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Discussion Notes
Mealtimes
in Luke's Gospel (1)
The Calling of Levi
Luke 5.27-39
Introduction: Meals in Luke’s Gospel
According to Luke, Jesus likes his food!
He is always eating, and usually with the wrong people. Living
as we do, in an unusual culture where the availability of
food is usually taken for granted, the significance of food
can easily be missed. But for those, who like Jesus, were
peasants living in a heavily taxed backwater of the Roman
empire, food was not taken for granted, nor had it ever been
by the Jewish people. From the time of the Exodus, where God
miraculously provided ‘bread from heaven’, (or
‘manna’ which means ‘what is it?’)
food was appreciated! It is hardly surprising then, that in
such cultures, not unfamiliar with real hunger, the prominent
image of the Kingdom of God should be one of a banquet: the
presence of God, equated with an inexhaustible supply of mouth-watering
tucker.
In Jesus’ day, eating was a social
activity, hence the image of a banquet rather than a microwave
meal for one. But not in the sense of a dinner party is we
might understand it today. Dinner parties today tend to be
polite social occasions, where we engage in small talk with
people we may well never get to know properly. And those present
know jolly well not to bring up issues of politics or religion,
otherwise it will unsettle the conversation. This is almost
the exact opposite of a first century Jewish dinner party!
It would have seemed bizarre in the extreme not to talk of
religion and politics, and not to be able to go ‘hammer
and tongues’ at such a conversation, without fear of
subsequent ‘social pruning’. These people appreciated
their food and loved good debate. But there is a further dimension
to the Jewish practice of eating together.
Eating with another was celebrating life
and abundance in the presence of God. It got to the very root
of your identity, so you don’t eat with just anyone.
(This is one reason why it is too easy for modern Christians
thinking of dinner parties, shaking their heads at the scribes
and Pharisees for not inviting ‘sinners’ to their
parties. There was a deeper dynamic at work than the mere
polite exchanges of modern dinner gatherings). To eat with
someone meant to identify with them at the deepest level.
This is why if Jesus claims to be the Messiah, what on earth
was he doing identifying so deeply, foretasting the great
banquet of the Kingdom of God, with those who had no share
in that kingdom: tax collectors and sinners. Surely, by eating
with these people who are ‘outside’ the Kingdom
of God, Jesus had placed himself outside God’s kingdom.
Throughout Luke’s Gospel, the question
of who will inherit the Kingdom of God is turned on its head,
so looking at the seven different meals he records (the eighth
being the ‘resurrection’ meal en route to Emmaus)
might be a fruitful way of getting to grips with what Luke
says.
The Calling of Levi
The first recorded meal in Luke is at the
home of a tax collector, that is, a Collaborator with the
pagan empire, whose wealthy living comes by taking an extra
tax levy imposed on people who could ill afford it. No wonder
tax collectors were not welcome at any synagogue! Jesus had
been invited to eat a meal that is financed by the blood,
sweat and tears of an oppressed people. (A real socialist
would probably have refused such a meal!) If Luke’s
Jesus is one who is concerned with social issues, this is
not a great start! The scribes and Pharisees begin an understandable
moan and groan.
The response of Jesus has become so well
known as to lose its impact. “It is not the healthy
that need a doctor, but the sick.” The word for doctor,
is one closely associated with healing (and a metaphor for
salvation), the root of our word ‘therapeutic’.
In one single speech act, Jesus has thereby made several statements:
• He has declared to everyone present, that the tax
collectors and sinners are ‘sick’, thereby showing
that eating with them does not endorse their current status.
• He has declared that the presence of the Messiah was
never meant to rally the faithful, but to rally those who
were (or were perceived as being) unfaithful.
The role of the Messiah (which is understood
as the focussed role of Israel as a whole) is to be welcoming
outsiders into the kingdom, rather than as was (and still
is) often thought – imposing (or building or extending)
the kingdom upon those who are outside it. Jesus here is radically
redefining who is in and who is out of the kingdom, and thereby
surprising and shocking people because he utterly redescribing
the very nature of God’s Kingdom.
Questions:
1: Can we make better use of food for the
purposes of Christian fellowship?
2: Jesus accepts an invitation to enjoy the
benefits of ‘ill gotten gain’. By doing this,
is he not simply accepting the horrific injustice of a grossly
unfair tax system? (Or said rather differently, would Jesus
boycott Nestle?)
3: How might you feel if you were longing
for God’s Kingdom to come, bringing at last justice
for all, and an end to pagan rule, and then encounter a Jesus
who makes himself at home with the worst perpetrators of this
entire economic system? What are the implications for Christian
life and ministry?
4: How might you feel if you have been
excluded from the fellowship of God’s people, if you
feel – and are made to feel – that any of God’s
grace is beyond your reach and beyond hope? (How would you
feel if you were a tax collector or sinner?) And then you
encounter a Messiah who makes himself at home with you? What
are the implications for Christian life and ministry?
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