Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] So we're in a series on the table. That's where we're starting today.
[00:00:03] And I want you to just stop for a minute and think about the table.
[00:00:07] Maybe the table you grew up with, or maybe the table you've had in your house and what kind of went with that table.
[00:00:14] Maybe it was a table that did more than house a dinner. It was where you did homework, where you did your crafts, where you did your checkbook, whatever when you worked at the table, whatever it was. But.
[00:00:28] But whatever you did at that table, the primary reason that table existed in your house was so that you could pull whoever was in the family in that moment up to the table and eat together, because that's what a table's about.
[00:00:41] And when I think back to the tables that Vicki and I have had over the years that we've been married, we've had a lot of different varieties. We've had kind of an oval one. We've had a rectangle one.
[00:00:55] We had a square one for a really long time. Now we're housing a round table together, you know, and it doesn't really matter, actually. It's not that important what kind of table it is or what the shape it is or what it's made of or anything like that. What's important about the table is what takes place at the table, the connection that takes place, the vulnerability, the care, the love that gets expressed at that table.
[00:01:21] And that's really what we're going to talk about today and for the next few weeks. It's going to be a conversation around different times that Jesus was at a meal or at the table with people. And what we learn and what we see is life and relationship and impact and love and all these things that Jesus brought to every experience that he ever had as he walked this earth.
[00:01:46] And the first table we're going to pull ourselves up to this week is in the home of a guy by the name of Levi, a tax collector. From Luke, chapter 5, verses 27 through 32, this is what we find after this.
[00:02:01] He that's Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at a tax booth. And he said to him, follow me. And leaving everything, he rose and followed him.
[00:02:13] And Levi made him a great feast in his house.
[00:02:16] And there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at the table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at the disciples, saying, why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?
[00:02:29] And Jesus answered them, those who are well have no need of A physician, but those who are sick.
[00:02:36] I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
[00:02:42] I want to unpack this today using three questions. First of all, very simple questions, really, but they're really the outline. First of all, what's the value of sharing meals?
[00:02:56] Second of all, who should we share those meals with?
[00:03:00] And third, who or what should we bring to the meal?
[00:03:05] Now, I know that's a simple outline, and we're going to get to it in just a minute, but I first want to give you a little bit of context to help us understand why we are where we are in this story.
[00:03:17] The context starts with Jesus drafting his team.
[00:03:22] Not with fanfare or media coverage or anything like that. This is just Jesus walking into the lives of ordinary men and expressing an invitation for them to follow him. It started in the early verses of chapter five with Jesus coming upon these three fishermen guys, one Peter or Simon, and the other two John and James brothers. And Jesus connects with them after they've been fishing all night and the nets are on the ground and they're cleaning them up, and they literally haven't caught anything all night. And so they're ready to go home. And Jesus comes up and he says to them, hey, guys, here's what I'd like for you to do. I'd like for you to take those nets, and I want you to drop them where I tell you to drop them. And they, you know, like, all of us would be, come on, we don't need to do that. That's not going to work. You ever been like that with something with God? I mean, they didn't really understand who Jesus was. But when we're experiencing God's desire for us, we have this inclination to do our own thing. And they just wanted to go home, but they gathered themselves up and they threw their nets in and they caught this catch that was so massive that they could barely pull it in, and the nets could barely hold it. And they were ecstatic.
[00:04:41] And Jesus looks at him and he says, listen, there's a lot of fish there. That's not what Jesus said, but kind of he went right past the fish and he said, but I want to tell you, that fish that you're catching right there, that's one thing for a physical day of being, you know, alive and having a physical body and all that stuff. But I want to tell you that I want you to do something more important than to catch fish.
[00:05:04] I want to catch men.
[00:05:06] I want you to catch men. And what did that mean? He Said, I want you to come in and follow me. And I'm going to show you, number one, why it is that you should give yourself to this mission. I'm calling you to, and I'm going to show you how this mission gets accomplished.
[00:05:25] Then I'm going to empower you on this mission.
[00:05:30] And then Jesus.
[00:05:31] In Luke chapter five, the story goes on to who Jesus goes after. Right after these disciples come along with him. They're following along with him, and the first person he heals is a leper.
[00:05:44] The world thinks he's an outcast. The world thinks that they don't want to be connected to him because they might get his disease.
