Enter: Matthew

Passage

Matthew 9:9–13 CSB

9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, “Follow me,” and he got up and followed him. 10 While he was reclining at the table in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came to eat with Jesus and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 Now when he heard this, he said, “It is not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

The Call of Matthew

There are only few “callings” mentioned in Matthew’s gospel.

Matthew 4:18-22 - Peter, Andrew, James and John were called

Matthew 8:22 - a “disciple” was given the call to “follow me” but we assume he did not, a scribe also said he would follow but we assume he did not either.

Now, in chapter 9 we have the calling of Matthew, the author of the gospel we are reading.

Jesus saw Matthew - while he was at work as a tax collector, and called him to follow. Matthew records the reactions of the Pharisees and John’s disciples, but there are two other groups that I think about here:

The Other Disciples

The 4 other men who were called in Matthew were fisherman. Tax collectors in a port town would tax these fisherman. There is without a doubt some hostility between the two. Imaging being Simon and seeing Jesus look at the man who has been taxing him - and inviting him along?!? Imagine going to that man’s house and eating a meal with him knowing that it was paid for by your labors?!

I bet that was tense.

The Other Tax Collectors

Apparently, there was a crew of tax collectors in that area, so though Matthew left his post, it was probably not abandoned.

For Matthew to leave that position was to leave opulence and never return. He obviously had a large house that he hosted a feast at which was most likely afforded by skimming extra money for himself, as that was one of the perks of being a tax collector.

Can you imagine the conversation at the tax office water cooler that day as this Jesus guy comes into town, looks at Matthew and says, “follow me”? And THEN he just does it!

“What is he doing?” “Doesn’t he know he can never have his job back if he walks away?”

We don’t get the details, but I am sure Matthew had the faces of these people in his mind as he penned this section of the gospel.

The Context

While a great story to ponder, we should also remember its context: 3 sets of miracles separated by three teachings on discipleship. This is the second one. This passage is another teaching on discipleship.

What is Jesus teaching about discipleship?

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus literally called out to people with a specific phrase, “follow me”. The Greek word ἀκολουθέω means to follow or obey. It is mare than just being a student, it is committing to a lifestyle of mentor-ship and doing what your “teacher” does and says.

Unlike the scribe who promised more than he could give and the disciple who promised less than was necessary in chapter 8, Matthew does not promise anything - he simply obeys and follows.

Through this story we see that the cost of discipleship is simply to follow and obey.

It has been since the garden and it continues to be the same today. [NOTE: hold onto that thought of the garden, it will show up again before we are done!] We start with a reminder that true disciples listen to and obey their master. As a Jew, that would be Yahweh as well as his “prophet” as they thought Jesus to be.

The Conflict with the Pharisees

I want to jump to the end of the passage to further expound on this lesson, and then we can see how Jesus applied it to this situation.

In this section of discipleship teaching, we have a conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees. The Pharisees questioned his associations. Jesus saw, called and reclined at the table -> with tax collectors and sinners. These would be not only the despised (tax collector) but the unclean (sinners). It is left up to our imagination as to who these sinners are or what theirs sins might have been.

Matthew 9:10–11 CSB

10 While he was reclining at the table in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came to eat with Jesus and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

The Pharisees saw what was going on and asked the disciples why Jesus “eats with tax collectors and sinners” (the second time that phrase is repeated). Why didn’t they ask Jesus?

Most likely because Jesus was in the home of the unclean, and their religious code would not permit them to do such a thing. Why would any Jewish teacher of the Law be with those people?

Jesus heard their complaining and says this:

Matthew 9:12–13 CSB

12 Now when he heard this, he said, “It is not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Go and Learn

The “teacher” says to the Pharisees, “go and learn”. “Go and learn” does not necessarily mean he was sending them away from himself. The pharisees referred to Jesus as “your teacher”, so he simply gave them an assignment, “go and learn”.

I think the command to “go and learn” is one that is significant for us as well! So, this morning I am hoping we will learn together what this means. It is a quote from the prophet Hosea:

Hosea 6:6 CSB

6 For I desire faithful love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

This type of message was presented by several prophets. The prophets are not abolishing the law and its commands on sacrifice, it is making the point that ritual apart from relationship is empty and meaningless.

