Deplorables — Mark 2:13-17
What do you think of deplorables, that is people who are shockingly bad and deserving of condemnation? How do you suppose Jesus felt about deplorables? We are going to find out how He felt about them.
Jesus taught, healed and in memorable fashion healed a paralytic in the home of Peter in the Sea of Galilee port town of Capernaum. Then Jesus went out by the lake and a large crowd gathered and He started teaching them.
As Jesus walked along teaching, He saw a guy named Levi sitting at his tax collector’s booth. Jesus told Levi to follow Him, and he got up left his tax collecting business and followed Jesus.
A road that went through Capernaum ran from Damascus to the Mediterranean coast and was heavily travelled. Roman tax collectors would set up business on busy roads and collect duties and taxes from those who passed by.
Levi was a Jewish guy running a tax business that taxed his Jewish brothers and sisters to fund the Roman government. Tax collectors like Levi took a portion of the money they collected and kept it as commission.
He probably bought the business, and the business was lucrative and made him a rich man. But he was taking money from his people to support the oppression they lived with from the Roman government.
I wonder how the Jewish folks felt about a Jewish guy collecting taxes from Rome to control them, at the expense of their freedom? Not good! The Jews hated tax collectors! Being a tax collector for Rome branded a Jewish guy a traitor, sinner, scoundrel and, in short, a deplorable!
Let’s look at Mark 2:13-14, (13) Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach. (14) As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alpheus sitting at the tax collectors booth. ‘Follow me,’ Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.” (NIV)
Jesus called a hated tax collector, a deplorable!
Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (NIV) To be a sinner means that we are shockingly bad in quality and deserve condemnation. We are all deplorables because we are all sinners, that is people who falls far short of God’s glory.
The only kind of person Jesus has to call to follow Him are deplorables.
Guess where Jesus goes next. He goes to the home of Levi for a dinner. Levi walked away from his tax collecting business, from his source of riches and goes to his home and throws a dinner for his tax collector and sinner type pals and has Jesus in as the guest of honor.
What is going on here? Levi is introducing his friends to Jesus. His friends are people like him, tax collectors and sinners.
Jesus is networking through Levi, a deplorable to get to more deplorables like Levi.
Mark 2:15, “While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and ‘sinners’ were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.” (NIV)
Notice the result of Jesus eating with all the deplorables at Levi’s house. Many of those deplorables decided to follow Jesus! That is why He was hanging out with them!
Here is a key of Jesus’ strategy. He is using a recent convert, a deplorable to make contact with others like him, more deplorables so He can call more of the deplorables.
Jesus uses the deplorable tax collector to call more deplorables to follow Him.
Today, nothing has changed. Jesus still wants to use the recent convert, the most recent deplorable to come in, to call more deplorables to follow Jesus.
Why is that? Who knows all the deplorables? The deplorable who just came in! He still knows all the people on the outside!
What happens next? The teachers of the law and the Pharisees saw Jesus sitting and eating with tax collectors and sinners. So, the teachers of the law and the Pharisees ask Jesus’ disciples why He is eating with tax collectors and sinners?
The religious guys want to know how the Rabbi, Jesus could be associating with deplorables. The religious guy’s sensibilities are offended because the Rabbi is hanging out with tax collectors and sinners. He is eating with the deplorables! They were shocked!
Jesus responds in verse 17, “On hearing this, Jesus said to them, it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (NIV)
The religious guys objected to Jesus hanging out with the deplorables! Jesus is talking to the religious big shots of His day, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law!
When Jesus says that the healthy don’t need a doctor, He is lumping the religious big shots in with the healthy! When He says that He did not come to call the righteous but the sinners, He is lumping the religious big shots in with the righteous.
The teachers of the law and the Pharisees did not see themselves in with the deplorables, but above the deplorables. They were religiously squared away and did not need a doctor and needed no help as a sinner!
They thought they were above the need of Jesus the sin doctor and Jesus the savior. They weren’t the deplorables anymore, they were better than that!
It is very easy to become a religious guy and not see yourself as a deplorable. Usually, when a person first comes to Christ, they know a lot of people who are not saved. They know lots of deplorables because they have been a part of them for years!
After year one they know less deplorables. After year two they know less, yet until about year 5 when they might not know much of anyone who is not a part of their Christian group. They may not see themselves as a deplorable and may not know anyone who we might define as a deplorable.
Early in their walk with Christ when they know lots of deplorables they can reach out to them like Levi did and reach some of them. About five years in they take on more the characteristic of the “religious guys,” who don’t see themselves as deplorable anymore.
What happens then? They reach the point when they can’t reach deplorables because they see themselves as different from them. I want to always see myself as a deplorable so God can use me to reach out to more deplorables.
From 1975 to 1978 I was a youth pastor at the Lawndale Christian Church in Lawndale, California. I had 8 high school represented in my youth group. We did an outreach following football games. I called it football follies. We would have entertainment and food at a hall at the church and would have kids from all the high schools bring their friends.
One of our guys played football at the school closest to church. His name was James. He was a starting offensive guard and a popular guy on campus.
If anyone I ever knew understood that he was in need of Doctor Jesus and Jesus the Savior, it was James. He saw himself as a deplorable, that is a sinner in need of a Savior.
One night after a football game, he came in with about 20 kids from his campus with him. Over the next few months most of those kids came to Christ!
That is the Levi effect! A deplorable hanging out with more deplorables so Jesus can call them to follow Him.
In the early 1980’s I was pastor at the Christian Church of Lemon Grove, Ca. A guy was coming to church who owned a bar in town. The bar was called The Pelican Pub. It was a biker bar. In fact, the president of the Hells Angels was shot-gunned to death in the Pelican Pub in 1979.
I contacted this man and asked to meet with him. I told him I wanted to share with him how he could know Christ. He said that he would be working and the only way to get together would be for me to come to the Pelican Pub on Saturday morning. I scheduled the time to study the gospel with him in his bar.
I contacted the chairman of our elders. I told him what I was doing. I said, “if someone sees me going or coming from the Pelican Pup you will know why.” He said that he was fine with all that and had me covered.
The man called and changed to location to his home an hour before I met with him, but he did come to Christ.
Always see yourself as a deplorable, never a religious big shot! It is the only way God can use you to reach deplorables! You know what else? It is what Jesus would be doing if He was hanging out on earth still.
What happened to Levi? He became an Apostle of Jesus, one of the 12. His Apostolic name is Matthew! Yes, he wrote the gospel that bears his name. God has used that Gospel since around AD 85, or 1936 years to bring millions to Christ.
God used Matthew, a deplorable to reach deplorables! See yourself as a deplorable so God can use you the same way!