The Gospel of Mark
The Call of the Tax Collector Mk 2,13-17
This episode opens with the call of Levi (verse 14) and is then followed by another controversy which leads to a saying of Jesus (verse 17). In more technical terms, we say this is a call story (vv 13-14) leading to a pronouncement story (vv 15-17). The two halves are linked because tax-collectors by the nature of what they did would have been regarded as sinners.
The setting in verse 13 is not very specific (by the sea) - but once again Jesus is teaching the crowd. We saw Jesus speaking the word in verse 2 and a mention of the crowd in verse 4. The crowd now becomes what we might call a collective person. It will be making regular appearances from now on.
Tax collectors (verse 14) would have been tax farmers: they contracted to give so much to the Romans, the occupying power. Anything extra they raised would then be kept as their profit. As a result, they were outsiders to the main Jewish community and very unpopular. Sinners by definition, we could say.
As in the calls of the first four disciples (1,16-20), Levi is at his place of work and his response is immediate. Unlike the earlier calls, there is no commissioning by Jesus, nor does he repeat his comment about becoming "fishers of men".
"His house" is more likely to be Levi's house rather than Jesus'. Luke, Lk 5,29, is specific about the setting but Luke likes banquets. However, there is enough ambiguity to suggest that it might be Jesus's house, making him the host. (The NRSV removes the ambiguity).
There is quite a crowd there with Jesus and his disciples, now appearing as a group for the first time. Mark adds that they were "many", so more have now joined Jesus since the earlier call of disciples. For them too, this would have been a serious crossing of boundaries because they were eating with sinners, regarded as "unclean".
Verse 16 brings the first mention of the Pharisees: "Scribes of the Pharisees", though, is an unusual expression. Pharisees were strict observers of the Law, but they also allowed for oral traditions which developed and adapted the Law. They would have regarded themselves as righteous, doing right in the eyes of God. Hence they were querying Jesus' own righteousness.
Verse 17 brings this story to its climax by the saying of Jesus that he came to call sinners not the righteous. Sirach speaks about the physician but as in the previous episode (2,9) it is the deeper healing which is needed. Jeremiah and Hosea both speak of God healing his people.
It's likely that this saying was drawn from the early Church's memory of the sayings of Jesus. We can therefore note the irony in this saying of Jesus. If the Pharisees were close enough to Jesus to speak with him, they must therefore have been close as well to those tax collectors and sinners. The evangelist as a good story teller leaves us to imagine the reaction of the Pharisees to this put-down.
Back now to the main page and then we can move on to the third and central episode of this cycle.