Matthew 9:9-13
As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax-collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?” But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”
This is the scene that gives this Gospel its name. We actually have no idea whether Matthew the tax collector – or any other Matthew for that matter – wrote this account, but because this is the only Gospel that goes beyond naming Matthew (see Mk. 3:18, Lk. 6:15), early church leaders wondered if this was Matthew’s way of identifying himself for careful readers. We don’t know.
We do know, however, that this is the scene that clearly identifies the heart of Jesus’ mission. He has come to seek out the lost. He has come to extend God’s love to those who are considered by their peers – and likely by themselves – to be unlovable. He has come to heal the broken-hearted, to restore the outcast, and gather together all those who have been scattered and shattered by the trials and tribulations of this life.
And for this reason, it is also the scene that points out what gets Jesus into so much trouble. We saw in the last episode – when Jesus made bold to forgive and heal a paralytic who had been brought to him – that the religious authorities are offended by Jesus’ audacity to forgive sin. And now matters only get worse, as he doesn’t simply perform some religious rite of absolution but actually treats all the people he meets – including those the good, synagogue-going folk like the Pharisees would consider immoral – with profound respect. He treats them, that is, as if they weren’t the awful sinners the Pharisees know them to be but instead as precious children of God.
For “tax-collector” didn’t designate anything like the good folks who work for the Internal Revenue Service today but rather named those Jews who worked for the Romans to exact a tax from their neighbors, a tax that simultaneously made the tax-collectors wealthy and supported the Roman occupation. Similarly, “sinners” doesn’t merely describe those who have fallen short of God’s ideal but rather is reserved for the worst of the worst: thieves, bandits, prostitutes, and more.
All of which means that Jesus is deliberately seeking out those who normally are considered beyond the pale of decent society in order to treat them with the respect and dignity they deserve as God’s beloved children. And so he eats with them, accepting their hospitality and honoring them with his presence, and in this way names and identifies them as worthy of God’s love, attention, and forgiveness.
And it drives the religious authorities – the folks, that is, who if they were in our churches today would be teaching Sunday school and serving on the church council or board of elders – bananas. But Jesus won’t be deterred. He isn’t particularly concerned about either the spiritual or material welfare of the Pharisees because, quite frankly, they are doing just fine. He has come to seek out the lost in order to demonstrate God’s intention to find and redeem and love all of God’s children, even those in the most dire of straights.
Can you imagine if we did likewise?
Prayer: Dear God, create in us a love for those of your children that have strayed farthest from your fold so that we may treat them with dignity and respect and demonstrate to them and all the world your great love for all of us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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