Amy C Walters

Jesus Calls Levi | Luke 5:27-39

Every story has heroes and villains. Some stories surprise you with which is which. When Jesus meets Levi, a tax collector in Luke 5, we’d expect Jesus to avoid the man. Instead, Jesus goes to Levi, inviting him to follow. And Levi responds, showing that no one is beyond God’s reach.

In many stories, you have a hero and a villain. And some stories, in an effort to make a great plot twist, leave you guessing about who that villain is, or surprise you with who the hero and villain really are. In our story this week, we meet a tax collector named Levi.

Now, the occupation of tax collector would automatically put him in the villain category, according to Luke’s original audience. Because tax collectors are considered traitors and cheats. They’re traitors because they work for the Romans, the occupying government that the Jewish people hate. They want to have their own rule, their own freedom. And these tax collectors are assisting this evil government in oppressing the people. 

The tax collectors were also cheats because they would make people pay more than the taxes that were due, and they would keep that extra money for themselves. They were making themselves rich off of the misery of other people. 

Have you ever been cheated or tricked out of money before? Have you ever been scammed? How does that feel? It feels terrible, obviously. You feel foolish, you feel vulnerable, you feel angry because something has been taken from you. But even beyond what you physically lost, there’s also the emotional toll. You begin to distrust people. You absolutely try to avoid people like that in the future. 

At the start of this story, Jesus has come from teaching a house full of Pharisees and healing a paralyzed man and forgiving his sin. And Jesus comes from there and he sees a tax collector named Levi at his tax booth.

And what might the original audience have been thinking with this introduction of the tax collector? Maybe they’re saying, “Oh, Jesus, go far around that guy! Avoid him, he is bad news.” Or maybe they’re hoping that Jesus would go there and chew him out, reprimand him, preach against him for what he is doing. 

Instead, Jesus goes to where Levi is working and says, “Follow me.” Jesus gives Levi an invitation to join him, to be a part of his group of disciples that’s learning from him and serving alongside him. He invites Levi to ministry, going from cheating and stealing to serving God. 

Does that make sense? No, not to any of us. Why would Jesus invite someone like that? And why would someone like that even listen to Jesus? 

But Levi gets up, leaves everything, and follows Jesus. It’s the same wording as what happened when Jesus called Simon and James and John after fishing. Jesus had shown them this great miracle of the catch of fish, and Simon was overwhelmed and said to Jesus, “Go away from me, I’m a sinful man.”  But Jesus said, “From now on, you’re going to catch men.” And so when they pulled up onto shore, they left everything and followed Jesus. 

Now, it’s easier to see fishermen like Simon and James and John as part of Jesus’ disciples because at least fishing is a neutral job. But a tax collector? A villain? Why would Jesus call him?

What does Levi’s response to Jesus tell us about him? It tells us that somehow he was ready, even though he was someone who had cheated others. Even though the religious people took a wide path around him to avoid him, somehow Levi was ready for this invitation. God must have been working in his heart to prepare him for this. 

This also tells us that Levi must have great faith. Yes, he was hated by other people in his job, but it was a secure job, and he was wealthy, he was making good money. So to leave what he knew and what had been profitable for him, to go into the unknown with Jesus, where he may be utterly rejected, that’s a risky thing to do. But Levi doesn’t hesitate. He leaves everything to follow Jesus. 

What does this tell us about Jesus? Notice that Jesus initiates this interaction with Levi. Levi has not come to him. And in fact, in those days, that’s often how rabbis (teachers) would get disciples–the disciples would choose their rabbi and approach him. Instead, we have Jesus here, going to Levi, initiating this interaction with him, and inviting him to follow. 

We see too that Jesus’ invitation must be so compelling. It’s just a simple interaction. Two words, “Follow me.” And that was enough for Levi.

After Levi leaves his tax collector’s booth, the next scene is at Levi’s house where he’s hosting a great banquet for Jesus. And he has invited all of his friends. It says that “a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them.” This is a group that Pharisees label as “sinners.” They just slap this label on there. “You are hanging out with sinners.” 

This is Levi’s crowd. And Levi does not hide from anyone this choice that he has made. He instead wants to introduce everyone he knows to Jesus. He wants them all to know the change that has happened in his heart. And he wants them to experience the same change. “Come meet Jesus.” 

So this crowd of tax collectors that Levi invites, they come. They must be intrigued to know who Jesus is too. We might assume that they would want nothing to do with a religious teacher and yet there they are. 

My husband is a pastor and oftentimes, when people find out his profession, their behavior suddenly changes. They become stiff and quiet, and they just act very differently once they find out that he is a pastor. 

But Levi’s friends don’t avoid the rabbi. They come to have a party with him. 

Let’s imagine for a moment, too, how Jesus’ other disciples felt about this. How would you feel if you were one of Jesus’ other disciples, to have Levi brought on board, to be your teammate?

I don’t think I would be too happy about this. There’s a chance that Levi has even cheated those other disciples out of their own money. How could they trust him?

So in this story, even though it’s set up for us to think of Levi as the villain at the very beginning, we realize he is not. We realize that he is a leader who is following Jesus, and he has a huge impact on his community because of it. All these other tax collectors and sinners get to meet Jesus because of Levi. His life is transformed, and he is inviting others to experience that transformation as well. 

This story teaches us that no one is beyond God’s reach. That’s our key truth for today.

No one is beyond God’s reach. Not even a tax collector like Levi. Not even someone from a different political party than you. Not even someone from the LGBTQA+ community. Not even your neighbor who has said they don’t want to hear it anymore. Or your relative who mocks God. Not even that person that you have been praying for for years. 

No one is beyond God’s reach. Levi is the last person that you would expect, and yet somehow God was working in his life, and he follows Jesus.

So don’t give up on those that you have been praying for. And don’t count people out who you think are too far gone for God to reach them. This just might be the day of salvation for that person.