Jesus,
Lepers and Tax Collectors, Mark 2:13-17
In our walk through Ezekiel on Sundays, the Lord has
revealed His Majestic Sovereignty over nations. By His Word, He has turned the
trajectory of nations and declared their destiny. He treats wicked nations like
briers and thorns, to tear out and burn up.
Then, in Divinely timed, perfect balance, as we walk through
Mark, we see the Sovereign Servant Savior, we see Jesus, who finds us and loves
us right where we’re at, who steps directly into the weeds with us, amidst the
thorns, on a rescue mission.
OUTLINE:
The Call (13–14)
The Communion (15)
The Conflict (16)
The Cure (17)
Then He went out again by the sea; and all the multitude came to
Him, and He taught them. 14 As He passed by, He saw Levi the
son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he arose and followed
Him.
15 Now it
happened, as He was dining in Levi’s house, that many
tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and His disciples;
for there were many, and they followed Him. 16 And when
the scribes and Pharisees saw Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to His disciples, “How
is it that He eats and drinks with tax
collectors and sinners?”
17 When Jesus
heard it, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but
those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to
repentance.”
Jesus doesn’t wait for us to clean up our lives; He steps directly into our mess to call us, change us, to dine with us as Romans 5:8 reminds us, "while we were yet sinners Christ died for us."
Jesus left the ninety-nine to find the one. He left the multitude to find the man sitting behind a wooden desk. A man society despised, his own people considered to be nothing more than a thorn. Jesus found him and extended to him, a two-word invitation, that changed everything.
Just a few verses earlier in Mark chapter 1, Jesus met a leper—an outcast, banned from the community, despised, deemed totally untouchable. Yet, Jesus touched his rotting flesh and made him clean. Now, in chapter 2, Jesus walks straight up to a social outcast, a spiritual leper, and touches his rotting soul and makes him whole. As Luke 19:10 declares, "Jesus came to seek and to save, that which is lost."
The Call (Verses 13–14)
“Then He went out again by the sea; and
all the multitude came to Him, and He taught them. 14As He passed
by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office. And He said to
him, ‘Follow Me.’ So he arose and followed Him.”
The Lord, through Mark notes that Jesus went "out again by the sea." Capernaum was a booming commercial hub by the Sea of Galilee. Jesus must’ve loved preaching in the open air, where regular, working-class folks were going about their business. But notice how He teaches the multitudes, while He searches for the one, the man, the woman, the thirsty, the hungry one, ready to be found.
Jesus passed by the tax office, a toll booth, set up
to collect duties on goods traveling the major international highway, known as
the Via Maris, or the “Way of the Sea”.
As He passed by, Jesus looked inside that despised IRS agent’s office, and across that old wooden desk He saw what He’s always looking for, even here, even now, a thirsty, hungry, soul. There, with a full bank, but an empty, hungry, soul, sat Levi, the son of Alphaeus.
Now, when you read the other Gospels, you’ll notice an
interesting detail. Mark and Luke call this man Levi. But when Levi
writes about Levi, in his own Gospel, he calls himself, Matthew.
Remember that, because there’s a beautiful message in his name, we’ll come back
to it when we wrap things up.
It was common back then to carry two names—a Hebrew name for family and a Greek name for business. But in this case, there is a heartbreaking twist; like a wife named Faith, who is unfaithful. He was named Levi, which means he belonged to the priestly tribe of Israel. The Levites were set apart by God to handle holy things, minister in the temple, and bless the people. But instead of serving God in the temple, this Levi chose to serve Caesar in a tollbooth. Instead of blessing his people, he was extorting them.
Every time a Jew walked past that wooden desk and spit the name "Levi," it was a stinging reminder of how far he had fallen from his family’s holy heritage. He was a living contradiction—a priest turned pirate. Jewish tax collectors were viewed as political traitors, religious apostates. They were banned from the synagogue; their testimony was inadmissible in a Jewish court of law. To the religious elite, Levi wasn’t just a sinner; he was a spiritual leper.
But when Jesus looked into that toll booth at Levi, He didn’t see a leper, He saw a hungry disciple, a man ready to trade in that old wooden desk for the old rugged cross. So, He simply uttered a two-word command, that same command echoes from that day to this, to you and me, here and now, the command, that if obeyed, changes everything, “Follow Me.”
And Levi arose, higher than he’s ever risen, and
followed Him.
Think about the immediate, staggering cost for Levi.
When Peter, Andrew, James, and John left their nets, they could always go back
to fishing if things didn't work out. But when a tax collector walked away,
Rome wasn’t pleased, he was replaced immediately and there was no going back.
Levi left a life of wealth and security for the unknown path of simply
following Jesus.
The best decision any thirsty, hungry, soul could ever make.
The Communion (Verse 15)
“Now it happened, as He was dining in
Levi’s house, that many tax collectors and sinners also sat together
with Jesus and his disciples; for there were many, and they followed
Him.”
What is the very first thing Levi did after deciding
to follow Jesus?
He told all his many friends and threw a
party.
Which is exactly what’s supposed to happen when a
person makes Jesus Lord of their life.
You change. And you want everybody to know about it.
About Him.
If you don’t change, and you don’t want everybody to
know, then, you’re probably still lord of your own life and just pretending.
Now, this party was not full of Sunday school
teachers and choir directors; the place was packed with tax collectors and
sinners.
Imagine the scandal. That Prophet, that
Teacher, that Miracle Worker, that some are saying is the Messiah. That
Man, Jesus, sat together with them—tax collectors and
sinners. Oh my!
In the ancient Near East, sharing a meal wasn't just
about consuming food; it was communion, an expression of deep covenant
fellowship, intimacy, and acceptance.
