sober and austere. You don’t seem to take it seriously; it’s all eating and drinking and taking it easy with you. We just don’t get it.” The implication is that religion should be dour and unenjoyable.

In Mark chapter 1 everybody loves Jesus. As we’ll see next week, we don’t get far into chapter 3 when some people want to see him dead. But here in chapter 2, the opposition against him is just starting to stir.

1) Follow Jesus

So here’s the story for today. It’s set in Capernaum which is on a major north/south route from Damascus to Egypt. That’s why there’s a toll booth there so money can be collected from passers-through for King Herod who governs that area on behalf of the Romans. Levi (v14) is the man in charge of the tax office.

How did you get to be a tax man in Jesus’ day? You put in a bid to the Roman authorities and the contract went to the highest bidder. Yes, you actually paid for the privilege but you recouped your investment by earning a percentage commission and you increased your profit margin by ripping people off for more than they actually owed.

It was extortion. It was a racket. Everyone knew it. The system was corrupt. Rome didn’t care. They gave their tax collectors carte blanche, and as long as Caesar got his money they weren’t bothered.

So as people pay their tax to Levi at his booth, they screw their faces up with resentment. They hate him for doing Rome’s dirty work. Their hard-earned money props up a godless, overbearing government; it pays for pagan temples and supports an Emperor cult. Caesar’s extravagant drunken orgies and lurid entertainment is all funded by their taxes and it makes them mad.

This is why tax collectors are all shunned as traitors and are automatically expelled from the synagogue.

It’s likely that Levi has heard of Jesus before. Jesus has already done amazing things in Capernaum as we saw in chapter 1. Word will have got around.  

Nevertheless, what happens next is totally out of the blue. No one expects it: Jesus approaches this crooked, unlovable outcast and says “you’re just what I’m looking for, come with me.”

This is what the Bible says about you too, and me. “This is love,” says 1 John 4, “it’s not that we loved God, but that he first loved us.”

God was looking into your heart long before you ever thought about him. It’s not that you and I just decided to get up and follow Jesus one day. That’s what it feels like, but the truth is that behind the scenes, before we were even half aware of any spiritual reality at all, God already knew us, and loved us, and chose us, and pursued us.

He drew us to himself and gave us the gift of faith. Of ourselves, we are totally unable to respond to God; without the grace of God, we are spiritually lost.

“It is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2.8-9).

Levi gets up. He just leaves his record book and his piles of coins on the table. All that was once important to him; the money, the prestige, the lifestyle, that’s over. His boss might be saying, “Hey, wait! Where do you think you’re off to? What about all these people queuing to pay their tax bill?” Levi doesn’t hear him. He doesn’t even know for sure where Jesus is going next; he just knows he’s never going back.

Have you walked away from your old way of life, to follow Jesus? Jesus never accepted 50/50 half-hearted offers to follow him. “Let me wait till my father dies.” “If I can keep my nice job and generous bonuses...” “Let me just say goodbye to everyone first, maybe I’ll come along later.” Jesus always says, “Uh uh. It’s all or nothing.”

2) Open Your House/Heart

The next scene is at Levi’s house. Levi has been with Jesus for just a few hours or maybe a couple of days but he’s a quick learner. “What can I do?” he thinks. “Well I’ve got a nice house and a big garden, I can have everyone round to my place for a party.”  

So he invites everyone over to meet Jesus. That’s quite a big deal. He’s got to clean his house and get it tidy. He’s not used to doing this; he’s hardly got any friends, remember, because of his job. He has to go out and buy food and drink and napkins and paper plates.  

Then everyone turns up. He has to put up with people spilling wine on his nice carpet. Some idiot smears ketchup on the sofa. Someone else leaves a floater in the toilet and doesn’t flush it. He’s got some dodgy characters helping themselves to some of his little ornaments. It’s messy, it’s untidy.

Things always get messy when Jesus is about. But Levi has understood that hospitality is more than opening your home; it’s opening your heart, opening your life; that’s the gospel.

So he welcomes everybody into his plush mansion with all their mess and their chaos and their bother and noise and says, “Come in, make yourself at home, and come and meet Jesus.” And that’s how lives get changed. This is how God works.

Verse 15 says “many tax collectors and sinners were there.” A sinner simply means a social outcast.

It could be that they have a blacklisted profession like Levi and the other tax-gatherers. It could be that they lead a notorious, licentious lifestyle. It would have been a pretty motley crowd. The one thing they all have in common is that they are all excommunicated from the synagogue.

