The Call of Levi, or Matthew

Again, we don’t know exactly when this was, but would assume it was at the end of winter—perhaps late January or early February. When Matthew was called, he was busily involved in the tax collection. That would have been at the end of the harvest season, which came around the first of the year. Most likely, Matthew would have lived in Capernaum, the major city of the area. With Levi, the band of disciples grew to five.

When Jesus attended a banquet given by Matthew, the pious were shocked! Their candidate for rabbinic fame was associating with the wrong kind of people. The first accusation from the Pharisees of Galilee was that Jesus and his quartet of students were “eating with sinners.” In the culture of the day, sharing a meal was the most affirming thing you could do for a person. The Pharisees went through an elaborate ceremonial washing of their hands before a meal which they saw as an act of righteousness. It was to imply that they did for each meal what the priests were required to do for a temple sacrifice. Thus, to them, each meal was a sacrifice. Therefore, they would share no meal with someone who was not equally “righteous.”