The Evangelist

Read Luke 5:27–32

Would Levi recognize himself in the word evangelist? Maybe not; maybe he, like us, was embarrassed by the terminology. Maybe the obnoxious religious certitude we often associate with evangelists was familiar to him back in the first century. Who knows? But the reality is that Levi exhibits the best characteristics of an evangelist in this story from Luke 5, perhaps without really even thinking about it.

I have had my share of run-ins with what I call “full-contact evangelists” in my time. You know the type—the ones who travel to sites of “sinful” behavior, such as Mardi Gras in New Orleans, carrying their banners and signs regaling the revelers with such loving sentiments as “Turn or Burn!” or “Jesus Saves from Hell!” They are the ones for whom every conversation has the potential to turn into an evangelistic encounter, and in fact if you don’t take advantage of those opportunities you have failed in your basic responsibility as a Christian.

This type of person is so convinced that anyone who does not accept Jesus as his personal savior is destined for eternal conscious torment in hell that they ironically become joyless automatons who must “witness” to every supermarket cashier and hotel clerk they encounter, so that even if their targets reject their advances they themselves will have done their duty and can rest easy. But who can really rest with so many “unsaved” souls out there? It’s a never-ending crusade, and it’s motivated by guilt and fear more than love.

Levi does not resemble these modern-day evangelists at all. But he does, I would argue, much more effective evangelism than the most devout among them do. It’s more effective because it’s more natural and organic. If “evangelism” refers to sharing the good news (Gk. euangelion) about Jesus, then Levi performs the task much better than all the “Jesus or Hell” shouters on Bourbon Street.

What Levi does—it’s simple enough—is to have his life changed by Jesus and then to share his joy with his friends. He has left everything—his tax booth, his income, his security for the future—to follow the charismatic young rabbi from Nazareth. And the first thing he does is to throw a party and invite all his friends to meet Jesus. Most of his guests are also tax collectors, because who else would hang out with a crook suspected of treason than other crooks and outcasts? The answer: Jesus would. Jesus doesn’t give a flip about the social order that tries to tell him whom he can and cannot associate with.

The hall monitors do, however. The self-appointed arbiters of decency and order complain to Jesus’s disciples, appalled that they and their rabbi are eating and drinking with “tax collectors and sinners” (v. 30). Before his disciples can say anything, Jesus himself answers, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance” (v. 31).

There is a lesson here for us who care about the church, the gospel, and the commonwealth of God. In order to reach our culture, a culture that finds the church increasingly foreign, an afterthought at best, we are going to have to try some new things. Instead of haranguing or browbeating strangers with a message that sparks bemusement or, worse, animosity, why aren’t we eating and drinking with the “sinners” in an effort to introduce them to that which has changed our lives? Why aren’t we going out into the world, unguarded and vulnerable, instead of holing up in our safe enclaves and begging the world to come to us?

If we do these things, we will undoubtedly run afoul of the hall monitors, who will object in many and sundry ways to our “compromising the gospel” with our unorthodox practices. But if we are faithful to Jesus and the example of Levi, we will shrug off their objections and keep throwing parties for those we know who could stand to have their lives changed by Jesus too.

Grace and peace,
bob