What Does It Mean to Follow Jesus When You're Still a Mess
From the sermon preached on June 7, 2026
What does it mean to follow Jesus when you are still in the middle of the thing that marks you as an outsider? It means exactly what happened to a first-century tax collector named Levi: Jesus walks by, says two words, and the invitation arrives before you are ready. Following Jesus with a broken past does not begin after the cleanup; it begins right here, in the middle of whatever you are still carrying.
Is Jesus Calling Broken People Before They Have It Together?
The story of Jesus calling Levi, recorded in Mark 2:13-17, opens beside the Sea of Galilee in a moment so ordinary that it almost slips past you. Jesus is teaching a crowd. He passes a tax booth. He looks at a man named Levi the son of Alphaeus and says, "Follow me." And Levi gets up immediately.
No probationary period. No list of conditions. No "come back when you've made restitution."
To understand why this is so striking, you need to understand what a tax collector was in first-century Judea. Judea was under Roman occupation, and Rome funded itself by contracting local men to collect taxes from their own neighbors. When you were awarded that contract, Rome told you the amount you owed them. Everything above that amount, you kept. Every person who paid Levi knew the game. They knew he was skimming. And because he was doing it on behalf of Rome, the occupying enemy, the bitterness ran deep. The consequence was total exclusion: Levi could not testify in court, could not participate in synagogue life, and had forfeited every shred of standing in the community. He was, in the clearest possible terms, on the wrong side of the list.
That is the booth Jesus stops in front of. Jesus calls broken people not from the cleaned-up version of themselves that they have not arrived at yet. He calls them from exactly where they are, doing exactly what they are doing. That invitation did not wait for Levi to become presentable. It found him in the middle of the specific work that marked him as an outsider. If you have ever felt like your history disqualifies you before you even get started, Levi's story is worth sitting with. The moment someone saw him in his mess and said "come on" is the same moment that changed everything. Following Jesus with a past does not require that the past disappear first.
What Did It Mean When Jesus and the Sinners Shared a Table?
After Levi follows Jesus, he does something remarkable: he throws a party. And the guest list tells you everything. Levi did not hang out with the bakers or the goat herders or the fabric makers because nobody liked him. The only people he could invite were the people Mark calls sinners: tax collectors like himself, but also anyone else excluded from the synagogue due to occupation or history. The bleeding woman. The leper. The criminal. Every person at that dinner had a version of Levi's story. Marked. Excluded. Known for the wrong reasons. And Jesus is there, reclining at the table, eating with them.
That word "reclining" is doing more work than it might seem. He was not making a pastoral visit. He was not dropping in to check on the broken people. He was relaxed. He was home. He was present with them and for them. And in first-century Jewish culture, who you ate with was not a casual social decision. It was a declaration: I belong to these people. I endorse these people. I am willing to be publicly identified with these people. The Pharisees who showed up to ask the disciples why Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners were not confused. They were scandalized. They understood exactly what that table meant.
Jesus and the sinners sitting together was not Jesus lowering his standards for a good cause. When the religious leaders pushed the question, his answer came without a single moment of defensiveness: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners." He was not explaining the dinner. He was explaining his entire mission. A physician who only treats healthy patients is not practicing medicine. Jesus and the sinners at that table were not an embarrassing footnote; they were the point. Following Jesus with a past means recognizing that the table was built for you.
Do you feel like that table could have a place for you? Find it here in the sermon archive.
How Does Following Jesus with a Past Become an Asset, Not a Liability?
Here is what Levi did not do after he stood up from the booth. He did not clean up his guest list. He did not distance himself from the people he had run with, build a new life with better associations, and quietly bury the part of his story that was uncomfortable. He brought his whole world to Jesus. The people who knew him from the booth, the network that had marked him as an outsider, became the very thing that gave him a room full of people that Jesus wanted to reach. The thing that marked him as an outsider became the dinner party.
There is something pointed in this for the person who has been treating their past like a problem to escape. Maybe you have been thinking: I need to leave that behind. I need to put distance between who I was and who I am becoming. And maybe some of that is true; not every relationship from your old life is safe to walk back into. But Levi's network was not a liability. It was a dinner party waiting to happen. The years you spent in that world, the language you speak, the people you know, the experiences you had: those give you credibility that no one else has. You were there. That might be exactly what someone in that world needs from you, so they can be invited to the dinner to meet Jesus.
Following Jesus with a past does not erase the past. It repurposes it. Jesus did not call Levi out of his world. He walked into his world with him. That is the table being built here, not a cleanup venue where broken people are welcome if they come and act right, but a dinner party with all the wrong people, exactly like Levi's. When Jesus says "follow me," he is not asking you to leave everyone you know behind. He is inviting you to bring the whole dinner.
A small, honest step to take today: think of one person from your old world who has never heard that what they do does not mark their worthiness. You do not have to have a theological answer ready. You just have to tell them what happened at your booth.
What Does Mark 2 Say About Who Jesus Actually Came For?
Mark 2:13-17 is deceptively compact. Five verses. But buried inside verse 17 is one of the clearest statements of mission in the entire first half of Mark's gospel, and it carries more weight than a quick reading lets on.