You look around the room. There’s the bloke surrounded by minders who owns that club in town with live strippers. There’s the single mother covered in tattoos just out of rehab - again. Her kids are all in care and nobody dares foster them. There’s the guy who drinks meths by the school fence and smells like a dustbin. And there’s Jesus, completely at ease.

The scandal of the kingdom is that in Jesus’ culture eating with someone is seen as an endorsement. It looks like you are condoning or even promoting their lifestyle. People draw a deep breath and shake their heads.

It baffles the teachers of the law and the Pharisees. We’re going to hear a lot about these people. Their antagonism against Jesus intensifies as Mark’s Gospel unfolds. Who exactly are they and what is their problem?

The teachers of the law (or scribes) are trained scholars. They have degrees from the University of God. They memorise books of the Bible. They’re very learned. They examine all the fine print. And they love making lists of rules. Then they add their rules and traditions to the Bible. The Bible isn’t enough, oooooh no, you’ve got to do all this as well. And they impose their religion on everyone else.

Below these teachers of the law are the Pharisees. They are not formally educated but they are devoted and zealous laymen. The Pharisees all choose a teacher of the law to be their instructor. They listen to his every word, they take notes, they memorise the Hebrew, and they discipline themselves to live strictly and obediently by the extra rules that the teachers of the law tack on to the Bible.

Their thinking is that perhaps one day, if you do well enough, God will love you and accept you.

These are the people who ask this question in v16. “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” They’re not being awkward. They are genuinely perplexed. They simply don’t get it. Why would a man of God waste his time with this scum?

But notice, this is really telling, they don’t think that they’re sinners. Sinners is other people. That’s what usually happens with religious people. They tend to think that others are worse than them.

Interestingly, Jesus doesn’t actually disagree that these people are sinners. He doesn’t excuse sin. He doesn’t minimise it. He doesn’t explain it away. He actually agrees with the Pharisees. “Yes, these people have a lot of sin and brokenness and disorder in their lives. But so do you. So what’s the solution? Are we going to run a holy club just for Christians, or are we going to love these people, and hear their stories, and serve them, and help them see that there’s a way out?”

Imagine you’re at Eaglescliffe Medical Practice in Sunningdale Drive. You’re feeling awful. You’re sitting patiently, looking at the electronic board waiting for your name to come up. A whole hour goes by.

Suddenly, your GP storms into the reception area and says “I’ve had enough! That’s two asthma complaints, one kid whingeing about chicken pox, one woman moaning about her migraines, another man grumbling about a stomach complaint. Isn’t there anyone fit and well around here who wants to see me? Give me a break!”

Jesus says “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

3) Go with the New Thing God Is Doing

While Jesus and his new friends are tucking into a meal, another question comes up.

Again, it’s an honest question. They’re not being difficult, they genuinely want to try and understand.

John the Baptist and his followers were deadly serious about seeking God and part of that was fasting. It’s a discipline to do with self-humbling and repentance. They felt their alienation from God. They were hungry (literally) for more of God’s presence. They were saying “All is not well, we need to break through to a new reality with God.”

John Piper says “Fasting is a temporary renunciation of something that is in itself good, like food, in order to intensify our expression of need for something greater; namely, God and his work in our lives.”

Fasting is about expressing our longing and yearning for the more of Christ’s power in our midst. It’s saying “I need your presence more than food, more than life itself. So fasting is redundant when Jesus is here.

Jesus sums up by talking about new patches on old clothes and new wine in old wineskins. Neither works. You put new unstretched material on old garments and when you wash them the new material shrinks, pulling the old. 

Before glass bottles, people in the Middle East sewed goatskins together to make watertight bags. A new wineskin is quite supple so it doesn’t matter that the fermenting wine stretches the skin like a balloon. But once the wineskin is fully stretched it becomes taught and there’s no more “give” in it. If you put more new wine in then it just bursts.

The Old Testament Law that the Scribes and Pharisees loved so much is like an MRI scan that shows up heart disease. It is good for a diagnosis but a scan just tells you what’s wrong with you, it cannot operate and make you well. We needed a heart transplant. That’s why Jesus came.

The Pharisees are like rigid old wineskins. You cannot contain the new wine of the kingdom in a stuffy old religion of man-made ideas and rules.

But here’s my challenge to you today; every human heart can grow rigid and hard, resisting the new thing Jesus wants to do. What’s your heart like today? Does God want to soften your heart this morning, and open it up to the new thing that God is doing in your life and in his church?

Let’s pray…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 9 July 2017