20.06 | Crisis Moment
Luke 5:27-6:11
‘After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” And leaving everything, he rose and followed him.’
Matthew 5:27-28
Sometimes our most significant moments in life arrive without warning.
The crisis we suddenly find ourselves in the middle of. The conversation that suddenly got intense. The need to react quickly to a new situation at work. The reason you’re in the emergency waiting room. We hear stories of those who found themselves thrown into a crisis, and emerge as heroes or cowards, making snap judgements of extraordinary wisdom and courage or of fear and folly.
How do we react in such moments?
How do we behave when we’ve had zero preparation?
The story of Levi’s call fascinates me. It’s fascinating, for sure, that Jesus picks him out—this (likely corrupt) sellout to the Romans, amassing a significant personal fortune from the oppression of his people. Jesus looks at him, and doesn’t see a sellout; he sees a son of the Father. Matthew’s journey will take him into discipleship, apostleship, Gospel authorship, and a future life as a missionary and martyr in Ethiopia. It’s fascinating that Jesus chooses Levi.
But I’m also fascinated by Levi. Because we meet him today in an unexpected crisis moment.
Follow me.
Leave your career. Leave your comfortable salary. Leave your long-term security. Leave your boss and colleagues, your social identity and your usual routines. You, Levi, a sellout to the Jews, come and follow me, and sell out on the Romans too.
Follow me.
It’s a crisis moment.
And yet, the remarkable thing is this.
Levi just gets up and goes.
Just two words from Jesus. But Levi was ready.
I’m going to do some speculating here. But I wonder if our actions in a crisis are actually less spontaneous than we think. I wonder that they are actually so often more a product of years and decades of thought and training, of habit formation and value shaping, of ideals critiqued and ideals established. I wonder if Levi had preceded this moment—of Jesus’ two words to him—with months, or maybe years, of a felt dissonance between what he was doing and what he was actually made for. Of a murmuring discontent, a musing of questions. Of a feeling that his current role was in some way a compromise—a dull imitation of a life he was truly called to lead.
He’d have known interruptions to this already, but nothing so far had given motive for change. No critical word from the Pharisees or scathing look from his parents; no whispering glances from his countrymen or mocking children in the street. No internal or external thing had been adequate. Religion was not enough to change him. Critique was not enough to move him. Slander and vilification and exclusion and mocking. None of them were enough to touch his heart.
But then, Jesus walked by. And all the dissonance between his career and his soul finally found expression in a vision of being that met the longings of his heart.
Follow me.
I’m speculating, for sure.
But I also resonate. Because I think we see this in our own stories. We know seasons of dissonance and discomfort—feeling ill at home in our current place, but without knowing what exactly we could move onto. We just know that something in us is shifting, and the winds of our soul are changing direction. We look around and see options, and yet none of them seem to fit the emerging appetites of the soul.
It’s uncomfortable, this dissonance. It can feel isolating. It can feel like you’re not at home anywhere—with Pharisees or tax collectors, Jewish critics or Roman authorities.
And yet the dissonance may be preparing something. In the grappling and questioning, in the disconcerting disorientation of it, a vision of something wider and freer and more expansive may be being birthed. Bring it before the Lord. It may just be the place where the Spirit of God is preparing your heart for a coming call. Because you have a rabbi who may just need you ready for a crisis moment, where the appetites of your soul have been sharpened and ready for Him to walk around the corner, look you in the eye, and offer you a crisis moment in just two words:
Follow me.
Reflect:
Where do I feel dissonance in my current place, role, and tasks?
What yearnings are developing in this moment? Name them, surrender them, ask that He purify them, and pray them.
Pray:
Lord Jesus,
Dissonance is difficult.
It is hard to feel ill at home in this place;
It is hard to feel like an outsider among insiders;
It is hard to trust for a coming call,
When all I have is this murmuring soul,
And the waiting.
But Lord,
In these days and this season,
I offer you the inner workings of my soul:
Would you sharpen my longings,
And purify my desires,
And humble this heart,
That you work in me a preparation
For your unfolding work,
And your coming plans.
Would you steady and ready this soul,
That when your call intersects my moment,
I will know my Master’s voice,
Be ready,
And follow.
Lord Jesus, in Your Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Isaiah 6:1-8:10 | Psalm 77:16-20