Contagious Holiness - Luke 5
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Luke 5:27–39 (ESV) — 27 After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” 28 And leaving everything, he rose and followed him. 29 And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. 30 And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” 31 And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” 33 And they said to him, “The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink.” 34 And Jesus said to them, “Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? 35 The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.” 36 He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. 38 But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’ ”
Tim Chester, in his book A Meal with Jesus, writes:
“How would you complete the sentence: “The Son of Man came . . .”? The Son of Man came . . . preaching the Word . . . to establish the kingdom of God . . . to die on the cross. Perhaps the question is more revealing if we make it, “We should go . . .”? We should go . . . campaign for political change . . . preach on street corners . . . make the most of new media . . . adapt to the culture we want to reach. There are three ways the New Testament completes the sentence, “The Son of Man came . . .” “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45); “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10); “The Son of Man has come eating and drinking . . .” (Luke 7:34).
“The first two are statements of purpose. Why did Jesus come? He came to serve, to give his life as a ransom, to seek and save the lost. The third is a statement of method. How did Jesus come? He came eating and drinking.”
What was his modus operandi? Preaching? Healing? Teaching? He certainly did those things. But Jesus himself says ‘the Son of Man came eating and drinking’ (Luke 7:34). Eating and drinking – a lot. [Tim Chester]
Food:
We celebrate with food
We mourn with food
We mark holidays and special events with food
When we want to get to know someone (like a date or friendship) we choose to do it over food.
In town, people of different worldviews unite over food
We seek to help the poor by giving them food (It’s essential and life-giving)
It comforts
It is slow-paced in our fast-paced world
It’s necessary and must be done regularly (21 times a week usually)
How does the Bible talk about food?
Adam and Eve fail with food
Land flowing with milk and honey
Sacrifices and rituals surround food - judgement comes from eating with and offering wrong meals to idols and others
Jesus comes eating and drinking
The Church shares meals and have all things together
The redeemed sit the the Lord at the Wedding Supper of The Lamb
How can we learn from Jesus what it means to love our neighbors by looking at how he used food?
Dining with sinners
Feeding the massive crowds
Teaching his disciples
Inviting people to join him
Using that time to ask or answer questions
He was prepared to teach using compelling and relevant illustrations
The Bible speaks of food as a comparison to God’s blessing & salvations/redemption.
Think Living water, bread of life, Milk and Honey, Revelation marriage supper
How food is imaged from the OT
Isaiah 25:6–9 (ESV) — 6 On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. 7 And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. 8 He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. 9 It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”
How Jesus was viewed for his relationship to food
Luke 7:33–35 (ESV) — 33 For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ 34 The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ 35 Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.”
“His “excess” of food and “excess” of grace are linked. In the ministry of Jesus, meals were enacted grace, community, and mission.” (Chester)
Robert Karris concludes: “In Luke’s Gospel Jesus is either going to a meal, at a meal, or coming from a meal.”
Our desire today is to learn how to make disciples like Jesus did. I know that sometimes a great shadow is cast over the conversation of making disciples. It can feel like you haven’t done it enough, or that you need to regiment your life to fit some ministry program in order to do it. But when you look at the life of Jesus and you pay attention to how he makes disciples, there is a magnificent beauty in it. His example to us is a vision for life that isn’t a heavy burden (although it isn’t easy), it’s a vision of beauty, abundance, and fruitfulness.
27 After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” 28 And leaving everything, he rose and followed him. 29 And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. 30 And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
“Luke describes Jesus’s table companions as “tax collectors and others” (5:29). It’s the Pharisees who call them “tax collectors and sinners” (v. 30). The message is clear: these “others” don’t measure up to the standards of purity expected by the Pharisees.” (Chester)
Our characters:
Tax collectors partnered with Rome to extort the Jewish people. They were not only seen as those who were abusing their own people, but they were seen as those who were against God’s people and God himself. You can feel the scorn that the Pharisees had for them.
The Pharisees were a group that tried to ratchet up religious zeal by teetotalism. They took the OT instructions to priests and applied them to themselves and to others in an attempt to reform Judaism. They were very strict rule followers and rule makers. Jesus elsewhere calls them unmarked tombs (dead men walking) and those who don’t wash the inside of the cup (hypocrites).
Levi made a GREAT feast with a large company of tax collectors and others/sinners. — Matthew 11:19 (ESV) — 19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.”
