Hello Hello? Is that working? Okay, there we go. Hi, I'm Lucy Wilson and I'm a fifth grader at Mary Farmer Elementary School. I will be reading Mark two verses thirteen thirteen through seventeen. Hold on one quick He went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them, and as he passed by he saw Levi, the son of Alpheus, Alpheus, sitting at the tax booth, and he said to them, Follow me, and he rose and followed him. As he reclined at the table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus, and his disciples were for were there many who followed him. There were scribes, and the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with the with the sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, Why does he eat with the Why does he eat with the tax collectors and sinners? And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, Those who those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick do. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks, meeting God. Good job. Thanks, girl. Good job. Uh well, I hope your Valentine's Day was good enough the other day. Uh next, just to give you guys all just a heads up. Next year, Valentine's Day is on a Sunday, um, but it's also on Super Bowl Sunday. Yeah, suckers. You're gonna you're gonna already come on out. You got a year now to figure that one out. That's gonna be great. That's gonna be good. Um, uh I just want to tell you about something else that's coming up, actually. Is this week, this Wednesday night, we're gonna do an Ash Wednesday service. If you've uh ever been to one of those, we're having one of those, it's gonna be a worship night. Um, but I'm gonna preface it actually by just saying, like, there is just there always is a lot going on, but right now, specifically, I know there's just a lot of people going through a lot of stuff and getting a lot of different news. I'm telling you, I need my own parking spot. It feels like at the hospital right now. So many people are just going through stuff. And so if you want to come to that night and there's things that you just need prayer for, um, and you want to be cared for in that way, uh, and just to reset, I'd we're gonna create that space. We're gonna do a little teach on what Ash Wednesday is or the season of Lint, if that's not familiar with you, and um, some of the liturgy that's behind that. And then, like I said, we're gonna worship, we're gonna pray for each other and care for each other just in the season. So, this might be a really good way to kick into this uh next month and season for you. Um, maybe it's just gonna be a good experience that you need, or maybe it's just because you're like, man, uh, I just need to come and like come forward or bring someone forward uh and be uh, you know, even a rope bearer, like we talked about last week, and lead someone just to the feet of the cross and let the Lord just do what he does. So that's this Wednesday night at 6:30. I think it's gonna be like maybe an hour, an hour and a half. We'll kind of see where it goes. Um, it's right in this room, and anyone's welcome. So you don't have to be going here. This can be some people from another church. We're also gonna do some ashes um if you know people who are interested in that kind of experience of this week. Um, hopping in today, we are uh continuing a series in the Gospel of Mark. This is in the New Testament, and here we teach the Bible and we do it expositorily. You guys are gonna get a whopping four verses for me today. Congratulations! But you're in the second chapter already of Mark. We started this new year, um, and we're just going verse by verse and chopping it up and seeing what we can learn. Mark was a scribe for most likely Peter, we believe. Um, and it reads like that like everything's intense and ADD and like immediately and the next thing, and it's like all it's it's really beautiful and it's great. And we just have been throttled already, and we're gonna get to experience some of that um today. Today's really kind of a scene, even about like a table. Uh this table scene. And I think most of us in this room remember, and even our students in here, you remember the table where you first realized you didn't belong. Uh, like the middle school lunch table where someone said, like, you can sit here, I guess, right? Which that sentence like somehow contains both permission and rejection at the same time. Or maybe it was the party that you showed up and you went there early and you held the drink you didn't even want, and you laughed a half beat late at jokes that you didn't understand, and then you left early pretending that you had to be somewhere else. Or the work party happy hour where everybody already had the inside jokes and the shared trauma and you smiled like you were a part of it while mentally calculating how soon it would be socially acceptable to Irish goodbye, right? And what we learn is tables decide things. Like long before resumes or algorithms or social media bios, tables sorted humanity. And they kind of still do. Like who's safe? Who's tolerated? Who's chosen? Who's quietly forgotten? And most of us learned early that belonging can come with conditions. Like, don't be too loud, don't be too needy, don't bring your whole story, definitely don't bring the chapter you're still embarrassed by, because if you do, you'll feel it. That, you know, like subtle shift that takes place where people