Call and Healing
Mark 2:13-17
13 And he went out again beside the sea, and the whole crowd came to him, and he taught them. 14And was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he says to him, 'Follow me.' And he got up (ἀναστὰς) and followed him.
15 And it came to pass as he reclined (at table) in his (Levi's) house, many tax-collectors and sinners were also reclining with Jesus and his disciples—for there were many and they followed him. 16And the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax-collectors, said to his disciples, 'Why does he eat with tax-collectors and sinners?' 17And having heard this, Jesus said to them, '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.'
13Καὶ ἐξῆλθεν πάλιν παρὰ τὴν θάλασσαν· καὶ πᾶς ὁ ὄχλος ἤρχετο πρὸς αὐτόν, καὶ ἐδίδασκεν αὐτούς. 14Καὶ παράγων εἶδεν Λευὶν τὸν τοῦ Ἁλφαίου καθήμενον ἐπὶ τὸ τελώνιον, καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ· ἀκολούθει μοι. καὶ ἀναστὰς ἠκολούθησεν αὐτῷ.
15Καὶ γίνεται κατακεῖσθαι αὐτὸν ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ αὐτοῦ, καὶ πολλοὶ τελῶναι καὶ ἁμαρτωλοὶ συνανέκειντο τῷ Ἰησοῦ καὶ τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ· ἦσαν γὰρ πολλοὶ καὶ ἠκολούθουν αὐτῷ. 16καὶ οἱ γραμματεῖς τῶν Φαρισαίων ἰδόντες ὅτι ἐσθίει μετὰ τῶν ἁμαρτωλῶν καὶ τελωνῶν ἔλεγον τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ· ὅτι μετὰ τῶν τελωνῶν καὶ ἁμαρτωλῶν ἐσθίει; 17καὶ ἀκούσας ὁ Ἰησοῦς λέγει αὐτοῖς [ὅτι] οὐ χρείαν ἔχουσιν οἱ ἰσχύοντες ἰατροῦ ἀλλ' οἱ κακῶς ἔχοντες· οὐκ ἦλθον καλέσαι δικαίους ἀλλ' ἁμαρτωλούς.
Translation Notes
he got up (ἀναστὰς) (vv14) Anastas is frequently used in the New Testament for got up or stood up. Yet in 16:9, which post dates Mark by some time, anastas is used to describe Jesus resurrection. Is Levi's getting up another of Mark's subtle hints of resurrection?
And it came to pass (vv15) Translating ginetai in this way reproduces Mark's intent to echo the idioms of the Old Testament.
Reclined (at table) (vv15) reclining to eat is an indication that this is a well-to-do gathering; the rich reclined on couches. It also infers a somewhat more formal meal.1 Jesus was not being invited to a casual lunch. I have added at table in brackets to make it clear that this is a meal, not a nap!
In his (Levi's) house (vv15) The Greek is ambiguous about whether it is Jesus' or Levi's house which hosts the meal. The context seems to suggest the house is Levi's. The meal mirrors the meal at Simon's house in Chapter 1: Jesus enters the house of his disciples.
The Cast
Jesus, who is reprising and refining Mark 1:14-15 and Mark 2:1-12.
Levi, a tax collector.
Tax Collectors and Sinners. Sinners could be those whose poverty meant they were not able to keep the purity laws. But Jesus himself did not keep many of these laws, and yet still speaks of sinners. Therefore, here in Mark, sinners is more likely to mean those who were "flagrant violators of the Mosaic covenant."2 Marcus suggests this would include those mentioned in Mark 7:21-22: " For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly." The story not only has it that many of these followed him, but that he chose to eat with them, and reading closely, they are named as sinners, not as the repentant. We might wonder if repentance happens some way along our journey with Jesus.
Tax collectors collected tolls on the transport of goods. Their positions were essentially sold to the highest bidder, and they made their living by adding to the specified tax amounts. As such, they were notorious sinners.
The Scribes of the Pharisees. It appears that some Scribes were also Pharisees, while some were not. (It's not that the Pharisees had Scribes who worked for them.) Pharisees were a lay movement who were not part of the Temple hierarchy. Scribes were scholars of the Law.
