Go Back In · Week 2 · Sunday

There are two objections in the second chapter of Mark, nine verses apart, and almost nobody reads them as the same objection.

The first one is silent

Four men tear open a roof and lower a paralyzed friend into a crowded house. Jesus looks at him and does not start with his legs.

When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”Mark 2:5 (BSB)

And there are men in that room who have an immediate and entirely silent reaction to it.

But some of the scribes were sitting there and thinking in their hearts, “Why does this man speak like this? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”Mark 2:6–7 (BSB)

Notice what Mark tells you. They were sitting, and they were thinking in their hearts. Nobody said anything. The objection was fully formed and completely unspoken, which is the natural habitat of most objections.

The second one is out loud

Nine verses later, Jesus is at dinner in a tax collector’s house, and the same group finally says something.

When the scribes who were Pharisees saw Jesus eating with these people, they asked His disciples, “Why does He eat with tax collectors and sinners?”Mark 2:16 (BSB)

Two complaints. On the surface, unrelated — one is about theology, one is about dinner. Underneath, they are the same sentence: who is this man granting access to, and who said he could?

Mark stacked them nine verses apart. Most people read the paralytic on one Sunday and the dinner on another and never put them in the same room, which is a shame, because they were never in different rooms.

What sits between them

And in the gap between the two objections, Mark drops in one of the shortest calls in the gospel.

As He was walking along, He saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth. “Follow Me,” He told him, and Levi got up and followed Him.Mark 2:14 (BSB)

That is the entire transaction. One clause of instruction, one clause of response.

Read what is not in it. No terms. No repayment plan. No probationary period. No accounting of what Levi had taken from people, which in that trade was not a small or theoretical list. The man’s whole profession is the ledger, and Jesus does not open one on him.

He is called mid-shift, with the books still open on the booth.

Then the very next thing that happens is a meal.

While Jesus was dining at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with Him and His disciples—for there were many who followed Him.Mark 2:15 (BSB)

Levi’s first move after being called is not to go somewhere new. It is to open the room he was already in and fill it with the people who were already on his books.

Why this week

I run three businesses. I can tell you without dressing it up that every receivable counts. You feel every one of them, and the ones that go quiet you feel twice.

So when I read that Levi stood up and walked away from a booth with the books open on it, I do not read a pleasant story about a career change. I read a man walking away from money he was owed, in front of everyone who owed it.

And then I go looking for my own ledgers, and there turn out to be more of them than I would like. The one I keep on myself. The one I keep on what I am owed. The one I keep on whether somebody has been sorry enough yet.

That is five days’ worth, and it is where we are going. One a day, starting tomorrow.

Saturday I will tell you what putting one of mine down actually cost, and it is not a flattering story.