Prescription

Luke 5:27-32

August 25, 2019 • Mount Pleasant UMC

It’s been almost two years since my open heart surgery, and here is what I have learned: that event shapes every day going forward. Those who have had been through similar things know that as well. For one thing, before my most recent valve replacement, I only took a couple of pills a day. Now, between turning 50 and having my heart valve replaced, somehow I’ve ended up on a whole lot of medication. I remember when I was being released from the hospital I was handed a stack of papers. Some of them were instructions on what I could and could not do, and several others were prescriptions. Little slips of paper that contained illegible handwriting which pharmacists somehow translate into life-saving or life-giving instructions for medications. Prescriptions: guidance for what we need to live well. I’ve learned to follow the instructions well. There are others of you here who are on coumadin or warfarin or other blood thinners, and you know what I’m talking about. Not following the prescription can lead to serious consequences.

Jesus was not a doctor—though as the Son of God, of course, he pretty much knows everything there was to know—but he did not have the earthly doctor credentials, and yet he had a prescription for humanity which we hear in this morning’s passage. It’s a prescription we would do well to pay attention to, a prescription that has consequences not only for individuals but for the church as well.

This morning, we’re continuing our series, “I Love My Church,” looking at six characteristics of the church Jesus calls us to be. So far we’ve hit on two reasons to love your church, to love THE church: community and prayer. This morning, we come to a third word that describes a healthy church, and it’s the essence of Jesus’ prescription as found in the Gospel of Luke. The word is “witness.” Witness. Now, I know that, right away, we hear that word and in our minds there are a wide variety of images that pop up (and most of them are negative). We might think of the guy who stands on the street corner and tells people they are going to hell if they don’t “turn to Jesus.” Or we might think of the person who sits down on an airplane and says to the complete stranger, “If you were to die tonight, where would you spend eternity?” That’s not a great question to ask as the plane is taking off! Or we might think of the person who goes out to lunch on Sunday after church and leaves a so-called evangelistic tract in place of a tip and calls it a “witness.” We might think of any number of things, but I don’t believe that’s what Jesus had in mind when he handed out his prescription. Let’s look at the story and see if we can understand what Jesus was doing.

Just a few weeks ago, we were reading through Luke, focusing on his concern for the least, the last and the lost, so hopefully this passage is somewhat familiar to you. We're at the point in Luke’s narrative where Jesus’ ministry is kicking into high gear. At the beginning of chapter five, he has chosen the first of his twelve disciples, and then he has healed various people: a man with leprosy and a paralyzed man. As he is traveling, then, he comes upon a man named Levi. (He’s known as Matthew elsewhere, which is probably what he went by in Greek-speaking circles.  Levi is probably his Hebrew name.) Levi is described in our English Bibles as a “tax collector,” but the original language indicates he was worse than that. He was a tax farmer. He didn’t just collect poll taxes or income taxes. He collected more than what Rome required. He made his living by collecting extra taxes which he kept. He was probably in Capernaum collecting the fish tax, so Simon Peter and his coworkers would have already known Levi and they would not have liked him. He’s not someone they believed they could trust, because Levi (and people like him) would take as much as he could from the fishermen, leaving them very little to live on. Tax farmers tended to at least be perceived as dishonest; others called them extortionists. They were social outcasts, the most hated of all the tax collectors (cf. Card, Luke: The Gospel of Amazement, pg. 80; Wright, Luke for Everyone, pg. 63; Bock, Luke [IVP], pg. 107). So Levi is sitting there at his booth, carrying out his business, maybe counting his money, maybe ripping someone off, when Jesus wanders by. I would guess Levi knew who Jesus was; he’s probably seen Jesus in Caperanum, maybe even heard rumors about the healings and such that had been going on. So it’s not like this is a cold call; maybe they’ve even exchanged pleasantries from time to time. But this day, Jesus approaches Levi and says, “Follow me,” and Levi gets up to follow, leaving everything behind. He joins a group of disciples that would not have wanted him among their number.

