Celebration Day

How wonderful is your life right now?

Is there anything you regret?  Anything you wish you had done differently?

Imagine you could just start again, make a change and know that everything would work out for the better.  Would you do it?  Would you throw a big party and celebrate?

Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house; and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others sitting at the table with them. The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, 'Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?' Jesus answered, '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. - Luke 5:29-32

Sometimes I think we focus on the wrong things when we think of a change in our lives.  We look at what was and not at what can be, counting the failures rather than celebrating the possibilities.

Levi got it right.  He threw a party and invited all his friends.

Chances are the Pharisees would not have gone.  They wouldn't have been caught dead in the house of a tax collector.

Now just to be clear, we are not talking about the IRS here, although some may have an equally low opinion of government taxes and those who collect them today.  A tax collector had power over people.  He could set the rate and the amount, having already paid the government what was owed.

He was a loan shark of sorts who took advantage of those who couldn't pay, keeping them in fear of being sent to prison or worse.

So, this gathering of first century mobsters would have attracted attention, especially since it seems Levi made no attempt to conceal it from the eyes and ears of those in authority.

But consider this.  The banquet was a way to recruit more tax collectors into the Way, as followers of Christ.  It was like a Tupperware party or a Mary Kay home shopping event, where the offering was a way out of the life they had, as lucrative as it may have seemed to others.

And apparently it worked.  Jesus acknowledged that the purpose of his visit was to change their paths, to heal them of their misguided thinking and to offer them a new and more fulfilling purpose in life.

Levi was so excited by the possibilities of this new life, he wanted to share it with others.

We have no idea how miserable a life he might have had, being hated by everyone and treated like a common criminal, but we can imagine that was not a good life.

So, the lesson here may be to focus on the next phase in our lives, not on what we have done in the past or are doing now, and begin anew.

Let us celebrate today and have a party, for the day is young and there is much to do.

More to come...

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