Foolish Choices, Divine Voices
"Then Jesus went out to the lakeshore again and taught the crowds that gathered around him. As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at his tax collection booth. 'Come, be my disciple,' Jesus said to him. So Levi got up and followed him" - Mark 2:13-14 (NLT).
Levi, or Matthew as he was better known, made a very foolish choice. He chose to become a tax-collector.
Now tax-collectors notoriously made their living by cheating people out of their money by overcharging them for taxes, paying Rome its due, and keeping the rest.
People hated them. They were seen as sinners that could not be saved. It was said that no tax-collector could ever go to heaven because they had committed so many sins that they could never repent of them all. This view was birthed from the practice of many tax-collectors having wild, drunken parties with prostitutes, paid for by their ill-gotten gains.
Matthew, born a Jew, knew better than to get involved in such worldly, godless living. He knew that taking such a job would likely lead him to sin, yet he did it anyway.
Still, deep in his heart were the teachings of the Torah, the Old Testament Law that he received while growing up.
So why did he go into tax-collecting? Who knows? Perhaps he did it as a way out of poverty, similar to why many take up drug dealing or prostituting today - - it is a bad choice used as a means to leave poverty, or gain survival.
Yet, though Matthew had made sinful choices that went against all he knew of God, Jesus still chose him, because God looks past what we are, to see what we will become. God accepts what the world rejects; loves what the world hates.
And so the voice of God spoke to Matthew - - first through his parents and the Torah, then probably through John the Baptist, then through Jesus, and finally through the Spirit deep within his heart. The voices told him that he should follow the Messiah.
It was foolish choices, followed by divine voices. He heard the voices and followed Jesus.
How smart this is! How intelligent the choice to follow the Master of life.
It is a deep, soul-jarring, spirit-piercing truth that Jesus chose the worst of sinners to be one of his twelve apostles - - sinners like us.
God is ever in the business of taking that which is dirty and making it clean. He never stops turning bad into good; evil into holy; mistakes into triumphs; loss into gain; failure into success.
We have made bad choices - - all of us. It does not matter who you are, or who I am. When all is stripped away, and the naked truth revealed, we have chosen badly, more times than anyone on earth realizes.
We have failed, blundered, and acted foolishly. We've offended, hurt, and trampled others. We have walked into dark places and done dark things. We have known thoughts, that if expressed, would shock others - - angry thoughts; immoral thoughts; jealous thoughts; selfish thoughts; vengeful thoughts; proud thoughts; hateful thoughts, and even perverted thoughts. Some we carry to action, most we don't.
It does not matter, for this is what Jesus is all about. He came to rescue those who make foolish choices (that's all of us), by the death and resurrection of the one who never made any foolish choices (that's Jesus). He came to call us to himself, and bring us to God.
He calls us by name. He calls us to follow him. He calls us through His Word, and through many people in many places. For despite our foolish choices, we shall always hear divine voices - - the voice of God, that is, through other people's vocal cords saying, "Come, be my disciple."
Well, what's your answer?