Picture someone you couldn’t trust yourself to be in the same room with. Maybe it’s someone who has harmed you or your family. Maybe it’s someone who abused you, or someone who took advantage of you. Maybe it’s a terrorist or someone from the “other side” politically. These days, we have a lot of people we think we can’t be in the same room with. Just choose one, and picture them. Now picture them walking into church and, even more, sitting down in the pew beside you. Picture them going to lunch with you, going home with you, going everywhere with you. Imagine what it would be like if people saw the two of you together. That reaction that you feel—that’s what it would have been like for Peter and the others to welcome Levi into their number. What is Jesus doing? Why would he welcome someone so dishonest and so obviously not a religious person? What is going on here? The call of Levi is at least as much (if not more) about the other disciples as it is about Levi, because of all the people they thought would be welcome among their number, Levi would have been on of their very last choices.

But something in Levi’s heart changes because of his encounter with Jesus. Isn’t it interesting that we don’t get a single bit of dialogue between Jesus and Levi here, other than Jesus’ call to “follow me” (5:27)? We don’t have any scene of Jesus telling Levi he has to get his life cleaned up before he can be a disciple. We have no scenes of Jesus explaining the faith to Levi, no training in evangelism or Bible study methods. There’s nothing except an open call to follow. What we do get is a dinner party to which Levi invites his friends. Levi’s friends would not be good, religious folks. Good, religious folks did not hang out with people like Levi. Levi’s friends would be other tax farmers, other “sinners,” which takes me to a slightly tangential point: the longer we are in the faith, the further we tend to get from those who need Jesus (cf. Bock 108). It’s easy to wrap our life up in the church, and we forget about people who are without hope and without Christ. Folks who are new to the faith tend to have more connections with those who need Jesus, but let me say this to those of us who have been in Christ for a long time. If you’re spending most of your time at church events, you’ve missed the point. Yes, we need a good Bible study and we need to be in worship and we need a place to serve, but we don’t need five of each of those. Most of us don’t need another study group. We need to be rubbing elbows with those who are still outside the faith, who need Jesus. If we don’t get to know people who aren’t yet Christians, how can we ever introduce them to our savior? That’s why Jesus spent so much time at dinner parties like the one Levi throws. That’s part of why I hang out at places like Starbucks. Yes, I like the chai tea. I’m not addicted; I can stop any time I want. I just don’t want to. Anyway, it’s one place I can rub shoulders with those who need to yet know Jesus. As a pastor, my life can get very insulated and church-centered; I need places like that in my life where I get to know the names and life stories of folks who don’t yet know Christ. We all do. Go to your small group, come to worship, by all means, but also make sure you’re connecting with people who are yet outside the faith and help them see Jesus in you.

That was a long tangent! But maybe it’s not so tangential! Because look at what happens at Levi’s dinner party. Jesus’ newly appointed disciples hang out with tax farmers—sinners—and in the midst of the goings-on, some Pharisees and teachers of the law wander by. They always seem to be nearby, don’t they? Think of this group as the unofficial “religious police,” or the people who are always afraid that someone somewhere is having a good time. Maybe that’s being too hard on them, because honestly what they wanted was for people to live right. But in desiring that, they had become so focused on the rules, the legalisms, that they had forgotten to find any joy in their faith. These folks loved God but they had forgotten that God’s original mission to their people was to bless the world (cf. Strauss, Jesus Behaving Badly, pg. 43). Jesus is challenging their perceptions of what it means to live for God, so they stick near him, waiting for him to break one or more of their rules so they can jump out and yell, “Gotcha!” And now, standing outside or near Levi’s dinner party, they think that moment has come.