Pharisees are always portrayed negatively by Mark (and Matthew.) Levine suggests Mark separates tax collectors as a particular group of as a deliberate literary strategy3 : Pharisees and Tax Collectors are used by Mark to contrast two groups of people, those who repent, and those who do not. This contrast and its consequence is important. But its portrayal is also prejudice on Mark's part. Judaism, with all its spiritual wisdom, survived the trauma of 70 CE, and the later trauma of 135 largely due to the leadership of Pharisees. In the tradition of Luke, Jesus also eats with Pharisees, even though he discomforted them. (Luke 7:36, 11:7, 14:1) On one occasion, Pharisees show concern for his safety. (Luke 13:31) Paul is proud of his heritage as a Pharisee. (Acts 23:6)
In this universal negativity, Mark has himself created a scapegoat, and the church has too often followed him, and projected his scapegoat onto all Jewish people. Yet, in Jesus we see even Mark's prejudice being subverted. If Jesus would eat with hated tax collectors and sinners, would he not eat with, and heal, Pharisees? Indeed, if sinners, apparently not yet "fully repentant" (whatever that might mean!) are following Jesus, how dare we draw a hard line between two groups of people? Are we able to ask ourselves these questions, or will we scapegoat them as unforgivable?
Crowd and Call
Mark shapes this second reflection on Jesus attitude to sin, judgement, and healing, as the calling of a disciple. (See The Shape of Things to Come, above) Again, he is walking alongside the sea, (Mark 1:16-30) and again he calls a disciple. But there are differences between the two calls: Firstly, the fishermen of Chapter 1 worked in reputable occupations whereas the tax collector, according to some4 , made any house he entered unclean. Tax collectors were regarded in rabbinic texts as the people least likely to repent.5 Mark means us to see the contrast between Levi and the disciples who were called in Chapter 1, but emphasises that the story of Levi is a call narrative with the closing words, "I come to call the righteous, but sinners." (Mark 2:17)
This new disciple is ordinary, like you and me. But, as was noticed very early in the Christian tradition, he is not numbered among the twelve apostles in Mark 3:13-19! Indeed, some early copies6 of Mark change his name here in Chapter 2 to Jacob, to match the listing of the 12 in Mark 3. (Matthew solves the apparent discrepancy between these two sons of Alphaeus,7 by renaming Levi as Matthew. See Matthew 10:1-4) Accomplished rhetorician that he is, Mark expects us to see the little discrepancy8 between 2:14 and 3:18, and to understand the full inclusion of even the "also rans" in the community of faith.
The second difference from Mark 1:10-16 is that in this second call a crowd9 is present. By the sea, that place where chaos still lurks in the Creation, Jesus teaches the crowd, offering it opportunity to see itself with new eyes. And Levi is called out of both his tax booth and that chaos which is the crowd, and his healing begins.
A Meal and a Healing
Following this story of crowd and call, Jesus attends a meal at Levi's house. Meals are never simply about the refuelling of the body. A meal is where the status quo is fed. A meal is a ritual; that is, meals reinforce and control the way a community lives. (See What I Bring with Me: How the Sacred Controls Violence) Meals, especially formal meals, expose the structure and hierarchy of a society.
Ritual is one of the methodologies which the crowd uses to maintain its self control, in other words, it is a relatively non-violent a way of moderating violence by its reinforcement of the status quo.10 Ritual meals11 moderate violence via exclusion. Being invited to the feast provides us with an identity and with safety, but only at the cost of excluding some others from the crowd of us. This exclusion, which enables those of us who remain to feel unified and at peace, is the beginning of scapegoating.
But in the meal at Levi's house, Jesus transforms a ritual into a celebration. As such, this pericope is a precursory hint of the Christian Eucharist, for there, all are welcome. One of the tragedies of our Christian history is that in an attempt to ensure the holiness of the Eucharist, we have excluded people. Far too few services of Eucharist have an "open table," and so the holiness of the Eucharist degenerates from a celebration, and moves towards sacred ritual. In such cases, the Eucharist tends to become a table of the scandalised scribes of the Pharisees rather than being the inclusive healing table of Christ. (For the distinction between holy and sacred, and ritual and celebration, see What I Bring with Me: How the Sacred Controls Violence)
How then do we preserve the holy nature of the Eucharist? We trust (we faith) that our imitation of Jesus behaviour will have similar healing effects to his behaviour. The common understanding of Jesus' people— and still among most of us today, is that sin and corruption will flow to us from "the sinners" and corrupt us and make us unclean— unclean means to be separated from God.
