About Mark: Today’s excerpt tells how Matthew became a Christian. The apostle Matthew must have been quite well-known at the time the Gospels were written. Matthew himself wrote the Gospel which now appears first in the New Testament. As well as his own sources, Matthew was familiar with the Gospels of Mark and Luke, or at least their sources.
Like some of the other early characters (Simon Peter, John Mark), Matthew was known by two names, Matthew and Levi, and Mark uses both names for him without bothering to explain that they are the same person; He calls him Levi here in Mark 2:14 and Matthew in 3:18.
We had noted earlier how Mark began his Gospel; "The beginning of the good news about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. According to Isaiah ...." With different punctuation it could read "the good news about Jesus" is "according to" what was written by the famous Old Testament prophet Isaiah.
Isaiah certainly wrote much about the Messiah (Christ) who was coming. It appears that Mark had Isaiah's perspectives in mind as he compiled this first part of his Gospel.
Matthew is the last character whose story Mark tells in this opening section. Matthew was another kind of social outcast. He collected taxes from his fellow-Jews on behalf of the Roman government. He had his own small social group of fellow taxcollectors, but the population in general regarded them as traitors and parasites. Some translations call them publicans.
The Pharisees were a separatist religious sect who vaunted their own selfrighteousness by pointing out the sins of others. Self-righteousness is the bane of religion. Jesus had a better approach.
Bible: Mark 2:13-17, Jesus Calls Levi
13 Jesus went out again beside the sea; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them. 14 As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him. 15 And as he sat at dinner in Levi's house, many tax collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples--for there were many who followed him. 16 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?" 17 When Jesus heard this, he said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners."
Comment: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ISAIAH
MATTHEW'S story here caps off Mark's opening description of Christ, the gospel, and Christian discipleship - according to Isaiah. Isaiah wrote of the gospel (literally good news) in Isaiah 40:1-11; and Mark has referred to this in various ways. He also has Isaiah 52:7 in mind. "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger
- who announces peace (shalom),
- who brings good news (gospel),
- who announces salvation,
- who says to Zion `Your God reigns.'"
Shalom!
Mark has been describing the encounter of one person after another with God's shalom-gospel-salvation-kingdom. Shalom means peace and wellbeing. Jews still say this as a greeting when meeting friends. Many words are needed to represent it: well-being, health, wholeness, peace, and prosperity. It includes personal well-being; peace with oneself, with one's neighbour, and with God!
In the story so far, Peter, Andrew, James, and John have all encountered the kingdom in Jesus and are following him. For the possessed man in the synagogue, shalom meant release. To a leper it brought restoration, and to a paralysed man forgiveness. In one way or another these are all stories of people receiving God's shalom.
Matthew's story is the same. A tax-collector and social pariah leaves everything to follow Jesus; a man who finds a new wholeness by following a new path in life in the footsteps of Jesus. He had every cause to celebrate with his friends.
Discipleship today: Putting this in today’s setting, Matthew is like those who are successful in business but feel they have failed in life. There is a gnawing sense of emptiness that nothing can fill.
The great theologian Augustine said we are made with a God-shaped vacuum that only God can fill. It is common nowadays to hear of people who make a "second" career choice, due to its inner satisfaction rather than its financial prosperity.
Like all pathways to recovery, the first step is admitting the problem. And this is what Jesus meant by saying that like a physician he offered help to the sick, not the righteous. In this sense Matthew was a step ahead of the Pharisees - so righteous in their own eyes. Their deprecating phrase "taxcollectors and sinners" was a common synonym; but they didn't see the irony that Matthew was closer to God than they were, just as the sick person is closer to the physician's help than those who deny they' re sick.
In a sense this story brings Jesus to you with his invitation to follow. Where do you fit into the story? Are you the Pharisee or the tax-collector, in denial about having a problem, or ready to follow and celebrate like Matthew?
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