smile and they say polite, but the energy just kind of changes and nobody says anything wrong, but the seat's no longer really yours. And so what do we do? We adapt, you curate, uh, you learn which parts of yourself are table safe and which parts need to stay hidden. And then what happens is after a while, that stops feeling like pretending and just becomes normal. That's why today in Mark chapter two, verses 13 through 17, is not this sweet calling story. Uh, today we're gonna say this isn't just Jesus being nice, it's literally Jesus lighting a match and dropping it into a room full of unspoken rules about worth, holiness, and belonging. And that's what makes it even more dangerous, is when it happens. Mark actually tells us, let's have a look. Says he went out again beside the sea. So just pause real quick. He is Jesus going out beside the sea, just so you know, kind of geo geographically here. Uh, this is the Sea of Galilee. In reality, just to tell you guys, it's not like an ocean, it's a freshwater lake. It's a large lake that's referred to as the Sea of Galilee, also. But continues, and all the crowd was coming to him. Um, he was teaching them. So these crowds, we've seen lots of crowds already, and that line right here sounds calm, but let's just talk about all the crowds real quick. The pressure underneath it is intense because what do crowds mean? Crowds mean momentum, like that's taking place. Momentum means attention, and attention means expectations. This is the moment, I think, that when any leader with half a PR team would start to protect the brand. Like there's just a lot happening. And Jesus has already healed people, he's already been casting out demons, he's already drawn this following. This is the stage where movements usually start to clean things up, tighten language, and quietly decide who helps or who hurts the optics in this scene. Like who are we hanging out with? And this is where oftentimes leaders stop being accessible and start being careful. And Jesus does the opposite. So let's look. And it says that he, as he passed by, he saw Levi, the son of Alpheus, sitting at the tax booth. So this is what's important to know right here. This sentence should feel heavy because Levi isn't just a guy with a job. He is the job every guy, he is the job that everyone hates. Let me explain this because a lot of times you guys read in scripture that there's this stuff going on with uh tax collectors and how bad tax collectors are. So here's first century tax collector stuff in Galilee. This wasn't like a neutral employee, like a government employee. Uh, they were subcontractors for Rome, which at the time was the occupying empire. And Rome didn't collect taxes directly. What they did is they outsourced the job to locals who knew the people, the land, and the pressure points. And so what happens is Rome sets the tax quota, and then tax collectors could charge whatever they wanted above that to make their living, which meant Levi's paycheck depended on how much he could squeeze out of his own people. And this wasn't like boring bureaucracy, this was legalized extortion, which is then backed by military force. And if somebody couldn't pay, Roman soldiers showed up. Which means Levi didn't just represent greed, he represented betrayal. He made his living off of the suffering of people who spoke his language, shared his heritage, and worshipped his God. And so religiously, tax collectors were considered unclean. They were barred from synagogue, which is like a church. Uh their money was considered polluted. Uh, they couldn't receive charity. You couldn't receive charity from them because it made you look complicit. And then socially, they were just radioactive. Spiritually, they were written off. Parents actually would use tax collectors as these cautionary tales. I mean, don't dare say that you want to be a tax collector. Rabbis avoided them. Nobody prayed for them out loud. Levi, it's not like he woke up every day wondering if people approved of him. He already knew the answer. And I think if you think about that long enough, you realize how crushing that kind of existence is. Like being universally disliked, it doesn't make you softer. It hardens you. It convinces you that if you're gonna be hated anyways, you might as well get paid. And then what happens is Jesus sees him. Not glances, not tolerates, but sees. Which means Jesus doesn't see a stereotype, a political problem, he sees a soul, a human. And then Jesus does something so socially reckless, it would have made the religious leaders physically uncomfortable. He speaks to him, says, and he as he passed by, he said to him, follow me. This is so great. You see this right here. There's like no background checked, there's no like moral probation, there's no like, hey, why don't you fix your job situation and then like circle on back, right? It's just straight up an invitation that assumes Levi is still capable of becoming someone else. This is not Jesus like lowering the bar here, this is Jesus redefining where transformation actually begins. Jesus doesn't say, become righteous and then belong. He says, belong and then watch what happens. And right there is why this story still offends people who like religion neat and controlled. Says, follow me, and he rose and followed him. Levi literally stands up and follows him. And Mark doesn't give us any internal dialogue here, but make no mistake, this