The Kingdom of God is filled with people who have failed to "toe the line" - with "sinners" - yet who by grace now "run the race."
Levi (better known to us as Matthew) was a tax collector.
The Gk. word telones (AV 'publican') means a collector of tax or custom on behalf of the Romans, employed by a tax farmer or contractor… The system was very open to abuse, and the publicani seem to have been prone to extortion and malpractice from the very beginning, so that while the grossest excesses were restrained by the government, and cases sometimes brought to justice, a generally bad reputation has come down to us... The central contractors were often foreign to the provinces whose taxes they farmed, though there was nothing to prevent their being natives, and they might employ native sub-contractors… But the collectors were usually from the native population, for they needed to know local people and their ways to avoid being deceived. Their generally extortionate practices (cf. what amounts to an admission in the words of Zacchaeus, Lk. 19:8, and the conditions implied by the counsel of John the Baptist, Lk. 3:13) made them an especially despised and hated class, so that our Lord could refer to them as typical of a selfish attitude (Mt. 5:46). For the strict Jew, however, this quite natural attitude of hatred was aggravated and altered in character by the religious consideration that the telones was regarded as ceremonially unclean, on account of his continual contact with Gentiles, and his need to work on the sabbath. This uncleanness, and the rabbis' teaching that their pupils should not eat with such persons, account for the attitude evidenced by the expressions tax collectors and sinners (Mt. 9:10f.; 11:19; Mk. 2:15f.; Lk. 5:30; 7:34; 15:1) and tax collectors and harlots (Mt. 21:31), and for the questions of Mt. 9:10f.; 11:19; Mk. 2:15f.; Lk. 5:29f. (cf. SB, 1, pp. 498f.), and indicates the intention of the command of Mt, 18:17. This also lends point to both the negative and positive aspects of the denunciation of the chief priests and elders in Mt. 21:31b, to the statement of Mt. 11:19; Lk. 7:34, and to the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector, Lk. 18:10ff. (New Bible Dictionary).
Levi was quite without claim to the Lord's favour. None of this nonsense about God having a preference for the "marginalised"! Levi was a "sinner" and knew it. He could have no hope apart from grace.
Jesus' call, "Follow me" (Mk. 2.14), is a word of grace. Levi was being invited - called - to come with Jesus - to observe him, to learn from him, to be formed by him… There is hope for the sinner - and the possibility of change - in the word of grace that calls him to follow.
Levi invites many of his colleagues and other "sinners" to a meal - quite a natural response for one who has been discovered by grace. But note v. 15 carefully, "While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and 'sinners' were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him." They may not be "following" in quite the specific sense of Levi - in response to Jesus' call. Yet in some sense they too were there, not just out of curiosity or because of Levi's invitation, but in response to divine grace.
"The teachers of the Law who were Pharisees" asked his disciples, "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" (v. 16) The real question might well be put the other way round - why do tax collectors and 'sinners' eat with him?
"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners" (v. 17).
In fact, scribes and Pharisees, priests and people, Jew and Gentile… all alike are sinners in need of redemptive grace. But only the "sinners" will hear and heed his call (cf. Mt. 21.31-32).
Jesus did not come to "affirm" people - no matter what they may have been or become - but to redeem them, to bring them both forgiveness and transformation. The call to follow Jesus involves a whole change of life - forgiveness for failure to "toe the line" and a call to "run the race."
The account moves on to a question about fasting - "John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not" (v. 18).
Jesus assumed that his hearers would fast, but taught them when they did so to face Godward, not manward (Mt. 6:16-18). When asked why his disciples did not fast as did those of John the Baptist and of the Pharisees, Jesus did not repudiate fasting, but declared it to be inappropriate for his disciples 'as long as the bridegroom is with them' (Mt. 9:14-17; Mk. 2:18-22; Lk. 5:33-39). Later they would fast like others. (New Bible Dictionary)
"No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins" (vv. 21-22).
These verses have been eagerly claimed by various interest- and pressure-groups to justify their kind of desired change - their "new wine" which must needs have "new wineskins".
There may be a measure of secular truth in this. However, Jesus is speaking here is the need for new wineskins to convey his "new wine" to the world. We cannot - and must not - change - or tamper with - the gospel which alone offers hope to all kinds of "sinners". We may need to look at structures - ecclesiastical, architectural, liturgical, musical… - which are not in themselves of the essence of the gospel, but which become the means or obstacles (wineskins) to conveying the gospel to the world. ("Christ has died for our sins. All people are to be called repentance and faith. Let us, however, seek to understand our own culture so that we can find timely words for this timeless message so that Aussies will hear, repent and believe" - The Authority of Scripture and the Evangelistic Task).
The Christian life is a relationship. Jesus calls us, "Follow me" - a call which offers forgiveness and change, a call to "run the race" with our eyes fixed on him (Heb. 12.1-2).
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