The prophet Michah had some very similar words:

Micah 6:6–8 CSB

6 What should I bring before the Lord when I come to bow before God on high? Should I come before him with burnt offerings, with year-old calves? 7 Would the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or with ten thousand streams of oil? Should I give my firstborn for my transgression, the offspring of my body for my own sin? 8 Mankind, he has told each of you what is good and what it is the Lord requires of you: to act justly, to love faithfulness, and to walk humbly with your God.

The challenge with these passages is that they could lead one to be focused only on personal piety and not in relationship to other.

To be just in God’s eyes, to be faithful to God, to walk humbly with God - these statements seem to only involve our vertical relationship with God. However, these truths cannot truly be realized apart from our horizontal relationships with others: to treat others justly and be faithful to others.

THIS is the very problem that Jesus was addressing, and we can see it a little better when we zoom out from Hosea 6:6 and try to learn what that verse really means in its context.

Why this quote? Why this prophet?

Hosea was one of those prophets that was commanded by God to do certain things in order to demonstrate through his life actions what Israel was guilty of in their relationship with Yahweh. It seems very unorthodox:

Hosea 1:2 CSB

2 When the Lord first spoke to Hosea, he said this to him: Go and marry a woman of promiscuity, and have children of promiscuity, for the land is committing blatant acts of promiscuity by abandoning the Lord.

Hosea married a prostitute named Gomer and had children - who had the names “God sows”, “No Compassion” and “Not my People”. And then Hosea spoke a message to the people about how God was going to punish them for being promiscuous - by playing the harlot with other gods and being untrue to their covenant with Yahweh. All of that in the first 5 chapters.

Chapter 6 begins with a call to repentance. It is the turning point in the book.

Hosea 6:1–3 CSB

1 Come, let’s return to the Lord. For he has torn us, and he will heal us; he has wounded us, and he will bind up our wounds. 2 He will revive us after two days, and on the third day he will raise us up so we can live in his presence. 3 Let’s strive to know the Lord. His appearance is as sure as the dawn. He will come to us like the rain, like the spring showers that water the land.

I am sure you IMMEDIATELY see some of the connections with Jesus, right? The healer who binds up wounds - yes he has done that!

The reference to being raised up on the third day is not necessarily a reference to the work of the Messiah, but you can see that this concept was ingrained in the theology of the Law & Prophets.

So, after the message of condemnation and being cut off, nearly wiped out and punished, there was a call to return to God and experiencing refreshment and life.

THEN there is a series of “laments” or expressions of grief and sorrow. The first one is for Judah and includes the verse Jesus was referring to:

Hosea 6:4–10 CSB

4 What am I going to do with you, Ephraim? What am I going to do with you, Judah? Your love is like the morning mist and like the early dew that vanishes. 5 This is why I have used the prophets to cut them down; I have killed them with the words from my mouth. My judgment strikes like lightning. 6 For I desire faithful love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. 7 But they, like Adam, have violated the covenant; there they have betrayed me. 8 Gilead is a city of evildoers, tracked with bloody footprints. 9 Like raiders who wait in ambush for someone, a band of priests murders on the road to Shechem. They commit atrocities. 10 I have seen something horrible in the house of Israel: Ephraim’s promiscuity is there; Israel is defiled.

It is possible that Jesus referenced this passage because of the references to the betrayal.

Those that betray have blood on them, and ambush and murder - which is exactly what the religious leaders are going to do to Jesus. PERHAPS this was his way of warning the Pharisees and calling them to repentance? This would be similar to God confronting Cain in Genesis 4:7 “If you do what is right, won’t you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.””

It is possible that Jesus referenced this passage because of the references to being defiled.

While the Pharisees accused Jesus of being defiled and eating with the defiled, Jesus gave them a reference that said that THEY are defiled because they have taken on other gods. What other gods? Well, their own system of religion for one thing! They created a system “piety” that excluded people from fellowship with God.

It is possible that Jesus referenced this passage because of the references to fleeting love.

The Pharisees “appeared” to love God by living according to strict standards and overly zealous rules, however, they did not love others therefore did not love God! The Pharisees had no love for tax collectors and sinners.

1 John 4:8 CSB

8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

The mission of God’s people

While it is true that Israel was “set apart” [holy] for God, that was never meant to be exclusive or at the cost of others. They were holy so they could be a light to the nations - to point them to God.

Isaiah 42:6 CSB

6 “I am the Lord. I have called you for a righteous purpose, and I will hold you by your hand. I will watch over you, and I will appoint you to be a covenant for the people and a light to the nations,

However, the religious system built by the Jews become exclusive and did not allow others to participate. It not only excluded other nations (like we experienced in Ezra and the rebuilding of the temple) but it also excluded those that did not live up to the man-made religious expectations of the present religious order.

The Pharisees lost their love for God. They loved their rules and excessive religiosity more than Yahweh.

Honest Church Reflection.

I think it is always wise for the church (you and me) to use passages like this to reflect and make sure we have not also lost our first love and that we have not traded relationship with Yahweh for the idolatry of religion.

Is it possible that you and I would embrace the clean and the comfortable people, and avoid the places where the unclean and uncomfortable live?

Is it possible that you and I can create walls of piety that keep us separated from the people around us, preventing them from being able to see the light that we have within us?

Is it possible that you and I can make idols out of programs, music, spiritual gifts, translations of the Word and in the process trade love for God with works for God; relationship for ritualism?

For us to “go and learn what this means” is for us to evaluate the ways in which we, like Israel, may have abandoned our love for God, our calling from God and our faithfulness to him and his mission.

The call is ringing out to the church today:

Hosea 6:1 “Come, let’s return to the Lord...”

The Mission

The MISSION or mercy is to bring spiritual healing to those that need it. It is that simple. It has very little to do with buildings, programs, music styles or denominations. It has, and always must be, about PEOPLE being reconciled to God:

2 Corinthians 5:17–20 CSB

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come! 18 Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. 19 That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God.”

In this section we learn yet another lesson about discipleship: the primary focus of a disciple of Jesus is not on the religious, but the irreligious.

THINK ON THAT.

If we were to dissect the ministries, budgets, hours per week spent and invested by the church (all of us people) what percentage would be focused on those that do not know Jesus? THIS ought to make us adjust some things.

Jesus summed this up with a pair of statements:

the healthy do not need a doctor, the sick do

he came to call sinners, not the righteous

It is not that healthy people do not matter - it is that healthy people should be concerned about helping other people become healthy. The righteous (those of us who have been made right with God through faith in Jesus) should be devoted to helping others do the same.

NOTE: It is interesting to me that the “sinners” have no problem being around the “Jesus followers”, but the “religious” people had a problem being around the “sinners”. I doubt this has changed very much today!

I am concerned that the religious community has misapplied passages like Psalm 1:

Psalm 1:1–3 CSB

1 How happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked or stand in the pathway with sinners or sit in the company of mockers! 2 Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction, and he meditates on it day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted beside flowing streams that bears its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.

These verses do not question proximity but influence. Who do we choose to follow? If we understand these verses as proximity, like “never be around these people”, then we could very easily have the same trajectory as that of the Pharisees. After all, this was their creed:

The Gospel according to Matthew

“Keep thee far from an evil neighbour and consort not with the wicked” (’Abot 1:7) was the rabbinic dictum. The Pharisees would have received repentant sinners, but they would not seek them out. Jesus did. He actively sought sinners to bring them to repentance. This was a new thing in Judaism.

Let me show you what this could look like in our churches if we misunderstand the importance of proximity to those that need Jesus. We can end up focusing our time and energy on:

PROGRAMMING

We have all sorts of programs to keep God’s people busy and well fed spiritually, but those activities often dominate the little bit of time we have free each week so there is no time left for connecting with those who do not yet know Jesus. The vast majority of programs are designed FOR the saints and not for those who do not yet know Jesus.

BUILDINGS

We might define ministries as things that take place at the church building. Yet, that is the LEAST likely place you and I will have engaging, gospel encounters with people who are curious about Jesus. If the majority of our time is spent at the church building, and that is the place that most un-churched people will avoid, what does that add up to?

PROTECTION

Remaining “clean” from the mess of the world. Certainly, this was the case for the Pharisees who did not see the tax collectors and sinners as people made in the image of God that need to know God, they saw them as a threat to piety and a possible bad or unclean influence in their lives. I think as parents we can certainly go overboard in this area with our kids - but even as adults we can be guilty.

So how do we avoid this situation of isolation? How do we break out of the bubble?

It is MUCH simpler than you might think. What did Jesus DO with Matthew after the call?

