The Deplorables | Mark 2:15-16

The Way to Trust | Scene 2, Day 5

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. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

Mark 2:15–16

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Levi has just left his tax booth to follow Jesus. But before he disappears into his new life, he throws a dinner party. He invites all of his old friends, including other tax collectors and people the upstanding folks label “sinners.”

He wants them to meet the rabbi who called him by name.

The house is full. There’s food, wine, conversation, laughter. Jesus is right in the middle of it. Outside, watching through the windows, the Pharisees are scandalized.

“Why does he eat with them?”

When I was younger, I often heard this story preached a certain way, which was essentially:

“Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners, so we should hang out with them too.”

The message sounded compassionate. Be more like Jesus, as in, don’t judge people, reach out to the marginalized.

But something about it always bothered me. To be honest, I didn’t sense that the people telling me this message were really more like Jesus. I couldn’t articulate it at the time, but looking back, it finally came to me:

Condescension.

The way the message was framed assumed we were the good ones. The healthy ones. The ones secure enough to extend charity to those less fortunate. It was a kind of spiritual noblesse oblige, an upper class of churchy people graciously dining with peasants.

It felt smug.

But here’s the problem with that interpretation: It puts us on the wrong side of the table.

Levi was a tax collector. Tax collectors in first-century Judea weren’t just disliked—they were despised. They were local Jewish men who worked for the Roman Empire, collecting taxes from their own people. They didn’t earn salaries; they profited by skimming extra off the top.

In other words, they were traitors. Deplorables. People who chose comfort and profit over loyalty to their community.

A modern comparison might be the aftermath of World War II, when the French turned on locals who had cooperated with the Nazi-controlled Vichy government. Fear for survival and comfort had driven some to collaborate, while others joined the Resistance. After liberation, the collaborators faced brutal public judgment. Shocking footage from the end of the war shows Resistance members stripping clothes from and shaving the heads of men and women who were accused of collaborating with the Nazis.

That’s how the Jewish people saw Levi—a man who sold out his neighbors for personal gain.

So when the Pharisees watched Jesus eat with Levi and his friends, they weren’t just disgusted by his theology. They were disgusted by the local sympathizers who lined their pocketbooks by siding with the oppressive Roman government: Why is this rabbi sitting with traitors?

People don’t take kindly to traitors in their midst.

But this raises the question: Who are we in this story?

Are we the Pharisees, standing outside and judging from a distance?
Are we Jesus, graciously extending mercy to the broken?
Or are we Levi and his friends—the ones who desperately need grace?

For most of my life, I heard lessons in church suggesting that I was supposed to be like Jesus in this story. The one reaching out. The one welcoming others in. The good person being nice to sinners.

But what if I’m not Jesus in this story, but Levi? What if I’m the one who has chosen comfort over courage, who has hurt people in his own community—family, friends, neighbors—out of fear or self-interest? Who has looked down on others to feel better about myself? Who has sold out what I knew was right for what was convenient?

What if I’m one of the deplorables at the table?

If we identify with the Pharisees, then we are … good. Jesus says he came for the sick, not the healthy, so we don’t need Jesus after all.

But… if we see ourselves as Levi instead of as Jesus, then everything changes. Grace stops being something you give and becomes something you desperately need.

You stop leading with, “How can I be more welcoming to sinners?” and start asking, “Why would Jesus want someone like me?”

You stop standing outside the party, judging who belongs. Instead, you come inside, sit down at the Deplorables Table, and admit, I’m one of them. I’m the sinner. I need help.

Jesus didn’t come to the party to do Levi a favor. He didn’t show up to be nice to the marginalized or to set a good example for the Pharisees. He came because Levi—the traitor, the sellout, the sinner—was exactly the kind of person Jesus was looking for.

So what happened to Levi? We don’t hear much about him after this moment, but the man who wrote the lead gospel in the final canonized New Testament is the same Levi, now called Matthew. The man who collaborated with Rome became the man who wrote to the Jewish people, proclaiming Jesus as their long-awaited Messiah.

It’s a remarkable 180-degree turn.

The traitor became the envoy.
The outcast became the spokesman.
Levi the tax collector became Matthew the proclaimer.

The irony is sublime: the one whose reputation was most in the gutter became the number one Jesus ambassador to the Jewish people.

But the transformation didn’t start with Jesus fixing Levi’s reputation. It didn’t start with Levi cleaning up his act or proving he’d changed. It started with Levi admitting who he was—a sinner who needed grace.

That confrontation with his own brokenness, his own pride, his own sin? That was the doorway to a completely new life.

The first and most difficult step of discipleship isn’t giving up your status, your comfort, or your money—though that may come later. The first step is giving up the pride that says, “I’m good.”

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The danger of this story isn’t that we will judge sinners. It’s that we’ll assume we’re not one of them. We position ourselves as the good people being nice to the broken people, when the truth is: we are the broken ones. We’re Levi, a collaborator who has chosen comfort over courage, who hurt others out of self-interest.

Transformation begins when we stop standing outside with the Pharisees and sit down at the table with the sinners. When we freely say, “I’m not fine. I’m not the hero of this story. I’m one of the sick people Jesus came for.” When we are finally ready to receive God’s grace.

Pray

Lord, strip away the pride that makes me think I’m one of the good ones. Help me see myself at Levi’s table—not as the gracious host, but as one of the sinners you came to save. Give me the courage to admit my own brokenness, my own failures, my own need for grace. Amen.