Jesus did not stand at the door passing out
tracts and sprinkling Holy Water from a distance on the sinners. No, He was
right there, in the midst of them, reclined at the table. His holiness helped
them in, rather than their mess keeping Him out.
The Conflict (Verse 16)
“And when the scribes and Pharisees saw
Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to His disciples,
‘How is it that He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?’”
Notice the Pharisees are watching Jesus.
Don’t they have a life? Don’t they have better things
to do other than spying on Jesus to see if they can dig up any dirt?
It’s the same today. Godly folks that just want to
live right and do good are busy living life.
Those who don’t want to live right and do good just
want to destroy those who do. Since they don’t have a life, they have all the
time in the world to picket, and protest and riot and murmur, and slander, and
backbite and pervert the truth into poison.
Which is exactly what the Pharisees were trying to do
to the disciples—poison them against Jesus.
The word Pharisee literally means “separated
one.” Which should’ve meant separated unto God. But their arrogant attitude separated
them from God and into their own echo chamber. Their entire elite theological
framework was built on avoiding contamination.
Their question is packed with self-righteous disgust: “How
is it that He eats with filthy tax collectors and sinners?”
They believed a Holy God would only draw near clean
people—ehem—like us Pharisees. They completely misunderstood the heart
of the Father.
Do you see what Jesus is doing here?
Simultaneously showing His Divinity and His humanity.
Divinity for the
Pharisees: He healed the leper and forgave the sins of the paralytic. Which
everybody knows only God can do that.
Humanity for the tax
collectors and sinners: He touched the leper and ate with the tax
collectors.
The Pharisees are furious because Jesus is proving to
be what they refuse to believe.
The very Son of the Living God.
The long awaited Messiah.
God in the flesh.
The Savior of the world.
Blowing their Pharisaical religious minds.
Jesus, the Great Physician, didn’t mind getting His
hands dirty—after all, He was born in a barn.
He wasn’t afraid to touch the leper in chapter one.
He doesn’t fear the elite when He eats with tax
collectors and sinners in chapter two.
For this is why He came... for the sick. To be the Cure.
The Cure (Verse 17)
“When Jesus heard it, He said to them,
‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did
not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.’”
Jesus shuts their legalistic murmuring mouths with
common sense, a simple, undeniable medical analogy: Healthy people don't go
to the doctor; sick people do.
Jesus didn't look at Levi's house as a contaminated den of thieves; He looked at it as an emergency room. He didn't see disgusting rebels; He saw dying patients who desperately needed, the Cure.
When Jesus says, “I did not come to call the
righteous, but sinners,” He is not conceding that the Pharisees are righteous.
He knew Romans 3:23 before Paul ever wrote it. “All
have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Jesus is exposing the hard tragic truth: The tax
collectors and sinners knew they were spiritually terminally ill, so they
welcomed the Great Physician, the Cure.
However, the Pharisees, who should’ve known better,
should’ve recognized Him, but blinded by pride, they thought they were in perfect spiritual
health, so they rejected Him and died in the waiting room, clinging to their own sin leprosy.
Conclusion
Okay, now, let’s wrap things up. Remember we said we’d
come back to the beautiful message of Levi’s name?
Mark and Luke write their accounts using Levi
(Mark 2:14, Luke 5:27).
Why?
Because the Lord uses them to give us the raw, HIStorical,
outsider perspective.
So, we can see the man sitting in the mud of his
sin—the tax collector that the whole town despised.
So, we can know how deep in the weeds Jesus is willing
to go.
But when Matthew sits down with his pen, in Matthew 9:9, he doesn’t call himself Levi. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, he writes: “As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office.”
When he tells his own story, he uses the name given by
grace—a name that means “Gift of the Lord.”
It’s as if he picked up his pen, looked back at his
old life, and said, “The world knew me as Levi the loser, the traitor, tax
collector and sinner. They knew me by my failure, my greed, and my past.
But when Jesus looked into my tollbooth,
He didn't see a thief; He saw me, Matthew, a gift of God.
Church, the enemy, seeks to kill, steal and destroy
your True identity. The father of lies tries to trap us under old names, the
names of our past, our addiction, our failures, and our baggage.
Mark and Luke show us “Levi”, so we never
forget where Jesus found him... and us.
But Jesus doesn’t only change our
destination; He rewrites our identity.
When we surrender to the Savior, we leave, Levi the
leper, in the tollbooth forever, and step out as a customized gift to the
Kingdom of God.
As we close, let’s remember these three things:
- Jesus is near:
Jesus didn’t call Levi while he was praying in the temple; He called him while
he was playing with dirty money. Don’t wait until you have it all in order
before turning to the Savior. He meets you exactly where you are, and from there,
He says, “Follow Me.”
- Build a bridge:
Levi’s immediate response was to turn his home into a bridge for his broken
friends to meet Jesus. As a Church, are we more like the Pharisees—protecting
our cleanliness from a distance—or are we like Levi, intentionally creating
spaces where broken people can rub shoulders with the Savior?
- Be a gift:
Mark calls him Levi, but when this same man writes the Gospel that opens
our New Testament, he calls himself Matthew, which means "Gift
of the Lord."
That is what Jesus does.
He takes the thief, the cheat, and the outcast, strips
away their old labels, and transforms them into a living gift to the Kingdom of
God.
Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, thank You for finding us and
saying, “Follow Me.” Thank You for giving us the strength to rise and follow
You. Now, please help us to stay the course, by knowing You are ever near,
building a bridge for others to draw near You and being a gift to all those You’ve
given us. So, none are lost.
Thank You.
We love You, forever.
Amen.
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