Luke tells us that Levi holds a huge banquet, and that these tax farmers, sinners, disciples and Jesus are all eating together, sharing the same table. In that world, to share a table with someone meant that you accepted them and agreed with them. I would only share a table with you if our theological and political views were in sync. In the Pharisees’ worldview, you couldn’t share a table with someone you didn’t completely agree with; we’re starting to get back to that today, aren’t we? If someone says something on social media we disagree with, we block them or unfriend them. We create echo chambers where we only hear things we agree with. For the Pharisees, this was about holiness and purity. To share a table with someone who was morally questionable was the very definition of compromise. So they grumble, and the word Luke uses there to describe their “complaint” is the same word used in Numbers (LXX) to describe the way the people grumbled against God in the wilderness (cf. Bock 108). Back then, it was something along the lines of: “Why isn’t God taking care of us? Why don’t we have the kind of food we want? Doesn’t God care about us?” Now, in the Pharisees’ world, it’s: “You’re eating with the wrong kind of people” (7:30). For them, this was proof that Jesus could not possibly be who he said he was. He could not be “holy” and eat with “those people.”

But it was exactly this kind of table fellowship, this kind of sharing a meal, that Jesus had in mind for his followers. He is modeling what he wants the disciples and us to do. Since we’re talking about a prescription which Jesus came to bring, let me switch a bit to medical language. The Pharisees believed in quarantine; “righteous and holy” people in one space, sinners and tax collectors in another. Jesus came not for quarantine but for healing and recovery (cf. Bock 108). He has already demonstrated his mission to bring healing earlier in this chapter; now he describes it this way: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (7:31-32). Jesus didn’t come to treat those who are already “well.” He came to find those who are broken by sin and bring healing. He came to find those who are world-sick and bring health. He came to find those for whom life is hard and to walk with them. And all of that starts with his prescription for a sin-sick world: repentance. Turning around. Not just feeling sorry for the things we have done wrong, but committing to living in a different way. He has come to call those in the dark to step out of the darkness and into the light, to start living a different way. And he wants every one of his followers to do the same.

We help people get there through our witness. As I sort of mentioned earlier, a lot of people get anxious or uptight with that word. But to be a witness is simply telling what you know to be true. In a trial, the witnesses are the ones who are called upon to testify about what they experienced. They’re the ones who tell their story, who tell “the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help them God.” When it comes to witnessing about your faith, it’s not about knowing complicated theological arguments. It’s about sharing how you have experienced Jesus, how he has changed your life, and how you have gotten to know him. It’s first about living your story. Live in a way that is consistent with what you say you believe. Live in a way that reflects Jesus in everything you do. I knew a man many years ago who was a supervisor on his job, and on a couple of occasions, I had people say to me, “I had no idea he went to church.” I always winced at that comment, since he went to the church I pastored, but it told me that he had one way of living on Sunday and another way of living Monday through Friday. I’m not sure which way dominated on Saturday! Someone once put it this way: “If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” What witness does your life give?

Living your story is a start, but there will come a time when you share your story. An example is great, but people need to hear about Jesus and how he has impacted your life. Paul said, “Faith comes by hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ” (Romans 10:17). Peter (the same Peter that was at this banquet at Levi’s house) said that a big part of knowing Jesus is to be ready to share about him. “In your hearts revere Christ as Lord,” he wrote. “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…” (1 Peter 3:15). We share our story best in the context of friendship, which is why we ought to be getting to know people outside of the church. Start simple. Do you know your neighbors, the people who live nearest to you? Do you know your co-workers? Do you know anything about their faith or lack of faith? And are you ready for when they ask you? I have never forgotten a time when I was not ready. I was in college, and I thought I was a strong Christian. President of the Ball State InterVarsity chapter, leader of a small group Bible study—yeah, I thought I was someone. And then, a friend of mine, over lunch at the dining hall, out of the blue asked me about my faith and I was caught unprepared. I didn’t have an answer and to this day I can’t remember what I mumbled, but I’m fairly certain I did not bring honor to Jesus that day. I’ve often wondered what happened to my friend, and I pray that they found someone who was able to better share their faith. So from that moment, I determined that I would do what Peter says and find ways to be ready. Several years later, after I was a pastor, I was visiting a church member in the hospital and the ambulance driver came in. They were moving her to a nursing facility, and it was time to go. Would I like to ride down on the elevator with them? Sure, I said, and when we got on the elevator, the ambulance driver turned to me and said, “So, what do Methodists believe?” At that moment, I realized I had exactly the length of time it took for the elevator to go from the fourth floor to the first floor to share my faith. The difference was: this time I was ready, and since my goal is not really to promote the church as much as Jesus, I talked about what Jesus meant to me and to all who follow him. I shared my faith, and while there was no dramatic conversion moment like you see in the movies, I do believe I was able to plant some seeds (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:6-7). Having an “elevator speech” ready—being able to share your story in a short amount of time—enables us to do what Peter said: always be ready to share your story.

