God, Self & Other – Luke 13: Dinner with a Tax Collector (Jesus Calls the Apostle Levi [Matthew])

Jesus scandalizes his religious contemporaries by accepting an invitation to dine with Levi, a known tax collector (one who purchased the right to ” collect” – read “overcharge” – the taxes of their fellow Jews). The occasion reveals a fundamental clash of values, in which Jesus declares that God has come to rescue the “righteous” […]