Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
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Anger
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Fear
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Joy
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Analytical
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Social Tone
Openness
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Conscientiousness
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Extraversion
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Agreeableness
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Introduction
In the military, there is a certain activity that one must do before taking a vehicle off the lot.
It was called PMCS—Preventative Maintenance Checks and Services.
There was an entire check-list of things that needed to be checked every time a humvee or a deuce and a half or whatever else was being taken.
Headlights, tail lights, oil, transmission fluid, brake fluid, tire pressure, etc.
If it could break on the vehicle, it had to be checked.
If something was wrong, there was no checking it out.
It either got fixed immediately or another vehicle was assigned and another PMCS was performed.
It was so tempting and so easy just to pretend to do the PMCS.
I’m sure at some point, everyone fudged a little…or a lot! on their checklists.
After all, what’s the likelihood that this thing is going to break down?
It didn’t look broken.
It didn’t smell broken.
It didn’t sound broken.
It’s all good.
And if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
What are we?
Mechanics?
No! We’re infantry.
We’re airborne.
We’re Chaplain Assistants!
If the humvee drives, then it doesn’t need a mechanic.
Isn’t that how we treat our cars?
Flat tires need air.
Dead batteries need a jump.
Low oil needs a change.
But so long as no lights come on and it cranks in the morning, we don’t PMCS our cars.
But we don’t just treat our cars this way.
We treat ourselves this way also.
Rarely, if ever, do people—Christians included—check to see if they are doing okay.
So long as we wake up in the morning, that’s good enough for us.
Most people are concerned about looking okay than being okay.
Put on some decent clothes, brush the teeth, put on deodorant, maybe some cologne or perfume, and maybe do the makeup and hair.
It’s like washing and waxing the body of a car without actually checking the engine to make sure it is good to go.
Have you ever heard a car before you saw it?
When it drove by, it was all shiny and cool looking, but it needed a tune-up!
This morning, as we open up Luke, we see Jesus calling Levi to follow him.
As we do, I want us to see this in three acts—kind of like a play, but obviously not a fictitious one.
We’ll call Act I: The Beheld.
Act II is The Banquet.
Act III: The Broken.
The Befriended
The Banquet
The Broken
The Befriended
Act I starts off with Jesus on the move.
He has just healed the paralytic in the middle of a conference involving the Pharisees, Scribes, and law-teachers.
We don’t actually know how long it was between the healing and the calling of Levi, aka Matthew.
It could have been a few minutes; it could have been a few days.
We just get the words, “After this...”
What we do know is that Jesus was on a mission.
We’ve already seen Jesus calling Simon Peter.
Now we get the story of Jesus calling Levi Matthew.
It was common for Jews to have a Hebrew/Aramaic name as well as a Greek name.
Simon was Hebrew, Peter was Greek.
Saul was Hebrew, Paul was Greek.
Levi was Hebrew, Matthew was Greek.
Jesus was on a mission that involved calling Levi to follow him.
All we get about Levi, at first, is that he is a tax-collector.
Being that he was in a booth indicates that he was a middle-man.
He worked for a higher ranking tax-collector.
As we all know, no one likes the tax-man; especially the Jews in the first century who knew that their tax-money was going to the Romans who occupied their land.
After all, how do you get out from occupation, when all your tax dollars are going to keep the occupiers supplied with weapons and food so they can continue to occupy your land!?
So here is Levi, the tax collector in his tax booth, just doing his job.
You can imagine it can’t you?
This little table with a canopy over the top just outside of town.
It’s probably some time in the mid to late afternoon.
There’s a line of disgruntled tax-payers.
Every single one of them giving Levi the stink-eye.
Some may be a bit more polite than others, but none of them like him or want to be around him.
Many of them call him a traitor to the Jewish people.
Some show their disrespect by spitting at his feet.
None of that is found in the Bible, mind you, but it was a typical response to those who aligned themselves with Rome.
Rabbis saw and taught that tax-collectors were hired thieves and they were considered to be committing divine treason.
It was, according to a Jewish ruling, legal to lie to tax collectors.
The religious leaders like the Pharisees and Scribes saw them as unclean and unfit for any religious duties.
Like shepherds, they couldn’t give testimony in court, and they were considered more unclean than lepers since lepers didn’t choose to be lepers but tax collectors chose to be tax collectors.
In other words, everyone looked at Levi with suspicion, hatred, and disgust.
Everyone except Jesus.
Luke wrote that Jesus saw him.
The normal Greek word for “saw” would be blepo.
It just means to see with the eyes.
But there are other words to use.
This word that Luke used is theaomai.
This is actually an emphatic term that is not often used.
So when it is used, it should give us pause.
Blepo is used 133 times in the New Testament.
Theaomai is used only 22.
When Paul wanted to stop in Rome on his way to Spain, he said it was so he could see them, but clearly it wasn’t just to wave at them from a distance, but to visit with them.
The same goes for the writer of Hebrews, when he informs them that he plans to see them with Timothy.
His intention was not just to look upon them with his eyes, but to spend time with them.
So when we read that Jesus saw Levi, we need to understand that it wasn’t simply that Levi caught Jesus’s eye as he was walking by.
Rather that Jesus intentionally went out to see Levi—to spend time with him, to visit with him.
His attention was fixed upon Levi.
This man who no one liked and no one wanted to be around for longer than was necessary to pay taxes—and maybe spit on or degrade—was wanted by Jesus.
What toll does it take upon a person who knows that no one wants to be around them?
No one wants to befriend them.
No one invites them over for dinner.
No one wants to hang out.
They go, do their job, go home.
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