A Daily Lent

Saturday after Ash Wednesday Daily Reading : Luke 5:27 – 32 Focus Passage : After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. "Follow me," Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. (Lk. 5:27 – 28) Jesus was invitational. He did not influence by coercion. He didn’t force followers. Rather, he extended invitations. He invited persons to follow him, to take on his way of seeing the world and his way of living in the world. He invited those he met to full personhood, becoming completely who God created them to be, even as he embodied what it meant to be fully human and fully God. The human response to his invitation varies person-by-person. This tax collector, on the underside of social acceptability, got up, left everything, and followed Jesus. For all of us, there is some kind of “leaving” involved as we follow Jesus. There is a movement from one way of being to a new stance of being with G...

Luke 5:27 – 32 After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. "Follow me," Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" Jesus answered them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Jesus is invitational. He doesn’t traffic in coercion. He doesn’t force followers. Rather, he extends invitations. He invites persons to follow him, to take on his way of seeing the world and his way of living in the world. He invites persons to full personhood, becoming completely the person God created them to be even as ...