June 9, 2002 -- THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST -- Proper 5
Matthew 9:9-13, Color: Green
The Call of Matthew
9 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.
10 And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. 11When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" 12But when he heard this, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13Go and learn what this means, ’I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners."
Title: “Jesus came to meet people where they were.”
A tax collector, named Matthew accepts Jesus’ invitation to become his disciple and at a dinner celebrating his acceptance Jesus makes an important statement about the difference between a Pharisee and a disciple.
Matthew inserts a story about his own call to be a disciple of Jesus and what happened at a dinner he gave for Jesus and his other disciples. When certain Pharisees got wind of the dinner, they criticized Jesus for hanging out with sinners and tax collectors, that is, disreputable people. Jesus’ answer, which he drew from Hosea 6: 6, from the first reading for today, makes it clear that by “discipleship” Jesus means something radically different from what the typical Pharisee would consider acceptable. Jesus, indeed, came to call sinners, that is, those in need of salvation, not the “reputable,” that is, those who, erroneously, think they can save themselves by being reputable.
All three Synoptic gospels have a story about the call of the tax collector. Mark and Luke call him “Levi;” only Matthew identifies him as “Matthew,” traditionally considered the author of this gospel. All three place this story after the healing of the paralytic, so we can presume that it is the same story, only with a different name for the main character. It was not uncommon for men to have two names in those days. Often, a man would have a Semitic name, like Simon, and a Greek name, like Peter. “Matthew” is Greek and “Levi” is Semitic.
In verse nine, “saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth.” Jesus went on his way after healing the paralytic and happened upon Matthew while he was at work, in his tollbooth, collecting taxes. As with fishermen, Jesus calls his disciples while they are at work, living their routine lives. The taxes in question would be customs duties on goods passing through on the great road from Syria to Egypt or possibly at a tool booth near the lake on goods coming across the lake. Tax collectors were typically among the most hated of people, especially in Palestine. In the Roman system and Rome occupied Palestine at this time, the office of tax collection was awarded to the highest bidder. The winner of this right would employ others to do the actual work of collecting taxes. Thus, Matthew might well have been a middle level employee, rather than a rich man in his own right. However, he and any tax collector could become rich through extortion. It was permissible to charge a certain amount over and above the tax required in order to receive compensation. That’s how the tax collector got paid. Of course, a cut of that would go to the chief tax collector in the area. A vicious circle developed. The more the tax collectors collected, the more they were hated, and the more they were hated the more they collected. Being Jews working for the occupying government made them traitors and being Jews coming into contact with Gentiles, merchants from around the world, and other sinners, made them religiously and ceremonially, unclean. Thus, tax collectors had three strikes against them even before they came to bat.
He said to him, “Follow me.” There is no mention of a previous conversation and no hint that Jesus and Matthew had met before. However, the form of the command is in the present tense, which means to continue to follow, to keep on following. The emphasis here is not on the conditions that led Matthew to accept, but on his unconditional acceptance. Matthew left a whole way of life in order to follow Jesus. He may well have been wealthy, but perhaps only on his way to wealth. Nonetheless, he left it all and followed Jesus. Fishermen might and did, return to their former occupation, but not tax collectors. Rome would not hire him again, should he have changed his mind and tried to return. This was a irrevocable commitment, one made without knowing the “benefit package.”
In verse ten, “And as he sat at dinner in the house,” “He” refers to Jesus and “his” refers to Matthew. The new disciple’s resignation and renunciation was not a grim affair. Indeed, he threw a party! Luke calls it “a great feast.”
Many tax collectors and sinners came: This note sets up the scenario for Jesus’ pronouncement regarding whom he came for. One would not expect the guest list for a party held to honor a religious teacher to be replete with sinners and tax collectors but that is just what happened. These were social outcasts.
In verse eleven, “When the Pharisees saw this,” the Pharisees would not have been at the dinner, but like many “reputable,” and “respectable,” people, they were nosy. They liked to observe everyone else living their lives, perhaps out of jealousy that their own lives were so dull, thanks to their religion. However, houses were much more open then and there and they could have come very close without notice or even come in like the woman who came into Simon the leper’s house and anointed Jesus, Matthew 26: 26-27. Their entering the house is highly unlikely, however, given their fear of becoming “unclean,” themselves by virtue of close association with the unclean. Matthew is probably telling us what happened afterwards, when they heard about it through the gossip mill.
