Sunday, March 11, 2018
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I am sure most people at this time of the year turn their mind to taxes.  You have probably received your T4s, T4As, T3s, T5s, etc., your receipts from charities thanking you for your generous donations, your financial statements, and have taken stock of what you have coming in and going out, and will be filing your tax return soon with joy and pleasure like all of us.  It is a wonderful time of the year, isn’t it?  Just fabulous!  If you haven’t already had enough of taxes and T4s by now, you are really going to dislike my sermon, because it is about taxes, and one particular person who was responsible for collecting taxes.  That of course is the story of Levi from The New Testament.
 
It is without doubt one of the central passages in The New Testament; one that was so important it was captured by all the Gospels.  While some say it was Matthew who was the tax collector, and two refer to Levi, they are talking about the same person, for indeed Matthew was a common name and so was Levi but the names were associated with one another in this singular person. In this particular case we know Levi, as recorded in this Gospel, is also Matthew the tax collector.  If ever there was an image of a figure representing all that was wrong in world before the encounter with Jesus, it is Matthew.  Matthew, the tax collector, resonates with both Christians and non-Christians alike as a person of immense importance, representing the darker side of human nature.
 
Why was it then so central, and why, when Jesus of Nazareth approached him was it so earth-shattering?  To understand it we need to know the context of first century Palestine.  There was great antipathy between the Jewish leaders and the Romans.  They did cooperate with each other from time to time, and King Herod certainly would work closely with the Roman authorities, but there was antipathy nevertheless.  The Romans were the occupying power and they had the power to tax.  The Jewish authorities, particularly the teachers of the law and the religious leaders, the Pharisees, found this to be an affront.  They found it was the way the State of Rome was finding its way into the heart of Israel, and so they remained separate, the Pharisees and the Romans, and the two of them had little to do with one another.
 
There was a reason for this, and part of the reason was taxes.  You see, there were two types of taxes that the Romans imposed upon people, and we need to understand this to understand the context of the call of Matthew.  There were what was known as “stated” taxes, and they were things like a poll tax, which is a horrible thing really:  it is where everyone has to pay the government for existing.  If you were a male between the ages of sixteen and sixty-five, you had to pay a poll tax.  Even more discriminatory, if you were a woman between the ages of twelve and sixty-five, you had to pay a poll tax.  The Romans took a certain amount of these taxes.  Then there were ground taxes, which were taxes on anything that you were able to grow or bring from the ground.  For example, one-tenth of all the grain that a farmer would harvest would go to the Romans.  One-fifth of all the oil, which was not oil from the ground but oil from the trees, like the Cedars.  The Romans were very clear about what they expected farmers to pay for what they were able to make.  There were other taxes as well – and this one is really going to get you irritated because there was an income tax in the time of the Romans, but what really irks me is that it was one percent.  One per cent!  Nevertheless, it had to be paid. In summary, they had a head tax, a ground tax, and income tax, and all of these amounted to quite a lot of money.  
 
There was also a second series of taxes, and this is where things get nasty.  They were what were known as “duty taxes” and these were like tolls.  If you used the road, you paid the tax.  If you used a harbour for one of your ships, or boats if you were a fisher person, you paid a tax.  If you went to a market and set up a stall, you paid a tax.  Even more distressing was if you had an animal pulling a cart, you paid a tax for each individual animal.  And the piece de resistance was if you pulled your own cart, you were charged for the wheels on the cart you were pulling!  Can you imagine going to Sobeys, Longos or Loblaws and a person comes along and charges you for pulling your own cart along the road? The annoyance and aggravation they must have felt about all these taxes!  
 
The Roman set no numbers on those taxes; it was up to the local tax collectors or more especially the toll collectors to determine what people would pay.  After a certain amount that would go to the Romans, they would keep what was left over.  So it was in the best interest of the toll collectors to extort as much money out of people as was humanly possible.  These tax collectors, or toll collectors which is probably more accurate, would sit on the side of the road waiting for you to come along and then put a tax on you.  They were despised!  It was bad enough that there were stated taxes already going to Rome, but these local people who have been likened to the Vichy government in France during World War II, who lined their own pockets, were exploiting people.
 
Enter Levi, a local man and toll collector hired by the Romans to collect these duty taxes.  Now Levi, we are told, was approached by Jesus, and we are told that he got up and followed Jesus.  But not only did he follow Jesus, he then went out of his way to make sure he could associate with Jesus.  This tax collector, this most hated of people, was approached by Jesus and responds to his invitation.  The Pharisees had a melt down!  The Pharisees, who were the religious leaders, could not believe that Jesus of Nazareth would have anything to do with someone who was so despicable as a toll collector, and believing in the law, believing in The Torah, believing in justice, believing in giving to what was God’s due, to serve God first, to remain separate, because that is what Pharisee means, to remain separate from sinners who are exploiting people like Levi was doing, they saw in Jesus better than anathema.  Jesus had approached this tax collector and invited him to follow him.  Jesus had gone out of his way to actually initiate a relationship with this tax collector – and they went out of their minds!  How can he be doing this?!  
 
Then, the really big scandal:  Levi not only responded to Jesus, but he decided to leave everything that he had behind.  In other words, he not only followed Jesus, he left behind his source of income, his way of doing things, and where Jesus clearly must have come to him on the road to Capernaum, probably while he was taking the toll on one of the roads, he changed Levi.  He changed him, and the change was so great that Levi decided that he wanted to reciprocate.  He invited Jesus into his home for a meal.  I want you to get the grasp this:  this man who was hated by people, vilified by society, put down by the religious leaders, was now hosting a dinner for Jesus of Nazareth.  He was going out of his way – and we are told in Greek – to hold a banquet.  A banquet is more than just a meal; it is a very public meal.  Furthermore, he invited him to come to his house.  Not only was this a banquet that he was holding; it was a banquet in his own home.
 
If you were a first century Palestinian and you hosted a banquet, you were a wealthy person.  A banquet is not something that everyone can throw.  It is a special event.  It is the same language that is used for the meal of the Passover.  It is a moment of celebration, and you don’t do it very often.  So Levi/Matthew was wealthy from the income he made off people.  He must have been very public, because we are told that a lot of people came.  He must have wanted to demonstrate that Jesus, who had approached him, had changed him.  The scandal gets worse.  We are told that other tax collectors were invited to this banquet.  In other words, not only did Levi invite Jesus, he invited all his other buddies in the tax collecting business.  I don’t know what a parallel would be in our society.  I hate to think!  But if you can think of a group of people that you don’t particularly like or admire, you can imagine all of them were in this house in Capernaum with Levi, and with Jesus in the midst of them.  The Pharisees, who principally believed that these were corrupt individuals, were seeing Jesus fraternize with them.  They couldn’t believe that Jesus was doing this.  You know, when you gather for a meal, particularly in Israel, but even to this day, and you invite someone to dine with you, you are making a close connection with people.  Having a meal with somebody isn’t just something that you do in a frivolous way, you do it with a sense of occasion, with a sense of it meaning, and being important.  When Levi invited Jesus to his home, this was a very big deal!
 
I often don’t think of meals in such a way, but I must admit that a couple of weeks ago when I was invited to a High Table dinner at one of the Oxford colleges I was visiting, I realized what a big deal a banquet is.  I went to this High Table dinner, and it was where the whole college gathers, there are dignitaries, and the Principal or the Warden or whoever the name is of the person who is running the college sits in the middle, and everyone else sits around them, and the closer you are in the seating plan to the Principal, the more important you are.  I was invited to this great banquet, and I was told what to wear; gowns were given to us in case we weren’t dressed well, so we could cover up what we were wearing and look acceptable. I wore a nice, clean white shirt you will be pleased to hear, and a tie, but I didn’t have all the resplendent regalia of some of the other guests. I was sitting on the end of the table as far away from the Principal as possible.  There I was though, feeling very important.  I was at the High Table.  This was an occasion!  This isn’t something you treat lightly.  It is not the meal that matters, nor the drinks, it is the fact that you are there.  That is what counts.  I want you to think of that when you think of Levi.  He has Jesus of Nazareth at his home for dinner!  This man who has been ripping people off has none other than this incredible miracle worker, speaker, leader of people, respected in the community, well-known in Galilee, at his home.  It was a scandal!  
 
What was really scandalous about it was that it represented two different approaches to life.  Clearly, Jesus was being intimate with Levi – he called out to him, Jesus had invited him to follow him, but did he ask him to repent?  Did he ask him to change?  No.  Jesus simply invited Levi to follow him.  Then what transpires?  We hear that Levi left everything.  He got up from whatever table he might have been sitting at on the side of the road, left the money that would be coming in, knowing he would be vilified by the Romans, that many of his friends would ultimately turn on him, but it didn’t matter, Levi had an encounter with Jesus of Nazareth and this encounter alone changed him.  The Pharisees, on the other hand, see it the other way.  You have to repent first, you have to have it in your own mind that you have done wrong, and then they would associate with you, then they would have a relationship, then they would welcome you.  But first, you would have to change.  That is why I love the Greek:  they went “gongzyo” when they find Jesus turning this on its head.  They started to grumble amongst themselves, angry about this, because for them it was a complete turning over of everything that they thought was right and true.  
 