The physician line is a proverb that everyone in the first century already accepted. Nobody needs to be convinced that sick people need a doctor. But when Jesus uses it here, the physician image is doing something subtle about his identity. In Exodus 15, healing belongs to God: "I am the Lord, your healer." Jesus is not just explaining why he is sitting at the wrong table. He is identifying himself as the one who holds the title.
The phrase "I came" is mission language. It is one of only a handful of times in the gospels where Jesus states his purpose outright, not just his action. And the verb "to call" connects directly back to the two words he said to Levi three verses earlier: follow me. Levi is not an illustration of the principle. Levi is the principle, enacted in real time. And in an honor-based culture, to call someone to your table was to confer status. Jesus was giving back the exact honor the religious system had stripped from these people.
The irony about the Pharisees is sharp. By classifying themselves as righteous, they had with their own logic defined themselves out of the physician's care. Romans 3 says none of us are righteous, not one. Jesus was not affirming the Pharisees' actual holiness; he was using their self-assessment against them. Self-diagnosed health is the one condition the great physician cannot treat, not for lack of power, but because the patient will never walk into the office. The tax collectors could be helped because they had no illusions. They knew exactly who they were and exactly what they had done. Knowing you need help is not a sign that you are behind. It is a sign that you are exactly who Jesus came for.
1. The Call That Finds You in the Booth
What it means: Jesus does not wait for you to become presentable. He calls broken people from the middle of the specific work that marks them as outsiders.
Why it matters: The invitation arrives before you are ready, which means readiness is never the prerequisite.
2. The Table That Declares Your Worth
What it means: In first-century culture, eating with someone was a public declaration of belonging. When Jesus reclined at Levi's table, he was conferring honor on the people the religious system had dishonored.
Why it matters: The table is not an outreach strategy. It is a theological statement about who belongs.
3. The Past That Becomes the Dinner Party
What it means: Levi's network of excluded people was not a liability to leave behind. It was the precise asset that gave Jesus access to a room full of people he wanted to reach.
Why it matters: Following Jesus with a past does not require erasing it. It means letting it be repurposed.
Where This Story Lands in Huntsville and the Surrounding Region
There is something about this passage that speaks directly to the way a lot of people in Walker County and the surrounding region carry their histories. Whether you grew up in Huntsville or made your way here from Montgomery County, whether you are a student at Sam Houston State University still figuring out who you are, or someone further down the road who has been quietly trying to outrun a chapter you are not proud of, the weight of a marked past is not a foreign concept here. People in this region know what it is to carry something that puts you on the wrong side of someone else's list. If that resonates, there is a Sunday evening gathering two blocks from Sam Houston State University where the meal is real, the table is set for people with complicated histories, and nobody is asking you to have it together before you walk in.
The Invitation Is Already Out
The call that went to Levi in Mark 2 was not made to a man who had cleaned himself up. It was made to a man sitting in the middle of the thing that marked him as an outsider. That is the nature of the invitation: it arrives before you are ready, it does not require a presentable version of yourself, and it does not ask you to leave your world behind before you follow. Jesus walked into Levi's world. That is still what he does.
Come see what a Sunday evening looks like; there is a table set and the door is open. Join us here to find out what a gathering at At The Well is really like.
When you are ready to do more than just show up, get involved here and find ways to bring your whole story into what is being built.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Can God use my sinful past?
A: Yes, and the story of Levi in Mark 2 makes this concrete. Levi's history as a tax collector, which had marked him as an outcast and stripped him of every social standing, became the exact asset that gave Jesus access to a room full of people he wanted to reach. Your past does not disqualify you from following Jesus; it may be the very thing that gives you credibility with someone who needs to hear your story.
Q: Why did Jesus eat with sinners?
A: Jesus answered this directly in Mark 2:17: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners." He was not lowering his standards or tolerating uncomfortable company. He was describing his mission. In first-century culture, sharing a table was a public declaration of belonging, and Jesus was conferring honor on precisely the people the religious system had stripped of it.
Q: How does Jesus call broken people?
A: He calls them from exactly where they are, not from the cleaned-up version of themselves they have not arrived at yet. When Jesus called Levi in Mark 2, there was no cleanup period, no conditions, and no waiting period. The invitation found Levi in the middle of the specific work that marked him as an outsider. That pattern holds: the call comes before you are ready, not after.
Q: Do I have to have my life together before I can follow Jesus?
A: The story of Levi answers this directly: no. Jesus said "follow me" to a man sitting in a tax booth, one of the most publicly excluded people in his community, without asking him to make restitution first. Levi got up immediately and followed. The prerequisite is not a clean record; it is simply recognizing that you need a physician.
Q: What if the people from my past feel like liabilities I need to leave behind?
A: Levi did not abandon his network after he followed Jesus; he threw a dinner party and invited them all. The relationships and experiences from your old life give you credibility with people who are still in it, because you were there with them. Boundaries matter, and not every old relationship is safe to maintain, but your story among broken people is not baggage. It may be the dinner party waiting to happen.