Peter Leithart says:
“For Jesus “feast” was not just a “metaphor” for the kingdom. As Jesus announced the feast of the kingdom, He also brought it into reality through His own feasting. Unlike many theologians, He did not come preaching an ideology, promoting ideas, or teaching moral maxims. He came teaching about the feast of the kingdom, and He came feasting in the kingdom. Jesus did not go around merely talking about eating and drinking; he went around eating and drinking. A lot.”
William Lane (1974: 106; cf. also Witherington 2001: 123) notes that the specific reference to Jesus calling Levi and his colleagues suggests that ‘the basis of table-fellowship was messianic forgiveness, and the meal itself was an anticipation of the messianic banquet.’
Revelation 19:9 (ESV) — 9 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”
Think of our evangelism as a foretaste of a messianic banquet.
31 And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
“For the Pharisees it went like this: Salvation is national renewal. This will be achieved by personal purity. Those who don’t measure up, like tax collectors, sinners, and the poor, must be ostracized.” (Chester)
“‘It is a story about saving grace, for there are no penalties, and no demands, except to follow Jesus’ (Hooker 1991: 94). Or, more expansively, ‘It may also entail summoning them to repentance in the moral sense of that term. What is nonetheless striking is that Jesus appears to not require repentance in advance of having table fellowship with sinners and tax collectors’ (Witherington 2001: 123, italics mine).(Blomberg)
Fishers of men (Lk. 5:10) — cleaning the fish before you catch them.
And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them’” (vv. 1–2). It’s the same issue we met at Levi’s house. There’s something about Jesus that makes tax collectors and sinners want to be with him. And Jesus eats with them—a sign of friendship and fellowship. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law are scandalized. So Jesus tells these three parables to explain himself. In a sense they expand his statement in Luke 5:31–32 that he has come for sinners, not for the righteous. He’s come for those who are lost, and when the lost are found, there’s always a party. The shepherd, the woman, and the father each hold a party (15:6, 9, 23–24) that mirrors the celebration of heaven (15:7, 10). (Chester)
Craig Blomberg writes in his book Contagious Holiness: “If Jesus was right, and the prevailing view in ancient Judaism wrong, so that holiness can be more contagious than impurity, then we need not fear such activity. The sad examples of Christians being corrupted and adopting the sinful practices of their non-Christian acquaintances with whom they associate is a testimony to their unwillingness to rely on the Spirit’s power and not a disproof of the viability of Jesus’ model.” (Blomberg)
33 And they said to him, “The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink.” 34 And Jesus said to them, “Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? 35 The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.” 36 He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. 38 But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’ ”
“In Luke 5:36–39 Jesus makes the point explicitly. Something new is happening—something so new it can’t be added onto the old, any more than you can sew new cloth on old. This is not simply an amendment to the old system. Grace can’t be integrated with self-righteousness and self-importance. It’s radically different, radically new.” (Chester)
“Compare the old way with the new way. The new way is gracious rather than religious, inclusive rather than exclusive, welcoming rather than unwelcoming. It is characterized by feasting rather than fasting, rejoicing rather than grumbling. It recognizes its need and finds hope in the Savior rather than feeling self-righteous and therefore rejecting the Savior.” (Chester)
In Matthew’s account of this story there is one more line added. It reads --- Matthew 9:12–13 (ESV) — 12 But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Hosea 6:6–7 (ESV) — 6 For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. 7 But like Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me.
“A key theme in Luke’s Gospel is “heeding” the Word of God. “Heeding” is an old word, but one that beautifully combines both hearing and doing.” (Chester)
Robert Karris says:
“In Luke’s Gospel Jesus got himself killed because of the way he ate.”8 When Jesus eats with Levi, the message is clear: Jesus has come for losers, people on the margins, people who’ve made a mess of their lives, people who are ordinary. Jesus has come for you. The only people left out are those who think they don’t need God: the self-righteous and the self-important. Sadly that includes many people.” (Chester)
Application
Think of how people feel right now in our society. They see those who differ from their beliefs as an enemy. They expect Christianity to be stodgy, bigoted, and boring. What they find in the call and life of Jesus is a Kingdom that is vibrant, real, lively, and holy.
Read from LoTR? — RoTK (Pg. 280)
Plug supper club and how people react to an invite to your life.
“American Christians spend more on dieting than on world missions. We spend more curing our overconsumption than we do feeding the physically and spiritually hungry of the world.”
You have 21 meals that you will likely eat this week. How will you use them?
Will you disciple you family?
Will you invite “tax collectors and sinners” to join you?
How will you flex the excess that you have been given?
How have you designed your home? Do you eat on a tv dinner tray, or have you designed a place to sit, rest, and enjoy God’s grace with others?