Think about it for a moment, by associating with Levi, by reaching out to Levi, Levi changed.  Do you think that had he been left alone, had he continued to be shunned, and on the periphery of society, this man who knew he was doing something wrong would have changed?  I don’t think so.  I think it was Christ’s invitation and Christ’s powerful love that caused the change, not the other way around.  Jesus’ modus operandi, the whole way his ministry was carried out was on the belief that it is the grace of God in Christ first that touches the life, and then the repentance and the change and the baptism, and everything else that follows from it, but the first thing is Christ.  What a different way of thinking from those who were concerned with keeping themselves pure rather than seeking to save the lost.  “I did not,” said Jesus “come for those who are well; I came for those who are sick.  Those are the ones that I have come for, and I have come to redeem them out of the power of the grace of God.”  
 
Think about it for a moment from Levi’s point of view.  The theology is that Christ first reaches out to him, but the reality is in terms of Levi’s life of profligacy, of corruption and extortion, and exploiting his very own people.  He had been supporting the Romans and working with other tax collectors to line his own pockets.  He had tried to find joy; to find happiness by doing these things but had failed.  
 
There is a beautiful story told about a young man who lived in Paris and found himself distraught.  He went to the psychiatrist and told him he was feeling down, and it wasn’t just a clinical thing, he was annoyed with life and really needed some help.  The doctor said, “One of the things we can do is find out how you can enjoy life a little bit more.  We can solve some of your other problems, but you need to figure out how to enjoy life.  Why don’t I put you in touch with a Grimaldi?  He is in one of the cafe societies in Paris, and is a very popular man.  He is a young, runs a nightclub people frequent, and is well known on the street. He is socially recognized, has a buoyant and a joyful life, and people seem to follow him. Maybe if you meet him you will find happiness and joy, and realize that there is fun in life.”
 
The young man looked down and seemed somewhat upset, and said, “I am not sure about that. I am Grimaldi!”
 
Levi had tried to find joy, and then Jesus of Nazareth comes along and he changes him.  He does it by a kind welcome.  He does it by an invitation.  Was Jesus like this with everyone?  No.  To those who were trying to condemn him or trap him, Jesus said nothing before them.  He remained silent before those who were trying to accuse him.  Jesus did not embrace them; he simply remained quiet.  Did Jesus, as the Pharisees probably thought, endorse the corruption of the tax collectors?  No!  There was not a sign that Jesus was in any way saying that their corruption was legitimate.  Just because Levi invited other tax collectors (and we would love to know what happened to them, wouldn’t we?) does not mean that Jesus endorsed their corruption.  Nevertheless, once he encountered Christ, Levi was changed forever.
 
A couple of weeks ago, I was reading in the British tabloids about the problems of homeless people in the City of Windsor, where the upcoming royal nuptials will take place, and how they are trying to get rid of the homeless people in the city who are hanging around and becoming a nuisance.  I noticed while I was walking through the streets of Oxford, in some very cold weather I might add – very cold weather for the U.K., record-breaking cold weather – that there were a lot of homeless people huddled on the streets of Oxford.  I observed them for a while, and noticed that outside most of the great and glorious colleges there were no homeless people. There were no homeless people in front of most of the major stores, or outside the great libraries, but I did notice that they hung around the bus station and the coffee shops, places where people could actually give them something. 
 
I watched one young man in particular who had his dog with him. He was wrapped up right up to his eyes!  Then I noticed something:  there were a number of such people by one college and one college only.  Now, I don’t know if anyone has ever noticed this before or whether I was, but I stopped and spoke to one of the homeless young men.  I asked him where he was from, and what broke my heart was that he was from Lancashire, where I am from in the north of England.  We talked a bit, and he is disturbed, and you know people just walk by him as though he is not there.  Your heart breaks, doesn’t it?  You know, in some eyes he is an outcast; in others he is just not well.  I did ask him, “I noticed you were here and I have seen you for two days in the same place.  Why are a number of you here at this spot?”
 
Then he told me:  “This is Blackfriars college. There are daily chapel services, morning prayers, communion, and a community lunch.” Monks go there to train, and there are other academics who come from the Christian communities throughout the world.  It is a place of religious training and formation.  Then he said something that both broke my heart and inspired me at the same time.  He said, “This is the one place where the people come out of the college and give us food, and invite us into the college when we are really cold, but we never take them up on it.  But when they come out, they come to us.”  Everywhere else the homeless are reaching out to others but this is the one place where someone is reaching out to them.
 
If Jesus of Nazareth, in his ministry, and his Gospel, and his life means anything, it is embedded in the call of Levi. It is the invitation of Christ, who goes first to those who are in need, and it is there where God does his work.  The big scandal! Amen.