And said to his disciples: They were too cowardly to face Jesus, so they complained to his disciples. They do not so much ask a question seeking information as they lodge a criticism seeking accusation. Some rabbis, but certainly not all, would lower themselves to teach sinners, but they would never share a meal with them. That was too close. That would be like accepting them, if not approving of their behavior. How could Jesus be a religious person, let alone teacher, and associate with such riffraff?
In verse twelve, “Those who are well do not need a physician,” their question was not addressed to Jesus, but he overheard it and answered directly, rather than through a spokesperson, like many an important modern day Pharisee might. The illustration, comparing sinners to sick people and himself to a physician, is easy to understand and apply to the question. The Pharisees would have considered themselves among the “well,” and the tax collectors and sinners among the “sick.” Jesus left that to them, but he was saying he came to meet people where they were and help them to get to where they should be. He did not come to frown on, to condemn, to isolate or to shame those in need of salvation. Nor did he come to side with the gloaters, the smug, the arrogant.
In verse thirteen, “Go and learn the meaning of the words,” “Go and learn” does not mean to go off, but is a phrase to signify genuine effort to understand.
“I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Jesus quotes Hosea 6: 6. “Mercy” translates the almost untranslatable word in Hebrew, hesed, that stands for loyalty, love, steadfastness, kindness, mercy, indeed, all the qualities of God that God wants humans to live in their own lives as a result of a mutual agreement they freely enter into. It means, first of all, that they are to love God who loves them. It means, therefore, that the Pharisees should be showing hesed toward these outcasts rather than condescending arrogance and condemnation. The Pharisees applied the rules of ritual cultic purity for priests to all people and this is probably what “sacrifice,” refers to here, a code word for the whole system of religious and ritual practice.
“I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.” “I did not come” points to Jesus existence before he “came” to this world and it sums up his mission, his point and purpose in coming. He did not come to congratulate the self-satisfied, the morally complacent, those who mouth pious platitudes, but are bereft of pious attitudes. Such people considered sinners, that is,. those not like them, to be without hope and outside the scope of the mercy of God. They certainly were outside their scope. And they considered themselves “righteous,” erroneously of course. They got the point. Jesus was really condemning them, those who would condemn others. The truth was that they were condemning themselves. Jesus never said that the people he was concerned with and about were anything other than sinners. Indeed, that was the point. He came to save sinners, sinners who genuinely repented of their past and present.
Sermon
Jesus lived and taught that religion is a matter of relationship, relationship with God first and foremost, a relationship that has ramifications for every other relationship we have, be it with people or things or events. This relationships affects, determines really, the way we interpret every experience we have, be it of suffering or joy, of defeat or victory, of disease or health, of work or play. Because he himself was so clear about this relationship, he was preeminently, singularly qualified, to bring others into it and to elucidate, by word and example, how to live a human life in its light.
Therein lies Jesus’ problem with the Pharisees. Now, in the New Testament, Pharisees, though they are real people, real individuals, are treated more as a mentality, as a mindset, as “the typical religious attitude.” Jesus, when he speaks against Pharisees, is not condemning individuals as such, but their underlying and pervasive attitude, the thing that is common to and at the base of all their other attitudes and actions. That said, Jesus, being a person of his culture and times, would not speak in philosophical terms, but in down-to-earth terms. Thus, his speech must be interpreted in that light. Jesus condemned no one outright, certainly not because they belonged to any group, even the Pharisee group. Allowing for individual differences and exceptions, Jesus did recognize that there was a common thread running throughout the Pharisaical mentality and that common thread did affect, infect, really, the way such people interpreted reality and what they considered holy or acceptable behavior.
In the New Testament, the Pharisees as a group represent “the typical religious mindset.” Original sin, which we today would call “addiction,” infects everything, including our relationship with God. We can become addicted to ostensibly good things, like laws, rituals, rules, and regulations, even doctrines. They can replace our relationship of total, yet loving, and dependence on an ever-reliable God with clinging-at-all-costs to a dependency upon the means through which we relate to God. At first subtle, this addiction grows and takes over our lives. Alcohol, drugs, food, sex are good in and of themselves, but when they are used compulsively, indeed destructively, against our own long-term self-interest they turn into the fodder of addiction. Pharisees in the New Testament, represent what we today would call “religion addicts” or people of “toxic faith.” They are so driven by their fixation on the external and formal aspects of religion, like doctrine, ritual, commandments and human traditions, often distortions of divinely inspired tradition, that they cut themselves off from the living, growing, delightful relationship with God who wants us to obey him, yes, but also enjoy him. Even today we call such people “religious” or “very religious.” When what we really mean is “religious addict.” These folks gave Jesus the most grief. Just because the externals of their addiction involved religion, externals like rituals, customs, private pious practices, public fasting, wearing of certain garb and religious symbols, etc., does not mean they had a living relationship with God. Like an alcoholic who has a relationship with alcohol or a food addict with food, a sex addict with sex, a religious addict has a relationship with the externals of religion, but not with God himself. As such, they become quite judgmental of others who are not as addicted as they to the rigid performance of their religious duties, as the addict sees them, and they become quite arrogant and self-satisfied with their own religious performance. However, as Jesus pointed out, they lack the essence of religion, relationship, a relationship with a loving God that affects every other relationship. Because they really do not have a loving relationship with God, they pretend they doing by putting on airs of religion.