And then the third thing I would say about being a witness is that we must always point to Jesus. We are witnesses to what he is doing, not to what we are doing. Sometimes we forget that this life of faith is not about us. There is an old story about the donkey that Jesus rode on the first Palm Sunday, the one that took him down the Mount of Olives and into the city of Jerusalem. As the story goes, the donkey took in all the glory of that day—the singing, the waving palms, the shouts of “Hosanna”—and it made him smile. That night, as he went to sleep in his stable, he couldn’t wait until the next day. When the sun rose, he told his mother he had to go to Jerusalem, for surely the people were waiting for him again. But when he went into the city, no one noticed him. He went to the marketplace, and people shoo’d him away from the merchandise. He went and stood outside the temple, and one old man threw a piece of fruit at him to try to scare him away. He couldn’t understand. Where were the songs? The palms? The shouts of joy? Dejected, he returned home to his stable where he told his mother about his experience. “I don’t understand,” he said. “What changed?” “Silly donkey,” his mother said. “It was never about you. It was always about Jesus.” So I’m just going to say it: sometimes I’m the donkey. And so are you. We forget that it’s not about us; it’s about Jesus. In everything we say and do, in every moment, we point to Jesus. That’s what a witness does.

Friends, a healthy church, a church you can love, is a witnessing community. We share our faith, individually and corporately. This is a significant part of what sets the church apart from any other organization. We have a message we are passionate about, a message we know to be true and must be shared. The church is not a club, and it’s not a social service agency. We are a movement that is passionate about Jesus, and so in everything we do, we share our faith. We witness. That’s why things like the upcoming Trunk or Treat is not just about handing out candy; it’s about sharing our story. Summer mission trips are not just about building houses or weeding gardens; they are about finding ways to build relationships and share our story. Upward Basketball and Cheerleading is not just about playing games; it’s about sharing our story and living out our witness. Preschool is not just about learning A B C’s; it’s about helping kids get to know the Alpha and Omega. I could go on and on, but everything we do is part of our mission: making disciples of (who?) Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. I love my church because it is a witnessing community.

I said a couple of weeks ago that when Jesus went away, when he ascended into heaven, his Plan A for transforming the world, for reaching the world with the good news, is the church. And there is no Plan B. Let me be as clear as I can be: what we do is not primarily about building a particular church—this one or any other. It’s about building God’s kingdom, helping people come to know Jesus. Our witness is about Jesus, not Mount Pleasant Church or the United Methodist Church. But if we are faithfully living our story, sharing our story and pointing to Jesus, the church will grow. You can’t help it. There is no better news and no better hope than the hope found in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, on which we ground our faith. When we live like that matters, when we are faithful witnesses, the church will be affected. The church will grow. Or, let me put it another way, using words I heard several years ago that continue to “haunt” me: if everyone else had the same commitment to witnessing that you did, what shape would the church be in? Would the church thrive, or just survive, or neither?

So, on that elevator ride from the fourth floor down to the first, as both my parishioner and the ambulance driver listened, I said something like this: Methodists believe what most Christians believe, that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of the world. For me, that’s meant that he is with me and gives me hope. We believe that he really was raised from the dead and that he gives me hope for life after this one. Most of all, I find he gives me peace when life seems out of control and he never leaves me, even when I am not everything he wants me to be. I don’t know what I would do or who I would be without him. And that, friends, is my witness: that Jesus is the prescription for healing this broken world. He is the hope—of the world, of my life, and of the church. And being a witness to that hope is another reason I love my church. Let’s pray.