But Jesus' attendance at Levi's meal indicates a different understanding of the flow of purity. Using Girardian language to describe this, Jesus is confident that sinners will follow/imitate him and be healed. He, focused upon God, is confident that he will not imitate the sinners. This encapsulates something of the way and culture of God which Mark calls the Basileia. In the Basileia, God is the influence who frees and heals us of the influence of the crowds of empire. By allowing himself to be included in the ritual of the meal at Levi's house, Jesus shows us how to include all others and build a peace that is not founded upon violence, and which will transform our meals from ritual to celebration. (For comments on how we might manage inclusion and exclusion, especially with respect to safety, See Mark 1:1-45: Rethinking what Jesus did.)
The Sick and the Righteous
Predictably, the crowd, which is represented in this pericope by some of its influencers12 ; namely, the scribes of the Pharisees, is discomforted by Jesus' corruption (as the crowd sees it) of its ritual exclusions. Jesus responds with a well-known proverb13 : "Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick." And in a statement of authority where I is a shorthand for ho huios tou anthropou, he says "I have come to call not the righteous but sinners." (Mark 2:17) The statement connects us to the previous pericope (Mark 2:1-12) where he demonstrates the authority of his own calling as ho huios tou anthropou to forgive sins by healing the paralysed man, who was also a sinner.14 His statement implies that his meal fellowship with the tax collectors and sinners is an act of healing.
There is a great irony here. Those in this pericope who trust they are righteous, are truly ill. The scribes of the Pharisee see they have no need of healing, or need of forgiveness through Jesus. In this they are truly blind, and so do not (or perhaps cannot) hear or heed his call in Mark 1:14-15, a call which implies we all need the healing that flows from our repentance. We all need forgiveness.
Historically, the church has portrayed Jesus against his people. Jesus "the good Jew" is Levine's shorthand for this.15 But there is no critique of Jewishness in this pericope. This story is an argument within Judaism about how to live; it is ultimately about whether true piety must be inclusive or exclusive. An exclusive religious social elite such as the one Jesus scandalises in Chapter 2, is hardly a flaw unique to Judaism. It is a characteristic of empire which infects all cultures. The greater irony here is that the church, seeing the blindness of the scribes of the Pharisees, has itself been blind to Jesus' healing because it has scapegoated Jewish people.
Andrea Prior (January 2025)
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1. cf Marcus pp 225
2. Marcus, pp226, quoting E.P. Sanders.
3. Levine, JANT, pp64
4. m.Toharot 7.6: "If tax collectors entered a house, the house is unclean. " Sefaria: https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Tahorot.7.6?lang=bi (Retrieved 4/1/2025)
5. Levine, JANT pp64
6. Metzger, pp78
7. It's possible Alphaeus was named as the father of an apostle because he was known in the early church community.
8. It is also possible that Alphaeus who was known to the community of Mark actually had two sons, Levi and Jacob.
9. See the Index for several introductions to the Crowd, which is a key feature in my reading of Mark.
10. Luke 14:7-11 reflects this reinforcement of the status quo. Anyone who has been reprimanded for sitting in someone else's pew knows how the status quo will be defended!
11. To be clear. In this use of the words ritual and celebration, I am proceeding on a Girardian basis. Malina and Rohrbaugh's excellent Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels uses a different terminology, saying that rituals introduce new behaviour. From a Girardian perspective, they do the precise opposite. What they call a ritual, I call a celebration. See Malina, "Reading Scenarios Mark 2:13-17"
12. Leaders are those who are able to manipulate the crowds, but who are always vulnerable to changes in in the crowd's mood. Influencers on social media illustrate this power, and its vulnerability, very well
13. Cf Marcus, pp228
14. Formally, everyone understood that they sinned. But where a person was sick, it was often thought this was a sign of their sinfulness. Cf John 9:2
15. Levine, Jesus the Misunderstood Jew pp174
Good people.