While this addiction, like its other forms, is not limited to any one segment of the population, all diseases are ecumenical, we will find a disproportionate share among the clergy of any religion, Lutherans being no exception. Clergy who are religious addicts will take the focus off relationship and put it on rituals, rules, regulations, making non-essentials more important than essentials. They do great disservice to themselves and those they are supposed to serve. Frequently, like other addicts, they are afflicted with other forms of addiction, such as alcohol or sex. They try to “be good,” on their own power and end up being worse. Like all the other addictions, everyone around them suffers the consequences in some measure. The arrogance and hypocrisy that accompanies religious addiction is only the external manifestation of a profound sickness within, sickness Jesus came to cure.
Jesus came to say that Salvation is offered to everyone, regardless of state or station in life. The only requirement for membership in the church is the unworthiness of the candidate. Thinking we are better than others cuts us off from God as well as from other humans. Giving up material wealth will not make us unhappy; giving it more value than it has will.
Discipleship: We know one of Jesus’ top twelve disciples was a tax collector; another betrayed him. They all cut and ran when he was arrested. James and John tried to manipulate Jesus into making them number two and three in his kingdom. When the other ten found out about it, they were furious, furious because each of them coveted those spots. Peter, when questioned, denied even knowing Jesus. For the most part, we know very little about the rest of the Twelve. The New Testament does not dwell upon their exploits and even has some trouble getting all their names right. Even the Acts of the Apostles really only highlight Peter and John. The original twelve disciples, the apostles, were not a remarkable group, nor were the individuals that composed the group. Yet, Jesus created the group anyway. Knowing their limitations, he entrusted them with very important work. He knew it would be by his power and not by their qualities or endowments that his work would be done. Indeed, he used their weakness in faith to strengthen them in his love. That is what made them effective and that is what made all the rest of Jesus’ disciples effective, then and now. There is no doubt that Jesus’ set up an apostolic office, but that does not mean that he limited ministry to that office. The apostolic office regulates and moderates ministry in the church, but that does not mean that the officers are the only ministers in the church. We are all disciples of Christ because salvation is open to all who accept Christ. By that very fact, we are also all ministers of Christ, missionaries, the Latin equivalent of the Greek “apostles”. Jesus clearly did not establish the apostolic office in order to create two classes or tiers of disciples. When that happens, then the Pharisaical mentality is given the conditions it needs to run roughshod over God’s people and Christ’s Church. From time to time in the history of the Church this disease needs to be cured, sometimes even surgically removed.
Arrogance: Arrogance is a condition, a state of mind and heart, wherein a person erroneously believes that he or she accomplishes anything on his or her own power, without outside help, especially without God’s help. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day, and of our own, believed that they “achieved,” the state of holiness by virtue of their own personally acquired virtue. They saw no gift involved at all. They also believed that it was their responsibility to protect their religion from heresy, such heresies as Jesus was teaching, because the rest of their people were too dumb to recognize what is false or wrong. Because they achieved sanctity on their own, they felt they needed to either guide, they really mean shame, or force others into the right way of thinking or acting. Jesus wanted to guide also, but to guide people into a right relationship with God, rather than a merely externally and formally correct one. Jesus was about rightness and righteousness. The Pharisees were about “correct” and correctness. That difference produced in them rigidity about religion that was totally absent in Jesus. Jesus did not teach that anything goes. What he taught was in line with the prophets of old, namely, that without relationship religion is merely rigidity, rules, regulations and empty rituals. Despite being divine, there was not a trace of arrogance in Jesus. He gave his Father credit for everything he did. When a disciple of Jesus exhibits arrogance, be he or she clerical or lay, be he or she an official or a neophyte, such a disciple misrepresents the character and name of Jesus and is more a Pharisee than a disciple and we all know what Jesus thought of Pharisees. Jesus taught a standard of morality that was even “higher” than that of the Pharisees. The difference between them was that Jesus also lived that standard. The Pharisees only lived theirs in public. Amen.