[00:05:51] And Jesus heals him. And then he the next thing we see in Luke chapter five is that a paralytic, a paralyzed person, gets lowered down through the roof, and Jesus heals that person. Not just to show that Jesus can heal somebody physically, but he's trying to help them understand that he's going to do the same thing to the brokenness of the soul that he did to the brokenness of that body. He's going to heal it. He's going to take people like paralytics and lepers, and he's going to make them whole. That's the mission.
[00:06:24] And he says, follow me on that mission.
[00:06:28] Let me just say this.
[00:06:31] What mission are you on?
[00:06:35] What's your mission in life?
[00:06:39] I don't know if you could kind of sort it out or spit it out and say it clearly right now, but you've got an idea of what's important, what's your priority, what you're spending your time with.
[00:06:55] And let me just say this.
[00:06:58] The mission you choose to engage in very much determines who you invite to your table.
[00:07:09] The mission that you're on is going to determine who it is that you share your life with.
[00:07:18] That's really the message of today.
[00:07:21] That's the context of what we're going to talk about.
[00:07:24] So let's get started with this first question.
[00:07:27] What's the value of a meal?
[00:07:30] Vicki and I have been married almost 39 years.
[00:07:34] And in those 39 years, a lot has changed.
[00:07:38] Some of it really insignificant, like our favorite sweatshirts.
[00:07:43] I mean, early in our marriage, it was the Young Life sweatshirt, gray and blue, and the Oregon Duck sweatshirt and the Ski beach sweatshirt, which, if you've never heard of Ski beach, you've not skied.
[00:07:54] North Carolina's premier ski resort. I mean, it puts Vail to shame. It puts, you know, well, whatever, right? But those were the sweatshirts. And over the years Those just kind of lost their favor, and they got changed by the school sweatshirts, church that our kids had and the universities that they went to and the things that we thought were important throughout the years. And you could almost track a life with sweatshirts. Insignificant.
[00:08:21] But some significant changes happened, too, right? We brought these two kids into the world with the help of the Lord, and then we lived our lives with them, you know, completely.
[00:08:34] Then they left us, which I don't know now after so many years. It's not. I mean, it's great that we got to spend that time with them. It's not so bad that they're spending their time on their own now, if you know what I mean.
[00:08:49] But things change.
[00:08:50] One thing hasn't changed.
[00:08:52] We're still sitting around a dinner table, sharing life.
[00:09:00] Started an apartment when we were in seminary, talking about theology, talking about plans for life.
[00:09:08] Continued into our first home back in Ohio, where we talked about life around this big rectangular table, just she and I going back and forth. And then we added kids in high chairs and booster seats. And then we moved into our kind of like our dream home, right, with a dream table, and kind of thought that was the place that we'd raise our kids and bring them home from college to.
[00:09:35] And the conversations that we had around that table were amazingly significant and powerful and fun.
[00:09:41] And the place that we had, the conversations about moving to a place in Texas called Tyler and then coming here 20 plus years ago now, and sitting around the table in the house that we've had for that long and having the conversations.
[00:10:01] See, the significance of a meal is the significance of the relationships and the depth of that relationship.
[00:10:10] See, as we talk about this table over the next few weeks, I want you to know it's not just about inviting people to your table.
[00:10:21] The reason we share a meal is to invite people into our lives.
[00:10:25] And while the table and the meal is one way, a really good way to do that, the whole relational picture that we're talking about is that you invite people, that we invite people into our lives because at the table, there's love, there's connection, there's care, there's concern.
[00:10:47] It's a place where equality and acceptance live. I mean, that's the same thing that was happening in Jesus Day, because that's the place where you said, I'm with you.
[00:10:59] I want you to be in this moment. I want to hear your story. I want to share my story.
[00:11:05] I want to love you. I want to be concerned about you. I want to be vulnerable with you.
[00:11:12] That's what the table is about.
[00:11:14] And that's why Jesus shared a meal with people, because he knew that was the place that conversations happen.
[00:11:22] That, that acceptance is there, that reception is there, that you have this opportunity to, well, delve deeply but also just be connected.
[00:11:35] It's a place to start a conversation about things like the Knicks winning last night and to continue conversations about eternity and life and pain and struggle and how that happens.
[00:11:51] It's the place where we get to share disappointment, where we get to share loneliness, where we get to share brokenness, where we get to share joys and triumphs.
