And after these things he went forth, and saw a publican, named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he said unto him, Follow me. And he left all, rose up, and followed him. -- Luke 5:27-28 (KJV)
Levi held the kind of job a man does not drift back into. A publican bought his seat — the right to collect Rome's taxes from his own neighbors — and he made it pay, which is why the town crossed the street when it saw him coming. Rich, settled, and despised: that was the booth Levi occupied when Jesus walked by and looked at him.
Luke spends no ink on deliberation. Follow me. And he left all, rose up, and followed him. One verse. A man stands up out of an entire livelihood the way you stand up from a chair.
What the Leaving Was
One more verse, though, and the leaving turns out to be exact rather than total. Levi has left all — and is immediately hosting a great feast in his own house. The house is still his. What he walked out of is the booth: the seat that held him, the arrangement that told everyone who he was. Leaving all did not mean owning nothing. It meant the booth no longer owned him.
So the call lands differently on different lives. The fishermen walked away from nets; Levi from a franchise; plenty of disciples followed without leaving a trade at all. The common verb is follow. The particular cost arrives fitted to the life it lands on.
The Guest List
Levi threw a feast — a great one, Luke says — and filled it with a great company of publicans and of others, the exact people a new life might be expected to shed. He seated them at a table with Jesus. The first thing Luke shows him doing as a follower is an introduction.
Most of us manage the old crowd the other way — a quiet fade. Somebody you know is likelier to accept a meal from you than a sermon.
The Physician's Answer
The Pharisees saw the table and asked why the Master ate with publicans and sinners. Jesus answered for Himself: They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. A doctor who avoids sick rooms is in the wrong trade. The table full of publicans was not a compromise of His mission. It was the mission.
The booth did not sit empty long; Rome always found another man. The feast could not be repeated at all — a house full of the old life, and Jesus at the center of it, eating.