was a one-way door for Levi. There it already we've seen fishermen been called here, and fishermen can always go back to fishing, but Levi cannot go back to tax collecting. Rome didn't do second chances, and so Levi literally walks away from income, protection, status, certainty. He trades control for vulnerability, security for trust, and he does it immediately. He stood up and just goes. And I think that's because when you spent your whole life being excluded, being chosen feels like oxygen. So the first thing Levi then does is throw a dinner, which makes like perfect sense. Grace always wants a witness. Mark uh tells us about it. He says, as he reclined at the table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. So, first off, right here, reclining matters. I just want to tell you this isn't like grabbing food and then leaving early. This is staying, lingering, sharing space. In the ancient world, a table, table fellowship was it was covidential. Like you didn't eat with people unless you were willing to be associated with them. Basically, tables weren't casual, they were declarations. To a degree, we do the same thing because we'll hear about something like you were eating with who? Whoa, right? And Jesus doesn't just cross that boundary, he settles in. Like the guest list that we see right here, it's exactly who you'd expect. Many tax collectors, right? And sinners. These are Levi's people. This is like the sphere of influence, his clan, right? His people, his tribe, the ones already pushed out to the margins together. And Jesus doesn't say, eh, let's balance this party out with some respectable folks. He doesn't say, like, hey, invite a few Pharisees or something so this looks a little bit better, the optics and stuff. What he does is he steps straight into Levi's world, which means this dinner isn't just hospitality, it's literally discipleship. Where Jesus is teaching his followers, not with a sermon, but with proximity, that this is what the kingdom looks like when it leaves theory and enters real life. Like it smells like food. It sounds like laughter, it looks messy and loud and deeply inappropriate to religious gatekeepers. It looks like the wrong people being too close to a holy man. And that's exactly where they have a problem. Mark continues, when the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners? Notice here who they don't talk to. Yeah. Jesus, right? They go sideways. Religion often avoids direct confrontation, it prefers whispered concern. Their question, let's be honest, isn't curiosity, it's control. Because in their worldview, holiness was fragile. And so it must be protected actually by distance. To stay clean was by staying away. You avoid contamination. And Jesus is dismantling this worldview in real time. And so Jesus hears them, and then I love this. He responds to them. Says, and when Jesus heard it, he said to them, Those who are well have no need of a physician. But those who are sick, so right here, right off the bat, he's not saying some people don't need God, he's exposing the most dangerous condition of all, thinking that you don't. Then he delivers the line that reframes the entire gospel. But those who are sick, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. So this sentence here is not exclusionary, it's actually diagnostic. And the problem here isn't sin. What we're going to unpack here and see is the problem is actually denial. That you can't receive healing if you don't think that you need it. And in that moment, this table that they're at actually becomes this dividing line, not between good people and bad people, but between honest people and self-deceived ones. Levi, he knows he's sick. The Pharisees insist they're fine, only one of those positions can be healed. And the story then pauses right there. With Jesus still sitting at the table, still eating, still refusing to move away from people that everyone else has moved away from. And don't miss what's quietly happening underneath all of this. See, Jesus is not just challenging personal morality here, he's confronting an entire religious operating system. The Pharisees didn't wake up trying to be villains. They genuinely believed that they were protecting God's holiness because their whole framework was built on separation, clean from unclean, righteous from sinner, insider, outsider. And to them, holiness worked like a hazmat suit, right? You stayed pure by keeping distance. And the moment you crossed certain lines, you didn't just risk contamination, you threatened the whole system. So when they see that Jesus is reclining at the table, what they're feeling isn't just disgust, it's actually fear. Because if holiness can survive proximity to sinners, then their entire identity then collapses. If righteousness doesn't require distance, then all of their rules, boundaries, and spiritual ladders suddenly look less like obedience and more like isolation. And that's deeply, deeply uncomfortable for people who have built their sense of worth on being separate. That's why they don't ask Jesus directly. That's why they question the disciples. It's safer that way. It's indirect. It's the passive-aggressive holiness. It's the ancient version of posting a vague Instagram story instead of having a real conversation about the thing. Why does he eat with sinners and tax collectors? Isn't really a question. It's just an accusation dressed up as concern. It's them saying, this isn't how God works without realizing God is sitting 10 feet away chewing on bread. And Jesus' response isn't defensive. He doesn't have to explain himself. He doesn't apologize. He doesn't negotiate. He drops a metaphor so clear that it cuts through centuries of religious noise. Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. In other words, you don't go to the doctor to prove you're healthy most of the time. You go because something's wrong, right? Which means the real tragedy in this scene isn't Levi's sin, it's the Pharisees' refusal to actually admit need. That's the brutal honesty baked into this moment. That the people closest to God in their own minds are the furthest from healing. And the people everyone else gave up on are the ones responding fastest to grace. See, Levi doesn't argue, he doesn't defend himself, he doesn't pretend he's misunderstood, he just follows. Because when you know you're sick, what happens is the doctor actually feels like hope, not offense. And there's the uncomfortable truth for anyone who spent time in church spaces. It is far easier to manage sin than to admit need. I don't even need you to say amen. I know it's easier to follow rules than surrender pride, it's easier to keep distance than to risk love. And many of you and me struggle with this. But here's the reality you are weak and desperately pathetic. You can do nothing for yourself, and you don't even realize it. This is the deal. Like we just we we think that's not true, and just the reality. And when you realize how pathetic we are and like how desperately needy we are, there's so much freedom in that. Here's here's really what happens. I call it pride, that's what it is. But let me give you another definition for pride. I think pride is the Christian cancer. All of a sudden it just snuck up on you, and you didn't even know it was growing and happening, and then all of a sudden it's just there and it's killing you, and you didn't even know it. And and the Pharisees aren't angry in this moment because Jesus is wrong. They're angry because what's happening is they're revealing something that they don't want exposed. That their version of holiness has no room for mercy, therefore, no room for them when they eventually fail. Whew. How scary is that for a lot of us? Jesus staying at this table is not accidental. It's literally intentional defiance. Every bite I think he takes is a sermon, every laugh is a rebuke. Every moment he remains seated is him saying, This is what the kingdom looks like. No ladders, no filters, not spiritual VIP sections, table where broken people are allowed to be honest, and then honesty becomes the doorway to transformation. So we end this scene today with Jesus still reclining, still unbothered, still refusing to move away from people everyone else avoided. Tension hasn't resolved. The Pharisees haven't backed down. The disciples are still processing what's taking place here. Levi's old life is still behind him, yet his new life isn't formed yet. And everything hanging in the air, which is exactly where grace usually meets us. Not once things are all cleaned up, but right in the middle of the mess, when the invitation has been given and the cost is actually starting to sink in. And honestly, I think for us who are listening here, or if you're with us online, this forces us to decide where we're sitting. This is where the story gets brutally honest for anyone who's spent time around church, because it's actually possible to love God sincerely and still be threatened by grace. It's possible to obey a lot of rules and still miss the heart of the Father. And the Pharisees aren't these cartoon villains. They are deeply disciplined, uh, deeply devoted, deeply mistaken people. And that should actually bother us because it means sincerity is not enough. You can be so serious about God and still misunderstand him. That's the paradox of grace. The people who look the furthest from God are often closest to the kingdom because they're not pretending. And the people who look the closest can be the furthest because they're hiding behind performance. And what we learn is grace does not award polish, it responds to honesty. And this is where the story really starts pressing in on us because most of us don't live in first century Galilee. But you know this, we do live in systems of belonging. We still have tables, we still have categories, we still have us and them. We just use different language now. We even talk about, you know, like healthy boundaries, wisdom, discernment. And sometimes those things are real. But sometimes they're just spiritualized ways of saying, I don't want to get close enough to be uncomfortable to that. And the danger isn't that we would openly reject people like Levi. The danger is that we would tolerate them at a distance. We'd smile politely, keep conversations surface level, allow them in the room, but not actually at the table. And Jesus doesn't allow that option. He doesn't stand near Levi. He eats with him, he reclines with them, he stays long enough to be associated, which raises an uncomfortable, I think, question for all of us. If Jesus were physically present today, whose table would make us nervous? I know you have an answer. Who would we quietly hope he didn't get too close to? Who would challenge our sense of who belongs and who doesn't? I know you have the person or persons