[00:12:01] I mean, it's this beautiful place that God intended us to be. It's a picture of a relational reality that we all want and need to be cared for, connected and loved.
[00:12:18] And Jesus brings that to the table.
[00:12:22] Why we share meals is because why we share meals is because we are sharing our lives with people. And as followers of Jesus on the mission of God, it's what we do.
[00:12:35] So why share the meal?
[00:12:40] Because it means we're sharing life, connecting, caring and loving one another.
[00:12:48] Second question, who are we sharing this meal with?
[00:12:54] The answer to that question for Jesus got him in trouble all the time. That's what happened here, right, Jesus? Jesus shares a meal with Levi, but not just with Levi.
[00:13:06] Look, in verse 29, he shares it with a large company that's a big party put on a great feast by Levi and a big party. And everybody comes, at least everybody from the dredges of society.
[00:13:21] It's. It's people like tax collectors. And I love this phrase others, others.
[00:13:30] You know what that means? Anyone. And I'm talking anyone. The Pharisees interpret that later in verse 30 as tax collectors and sinners, which is so super appropriate because every single one of us is a sinner, right? We all sin and fall short of the glory of God. We're all in a broken place. We're all in a spot where we don't deserve to be accepted at anybody's table.
[00:13:52] And yet here we are.
[00:13:56] Why would you do that, Jesus? What's going on here? Jesus? What in the world? Why would you invite tax collectors? Now you might be thinking that seems a little bit like over the top to be so concerned about tax collectors, but let me just remind you something about Roman tax collectors. They're not like your standard IRS agents.
[00:14:17] I don't know what your experience with the IRS is, but 99 point, I've done the research, so don't question me on this. 99.9% of all IRS people are actually Trying to do the right thing.
[00:14:30] Nobody in the IRS. That's not true. There might be that 1.001% who actually is doing something like this, but they're not inflating your tax bill and then calling you to send them the money and then splitting it in the back room with everybody so they can go out and party.
[00:14:48] That's not what an IRS agent does. An IRS agent has rules and regulations that are public, that are made for them, and that they generally follow them. Now the Romans, tax collectors, those people had no rules, they had no regulations. All they were told was, here's what you have to collect. And we don't care how you do it or how much more you get, but you have to collect this. And so they defrauded, they conspired, they oppressed people. They stole money, possessions, land from the people of Israel. These Roman tax collectors were not really Roman.
[00:15:30] They were actually Jewish people who had forsaken Judaism. So they were apostates who had forsaken their Jewish brethren. Now they were traitors who were then therefore cast out, both religiously and societally. These people were the dread, were the worst of the worst in terms of society. They were not connected, they were not. People were not interested in being with them. And so for Jesus to do this made an amazing statement.
[00:16:01] And that amazing statement is that there's no group of people, there's no class of person, There is no kind of humanity that is apart from God's relentless plan for redemption.
[00:16:16] I mean, no one is beyond the redemptive power of the Gospel.
[00:16:21] That's what this meant.
[00:16:24] And Jesus was inviting them in and they had to ask the question, which they did. In verse 30, the Pharisees and the scribes say to the disciples, and Jesus, why are you doing this?
[00:16:39] And Jesus makes a pretty interesting statement, a pretty straightforward statement. Not just interesting. He says, I'm doing this because the sick don't need a physician.
[00:16:52] I'm sorry, the healthy don't need a physician, but the sick do.
[00:17:00] A friend of mine in our church teaches over at letourneau. He's an engineering.
[00:17:07] Actually, the head of the engineering department. And he writes a blog called the T shape engineer. Michael McGinnis is his name.
[00:17:15] And in that blog he talks about T shape being the Christ centered engineer. And a few weeks ago he wrote a blog about the great serum race. Do you remember that?
[00:17:26] You don't remember it? You might remember hearing of it. It was in 1925. There was a diphtheria outbreak in Nome, Alaska, and a doctor realized that they didn't have enough serum to kind of combat it, but he knew that they had serum in Anchorage. But the problem is that Anchorage was so far away and that a train from Anchorage didn't actually go all the way to Nome. In fact, the closest they could get to a train station from nome was about 650 miles away. And so these 18 dog sled teams created a relay across that wilderness. And you may know the rest of the story. A dog named Togo, who carried. Who led his team, carrying most of the weight. And then Balto, which is maybe you're more familiar with, ended the whole thing and brought the serum to Nome. And it was a massive undertaking. And why'd they do it?
