The Toughest Thing About Preaching

Just got in from a really useful session with someone on this week's passage.

It's Mark 2:13-22. Jesus calls Levi (Matthew). Matthew trows a party. The Pharisees get all het up (typical) and Jesus tells them that he's not come for righteous but for sinners. Then it gets noticed that Jesus' disciples do not fast. Why not? Well because with Jesus there is is one big party so why fast? Jesus is bringing in something so new and radical it cannot in anyway be compatible with the old ways.

What is often hard about sermon prep is the move from understanding that passage, what is going on, the flow of the narrative etc to living the passage to letting in speak to you and challenge you.

Basically the move from teaching to preaching. From information to transformation.

That's where I've found this passage hard. it's one I know (or thing I know) very well. Yeah yeah, Jesus calls Levi, there is a party and then the Pharisees kick off, got that one.

But what does it say to me? Where does it make me scratch?

Here's something to run by you.

Jesus engages with the Pharisees, he says I have come to call sinners, basically those who know they are in the S*&^ and need a rescue, I've not come for those who are righteous, or basically those who think they are all right. At least I'm not like them etc.

Where am I in this? Am I someone who recognises the need for a saviour, recognises that I am a sinner and need rescue, or if I'm honest deep down do I thik that I'm OK, I'm alright.

Do I look down on and despise others? Or do I see that (as the old cliche goes) at the foot off the cross the ground is indeed level.

Love your thoughts? Questions etc. Here is the passage...

13Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.
15While 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. 16When 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'?"

17On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

18Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, "How is it that John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?"
19Jesus answered, "How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. 20But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.

21"No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. 22And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins."