Jesus certainly chose some very strange people to be his followers. Levi was a tax collector, one of a much despised group of people. They were regarded as both traitors to their own people in collecting taxes for Rome, the hated colonial power. They and their families were social outcasts. No self-respecting and observant Jew would have anything to do with such people. Yet, here is Jesus offering one such person an invitation, "Follow me." We need to know that Jesus never goes by stereotypes. Nor does he judge people by their past behaviour. He is only interested in what they can be now and in the future. There and then, Levi drops everything and goes after Jesus. That is what following Jesus means. Later, when Jesus is dining, several known sinners and tax collectors are at table together with Jesus and his disciples. This is was a real source of scandal for the scribes and Pharisees. If Jesus really was a Rabbi he would have had nothing to do with such people. To sit down and eat with such "unclean" people was to be contaminated oneself. Jesus replies: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. I did not come to call the virtuous but sinners." Perhaps each one of us should look more closely at this passage. So much of our Church work involves "servicing" the already converted or the semi-converted. We are often not at all present where people are most in need of hearing the Gospel message.