[00:18:25] Because they wanted to do whatever it took to save the people of Nome.
[00:18:30] So when Jesus is answering this question to the Pharisees, he's saying, I don't even know. I don't know how you can ask that question. Because, see, I'm here as the serum for your sickness.
[00:18:45] And if I'm not in that moment around that table with those people, they don't get healthy.
[00:18:51] In fact, they perish.
[00:18:54] So I'm here because the sick need a doctor.
[00:18:58] But not only that, the sinner, he goes on to say in verse 32 that he hasn't come to call the righteous, but the sinner to repentance. The sinner needs repentance, and repentance is brought forth by the grace of God, bringing the reality of our sin before us, where we turn from our sin to God.
[00:19:23] And he said, the righteous don't need that.
[00:19:26] Which is so funny as he's talking to these Pharisees because they must have puffed up their chest at the moment and thought, he's talking about us.
[00:19:34] But really, he was making an argument that really wasn't even possible. Because everybody's unrighteous apart from Christ, right? Without Jesus and the reality of his death and his resurrection, we. We have nothing.
[00:19:47] We're unrighteous. And Jesus says, I've come to heal the sick and to bring them to repentance.
[00:19:53] That's why I invite people like that.
[00:19:57] Now, practically, what does that mean for you?
[00:20:00] Who do you share your meals with? Who should you share your meals with? And again, I'm not saying necessarily just meals. I'm talking about our lives.
[00:20:08] But who is it that we should invite in? Who is it that we should bring into these moments? Who do we invite to our table? Because, see, the mission that we're on will very much dictate the people that we invite to our table?
[00:20:24] I mean, I have to be honest, when I'm thinking about who I'm going to open up my life to or who I'm going to invite to the table, I generally like to invite people who like me, right?
[00:20:36] But what if maybe we started thinking a little differently outside the box?
[00:20:40] What if instead of inviting people who like me and I like them, what if we invited people who needed to be liked?
[00:20:49] You know, anybody like that?
[00:20:52] I have a tendency to invite people into my life who will serve me or benefit me.
[00:20:57] But what if because of the mission I was on, what if because of the person that God is trying to make me become, what if I started thinking, who can I serve and who can I benefit other than who can benefit me or serve me?
[00:21:16] I should be connected to people who are not like me, who need me to like them.
[00:21:26] And I'm saying this for all of us in this room. I don't care whether you're an outcast. I don't care whether you're. You're alone. You can still be that person who invites those in.
[00:21:40] It doesn't matter who we are.
[00:21:43] It doesn't matter who can serve us or who can benefit us or who can like us.
[00:21:49] I mean, part of us as followers of Christ is living in this upside down, topsy turvy kingdom where we do things that are unexpected for humans to do, like love others and serve others and care for others even more than we care for ourselves.
[00:22:08] I mean, Jesus says, I want you to invite these people to your table, bring them in.
[00:22:16] Who needs liked around you, who needs served around you, who needs the benefits that you can bring to their lives around you?
[00:22:29] That leads us to the third question.
[00:22:33] What do we actually bring to the table?
[00:22:38] If we share meals at a table because it provides a place for deep connection, vulnerability, spiritual conversations, regular conversations.
[00:22:48] If that's why we enter into a meal with people or that's why we enter into life with people, and then who we should share those meals with is people that are like us and people who are not like us.
[00:23:00] It ought to be a massive group of people in that sense. It ought to be people that we're connected to and we desire to be connected to, and we ought to be connected to people who are maybe not exactly who we feel comfortable with all the time, or maybe not exactly where we feel like we should be connected. But man, God says, I, I want you to be with the outcast. I want you to be with the politically different than you are. I Want you to be with people who may even hold a different religious philosophy than you do. I want you to be with the angry neighbor who wants to be with the angry neighbor. Who is the angry neighbor?
[00:23:37] If you don't know, maybe it's you.
[00:23:41] Right?
[00:23:44] I mean, that's what Jesus is calling us to.
[00:23:49] And then when we have those two things, what we get to do when we bring them to the table is bring something along with us to that table.
[00:24:01] And you know what that is. This is going to sound like Sunday school, but I think you might know Jesus, we share a meal because we can connect with people and love them.
[00:24:13] We do it with all kinds of different people. And when we do it, we bring Jesus into that moment.
