Mark 2:13-14
Being
a public figure brings with it certain challenges. I am sure you have seen the
recent news, the ongoing saga of Justin Bieber. This young man is in serious
need of Jesus. He has too much wealth with no wisdom. At 19 years old, he has
never been given any real responsibility and his life is showing it. But many
public figures have difficulty. They are constantly watched and scrutinized.
Photographers are paid to take pictures of them at moments when they look their
worst, or in the most embarrassing situations. The price of fame!
When
Jesus calls Levi in our text, he doesn’t call him to a life of fame, but to a
life of following. The attention was clearly focused on Jesus. Jesus is out
beside the Sea of Galilee (the lake) again. We don’t know the exact reason
Jesus is out by the water again, but Mark told us He was forced to primarily
stay away from populated areas because of the crowds created by the publicity
that followed His teaching and miracles.
Jesus
shows up and word gets out. Remember that this is before Twitter or even cable
news. The current location and direction of travel would not have been tracked
by GPS. Everything would have been by word of mouth. I can imagine that when
Jesus stayed somewhere that the word would spread that evening to the nearby
villages that evening. By morning several layers of towns would know where He
was and people would come. When they arrived they would be told His last known
direction of travel and off they would go.
Of
course lakeshore makes a great place to teach. The land naturally slopes in
toward the water making a natural amphitheater. Jesus voice would have carried
across the crowd much more easily than in a residential area. From the text we see
that Jesus is teaching the crowd that has gathered. And in Mark’s condensed style Jesus is
immediately walking along following His time of teaching. We don’t know what
Jesus is doing while He walks. We do know that He comes upon Levi at his place
of employment. I don’t know what his booth looked like, but people approaching
must have known that it was time to pay the tax.
Most
people approaching the booth would have had a reaction much like our reaction
to a toll booth today. Do you gleefully approach a toll booth excited to pay
your toll? No! Most of us see the stop as an inconvenience, an interruption in
our journey. I can imagine the name calling that Levi had to endure as he did
his job. The complaining about the tax, its amount, the fact that they just
paid a few miles back, about the unfairness of the system, that they were being
taxed too much, about how did Levi expect anyone to make a profit. The list of verbal
abuses could go on and on.
But
instead of complaining, Jesus simply speaks to Levi those words that are
familiar to us, “Follow me.” They were probably the only kind words Levi had
heard at work in a long time. And Levi responds. Levi follows. Are you willing
to follow like this?