or peoples. And it's difficult because whatever that answer is, I think it reveals more about our theology than our words ever could. And it's important to note Jesus isn't reckless here, but he is radical. He is redefining for us holiness. And in the Pharisaic worldview, holiness meant separation from sinners. But in Jesus' kingdom, holiness means movement toward sinners with restoring love. Denial is. Holiness isn't fragile, it's actually powerful. It doesn't get contaminated by brokenness, it heals brokenness. And that redefinition costs something. That's why it's uncomfortable, because it costs comfort. It can cost control, it costs the ability to feel superior, which is why grace is threatening to people who've built their identity on being better than. And the Pharisees didn't just follow the rules, they were the rules. And Jesus is quietly dismantling that identity, sitting at a table where they would never sit. And then you have like the disciples watching all of this happen. And don't miss how disorienting this had to have been for them. Like, think about it. They've all left jobs, they've left families. They're trying to understand who this rabbi is here, and now he's doing the exact opposite of what religious leaders usually do. He's not gathering the impressive, he's not building a respectable inner circle, he's building a kingdom out of people who know they're sick and has implications for discipleship that I think we often avoid, that following Jesus will put you in proximity to mess. We have a fantastic pastor of care here. Her name is Megan Friedman. And um, people often uh, we were talking about this actually just the other day, and she has people who are close to her that just want to understand her job. And and they actually said it like this they're like, Why is it your job to work with crazy people? Right? Why is it your job to like work with like the mess? Like the people no one would ever be around. Like, I'm just not gonna walk up to that person, I'm not gonna do that thing, and that makes me uncomfortable because following Jesus will put you in proximity to mess. That's what that actually looks like, right? And if you think about it, I mean, and we were talking about this. I mean, like they're a son or a daughter, or a mother, or a sister, or a brother, or an aunt, or another, they're human. And we're messy, but you you know the list. Well, following Jesus puts you in proximity to the mess. But I'm telling you, friends, if your faith only works when everyone around you is doing well, it might not be faith, it might be preference, and that's so uncomfortable. Jesus doesn't disciple from a distance, he invites people into rooms that smell like real life, and then he expects his followers to learn how to stay there without losing love or truth. And this is especially challenging for you know our generation that's literally shaped by performance because we're trained to curate everything, our images, our opinions, our spirituality. We know how to look like we're thriving even when we're not. I know that. I do that, right? We know how to say just the right things, we know how to avoid admitting need. And Jesus is not impressed by any of that. He's drawn to honesty and he moves toward people who drop the act. And Levi here didn't curate his guest list. He literally invites the whole world, the people who drink too much, the people who swear too easily, the people who have given up on being respected. And Jesus doesn't ask him to clean it up first, which I think for us means grace doesn't just save individuals, it literally enters into systems, it steps into your friend groups, it sits in your living rooms, it disrupts your relational patterns. The kingdom doesn't make come and just arrive sanitized, it arrives embodied. And somewhere in the story, the question shifts from what did Jesus do to what does it mean to follow him? Who are we becoming? Because following Jesus doesn't mean agreeing with his, doesn't just mean agreeing with his theology. It actually means adopting his posture. It means being willing to sit where he sits. It means to stay even when it would be easier to leave. It means to love sometimes when it could cost reputation. It means to let go of the need to be seen as right. That the cost of discipleship in this passage isn't rule-breaking, but it's pride-breaking. The Pharisees couldn't follow Jesus because following him would have meant stepping down from their moral pedestal. But Levi could follow because he didn't have one to protect. And that's where this text lands with this uncomfortable clarity in a room like this. That the greatest barrier to grace is not sin, it's actually self-sufficiency. It's this quiet belief that we've already figured out how to be fine, that we don't need a doctor, that repentance has got to be for other people. And Jesus refuses to affirm that illusion. So where does that leave us? Sitting at a table. Just like them. And Jesus is still present, he's still inviting, he's still calling. And the table is not a reward for the righteous, it's a meeting place for the honest. And the call has not changed. Follow me. Not after you clean up, not after you get it together, but right now, from the booth, from the mess, from the place that you thought you were disqualified for. Because that, according to Jesus, is exactly where the kingdom begins. Amen. Would you stand as we respond in worship?