[00:24:20] What does that mean?
[00:24:22] Well, let me just remind you of something. If you're sick, if you're really broken, if you have a need, I can come and offer some words of encouragement.
[00:24:34] I can bring, maybe provide some money to help or some way to meet a need in that sense, in a physical way. But the ultimate brokenness of where somebody is, I got nothing in myself.
[00:24:52] The only thing that I can really bring into somebody's life who's really broken and hurting and struggling and alone and outcasts and emotionally wrecked and physically wiped out and spiritually dead.
[00:25:08] The only thing I can bring into that moment is Jesus.
[00:25:13] And when I bring Jesus into that moment, let me just say this.
[00:25:17] You also know Jesus isn't actually showing up at my dinner parties.
[00:25:22] I mean, not physically. Right.
[00:25:25] How's Jesus showing up at our dinner parties?
[00:25:28] He's throwing up, showing up at our dinner parties through us who are his body, the church where we show love, where we show concern, where we stay connected, where we serve and love, where we express who he is through our hands and feet. But also around the table, we express what he's done in our lives in story and the truth of the gospel and what that means to how my life has changed, how your life has changed, and how their life could change. And I'm not saying every conversation, every person that you invite to a dinner or into your life, that you have to make it a statement on the very first time that the gospel gets presented and they are called on the carpet to know Jesus at that moment, which sometimes is appropriate. Sometimes it's just an opportunity for us to develop a relationship and come to a place where we can talk about it. But here's the thing. What we bring in bringing Jesus is we bring his love and his truth into those situations, and people get a chance to Experience, not just being connected to you and me, but being connected to Jesus.
[00:26:47] What a great party.
[00:26:52] Let me just remind you of something. I don't know what you were doing last night, and I don't care, really.
[00:26:59] Okay.
[00:27:01] But if Jesus had been there, you know what would have happened?
[00:27:07] He would have been the most interesting person in the room.
[00:27:13] Right?
[00:27:14] He would have been the most interested person in the room.
[00:27:18] He would have been the most engaged person in the room.
[00:27:23] And your experience with him would have done one of two things.
[00:27:26] It would have either drawn you like a magnet or made you run.
[00:27:34] See, Jesus wants to draw you.
[00:27:38] Jesus wants to draw all of those people that we're connected with.
[00:27:43] And when we invite people into our lives around the dinner table, we bring him with us into that moment, and then he begins to do his work.
[00:28:04] I was.
[00:28:06] I was super excited to watch the best half of a soccer game that I've ever watched on Friday night as the US Totally dismantled Paraguay.
[00:28:20] Totally dismantled them.
[00:28:23] And I thought, man, I'm so pumped that they're in the World Cup.
[00:28:30] But to get to the World cup, you know what you got to do?
[00:28:33] You got to earn the right to be there, which the US has had trouble doing over the last, like, thousand years. Not thousand, but a lot, right?
[00:28:44] So excited to see him back.
[00:28:46] And at least the US Men, the women are, like, winning it all, all the time, so. But the men having trouble. But the point is they had to earn their opportunity to be at the World cup table.
[00:28:58] You know what Jesus did for us?
[00:29:02] He invited us to this table where there's the most and grandest feast ever.
[00:29:12] And we didn't have to do anything to earn it.
[00:29:15] His death and his resurrection and the transformation that he's doing in the lives of those of us who have faith and believe we're at his table. You're at his table, and you're experiencing the benefits of everything that Jesus is.
[00:29:37] If you are at Jesus table, who's at yours?
[00:29:46] Let's pray.
[00:29:50] God, thank you for inviting us to your table, For allowing us to enter in and to experience you.
[00:30:06] And what love, connection, and care, not just for a physical body, but for an eternal soul. Looks like it's true, God, you've done that.
[00:30:21] Your restorative, redemptive power brings us hope.
[00:30:27] And, God, you put us on this mission to share that with the world.
[00:30:36] Forgive us when that mission gets caught up in our own mission, and we have our own plan and our own goal, and certainly that begins to reflect who is at our table.
[00:30:53] But, Lord, would you help us to be reminded of the fact that you came with the serum to our disease.
[00:31:05] That sinners and sick people, they need a doctor and they need repentance.
[00:31:16] And that you move us towards both.
[00:31:19] We're grateful.
[00:31:21] In Jesus name we stand together and worship you.