Eating.

He ate dinner with him. THIS passage is typical of the way Jesus was characterize! This was not a one time event, check out:

Matthew 11:19 CSB

19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

MEALS have always been a part of God’s relationship with his people. There is something worshipful about sharing a meal with someone else. Check out some of the history:

When God chose to save his people from slavery and lead them to blessing - he confirmed that event with a meal called the passover, which was to be remembered every year! [Exodus 12]

When God entered a covenant with Isreal in the wilderness, the covenant ceremony was confirmed with a meal:

Exodus 24:9–11 CSB

9 Then Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of Israel’s elders, 10 and they saw the God of Israel. Beneath his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as clear as the sky itself. 11 God did not harm the Israelite nobles; they saw him, and they ate and drank.

When Jesus entered in a covenant with his disciples (both then and throughout all of history including today) it was done through the passover meal that we refer to as the Lord’s Supper or communion.

While we might think that those meals were for the “elect” or the “spiritual”, we need to realize that Judas was at the last supper and Aaron made a golden calf and called it god.

Meals to Ministry

Meals = relationship. Relationship = ministry.

So, how could Jesus share this kind of fellowship with tax collectors and sinners?

Let’s keep in mind that tax collectors took money from people to give to Rome - and in this case it would be the territory of Herod Antipas. It was his father, Herod the Great, that was killing off the baby Jews after the wise men came to town seeking the Messiah.

At the time of this questioning, Herod Antipas has put John the Baptist into prison. So, when John’s disciples see Jesus eating (not fasting) with a group of tax collectors, there wold be a certain tension.

How could Jesus and his followers eat - recline at the table - with people who betrayed their own by collecting taxes for an empire that kills babies and imprisons God’s prophets?

Because of mercy.

Matthew 9:13 CSB

13 Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Mercy is what God shows when he accepts, forgives and adopts sinners like you and me. To not show that same kind of mercy to others is to act without love and deny the love of God.

Matthew 5:7 CSB

7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

To experience the grace of God and not want that for others is a frightful thought! Jesus will teach about this in a parable later on in Matthews gospel. But the apostle Paul put it this way:

Romans 3:23 CSB

23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;

For Jesus to eat with the Pharisees was to eat with sinners. For Jesus to eat with his disciples was to eat with sinners. For Jesus to eat with tax collectors was to eat with sinners.

With Jesus there was no distinction. ALL were in need to grace, which is why he came.

I guess a final lesson for you and me about discipleship is to remember that mercy was shown to us and we should seek out others we can show it to. Schedule time to be with people that are NOT a part of this church family, to have a meal with them.

As we wrap up our time together, I want to share with you one more story of Jesus that is only recorded in Luke’s gospel. It is he story of yet another encounter with a tax-collector. As we read through it, see if you can pick up on the things we have been talking about:

Luke 19:1–10 CSB

1 He entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 There was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. 3 He was trying to see who Jesus was, but he was not able because of the crowd, since he was a short man. 4 So running ahead, he climbed up a sycamore tree to see Jesus, since he was about to pass that way. 5 When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down because today it is necessary for me to stay at your house.” 6 So he quickly came down and welcomed him joyfully. 7 All who saw it began to complain, “He’s gone to stay with a sinful man.” 8 But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, I’ll give half of my possessions to the poor, Lord. And if I have extorted anything from anyone, I’ll pay back four times as much.” 9 “Today salvation has come to this house,” Jesus told him, “because he too is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.”

As disciples, may we “follow” our teacher’s example as we leave here today.

PRAY.

A Meal With Sinners

Jesus called Matthew, and the next thing we read is that there is a dinner.

Matthew 9:10 CSB

10 While he was reclining at the table in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came to eat with Jesus and his disciples.

Matthew, who was shunned by his Jewish peers, who was considered a sinner and an enemy of the Jews, was not only called by Jesus (scandal!) but he immediately followed. Not only that, he held the feast and his other tax collector friends were there. It was his house and he didn’t need a formal church program or curriculum to do it. The majority of ministry that Jesus did on this earth took place outside of the temple or synagogue.

So what is the big deal about a meal?

Matthew Explanation of the Text

Meals were important social occasions in the first century, defining peer groups and social status. As the saying went, “To share a meal is to share a life,” for it was a kind of alliance, a declaration that a person was accepted into the group.