Merrymaking with Misfits

Theological Focus

Matthew wants his audience to develop a sense of joy over their relationship with the one who has authority to forgive sins rather than having pride in earning God’s favor (Pharisees) or desperation to earn it (John’s disciples). This relationship requires new rituals.

Introduction

I

I remember my first day of classes as a college freshmen. I was trying to double major at the time in business and Christian studies. I didn’t realize until later that scholarships would not cover the extra money for the extra hours and I eventually dropped to business side of the degree. But at the time I was only given a business degree advisor. She was a business professor, but willing to work with me and get me in some Christian Studies classes as well as some business classes. So I was signed up for economics and Bible survey.

Because of the unusual nature of my schedule she signed me up for a 400 level business class. I expressed some concern, but she assured me it would be no problem. There were no prerequisites to the class.

In my first day of that business class I remember it was a large room and I sat near the back not recognizing any of my classmates. The professor was nice, but immediately took a poll in the class. He asked how many seniors there were in the class and the majority raised their hands. Then he asked how many juniors were in the class and the rest raised their hands. He asked how many sophomores and no one raised their hand. Then he asked how many Freshmen. And I was the only one who raised my hand.

N

Have you ever been in a place where you felt as though you did not fit in? Or to flip the image, have you ever seen someone you thought did not fit in and tried to make them fit in?

T

In Matthew 9:9, Jesus is that person who does not fit in with the rest of the religious groups. He stands out like a sore thumb, and the rest of the religious gurus are going to try and make him fit in. Ironically, he welcomes all the misfits into his group.

R

This morning we will explore Matthew 9:9-17.

O

In Matthew 9:9-17 we will see person over principle in vv. 9-13 and devotion over duty in vv. 14-17

Person over principle

Matthew 9:9-17

Matthew 9:9–13 ESV

9 As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him. 10 And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. 11 And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Revelation

Jesus approaches a tax collector who were notorious for betraying their own people for money. One commentator says of tax collectors:

Matthew Exegesis

Tax collectors were so notoriously dishonest that they were not generally qualified to serve as witnesses. The Talmud compared an encounter with a tax collector to meeting a bear face-to-face.195 One rarely left the encounter unharmed. Beggars were not permitted to accept contributions from tax collectors because it was assumed that their money had been stolen from others. Tax collectors were ritually unclean because of their frequent interactions with gentiles. If a tax collector stepped into a Jewish home, the house and everything in it was defiled

Some of Jesus’s contemporaries believed being a tax collector was an unforgivable sin. And yet Jesus comes to this man calls him to follow, and he does. He, like the fishermen, leaves everything behind and follows Jesus. This call to follow was not only a call of forgiveness but a call of repentance.

And to make matters worse in the eyes of the onlooking Pharisees, Jesus also has a meal with many tax collectors. The “sinners” at that table were those common people who did not observe scribal rules of tithing and purity.

To make matters even more worse, Jesus was eating with them. Having a meal with people was not a neutral thing. Who you eat with at this time would signify who you identify with, especially to Pharisees obsessed with ritual purity laws.

And so the Pharisees confront. They ask the disciples in an accusatory fashion, but Jesus hears the accusation and responds.

Wrong Expectations

The first thing Jesus responds with his the proverb about those who need a physician. He questions the Pharisees expectations. Where do you expect to find a teacher? Among those who yearn to learn. Where do you expect to find a judge? Among those who accuse or are accused. Where do you expect to find a doctor? Among those who are sick. And so, where should one expect to find the one who has authority to forgive sins? Among sinners.

Wrong priorities

In verse 13 Jesus gives the typical rabbinic phrase, “Go and learn.” In other words, teachers of the law would say this phrase the quote a Scripture in the area where his disciples were particularly ignorant. Then Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6 “6 For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” This teaches that God prioritizes obedience of the heart and mind over that of the outward acts. The Pharisees prioritize ritual purity over people.

Wrong needs

Jesus’s statement that he calls the sinners not the righteous makes it seem as though the pharisees are “the righteous,” but clearly that cannot be the case because Jesus just calls them out for their wrong expectations and priorities. Rather their own self-sufficient acts of purity have caused them to believe they have no need for a messiah who can save them personally from their sins.

So the Pharisees have wrong expectations, priorities, and needs.

Relevance

The irony is that while the tax collectors and sinners are merrymaking with Jesus, the very people who teach about the Jewish Messiah are on the outside accusing him.

Misfits want the person, Pharisees want principles (vv. 9-13)

Do we have the right expectation, priorities, and needs? Do we have our set of expectations then come to Jesus and demand him to meet them, or do we come to Jesus and allow him to set the expectations? Have we already established our priorities or do we look to Christ to order our lives? Is sin the greatest problem we face or do we have some other problem we’d rather Jesus solve instead?

We have the tendency to do the same things today.

We face a problem. We encounter tragedy. And so we tear the Scripture apart to find some principle live by to avoid the problem. One church guru once opined, “Every church should do a marriage series, a money series and a series on life purpose every year. Christians need it, and I’m guessing unchurched people do too”

We accuse sermons of not being relevant because they did not give me a principle on how to do finances, or find life purpose. Then we turn to those “Christian” teachers who put the text through a theological shredder to make up some principles.

An early Christian Irenaeus spoke of some heretics who would do something similar. Writing in the second century he said, “In doing so, however, they disregard the order and the connection of the Scriptures, and so far as in them lies, dismember and destroy the truth. By transferring passages, and dressing them up anew, and making one thing out of another, they succeed in deluding many through their wicked are in adapting the oracles of the Lord to their opinions.” Against Heresies 1.8.1

Maybe all the problems that we face are meant to bring us to the feet of Jesus. Charles Spurgeon says, “I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the Rock of Ages.”

Do your life situations lead you to an expedition to mine for misprioritized principles or do they sit you at the table with Jesus?

Devotion over Duty

Matthew 9:14–17 ESV

14 Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” 15 And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. 17 Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”

Revelation

This question of the Pharisees is purposefully paired with the question from the disciples of John to show us that Jesus is not really fitting in with any religious group of his day. The question is one of simple compare and contrast. The disciples found a similarity with the Pharisees that was not the same with Jesus and his disciples.

Certainly, Jesus approved of fasting and recommended it be done in private. It is speculated that Jesus and his disciples did not participate in certain Jewish fasts. Some of these fasts pled for God to send his Messiah. So, for Jesus to have his disciples participate would be a tacit denial that he is the Messiah.

But astoundingly, Jesus answers the question by placing the focus on himself.

The first image he gives is the wedding. He essentially calls himself the bridegroom. His presence with his disciples is cause for celebration, not mourning. His death would one day take him away from his disciples and be a cause for mourning as mentioned at the end of v. 15. But we know period of death would not last for long.

Then Jesus gives the image of a garment. You take an old, hand-woven garment. These garments were already easy to tear. But the old garment has already been in the sun, its been washed several times, it’s now got a hole in it. If someone took a fresh cloth to mend it, that fresh cloth would shrink, tear away and cause and even bigger hole.

Then Jesus gives the image of the wine skin which is similar to the garment. A wine skin that has been used has already expanded and has dried out more and become brittle. New wine in that wine skin would cause it to burst.

Jesus himself—the presence of the Messiah—is the newness to which Jesus refers. To place Jesus and his teachings upon old Jewish piety would tear both apart. They are not compatible.

The old pious practices were duty-driven righteousness maintenance.

Relevance

The old miserable discipline to maintain righteousness is replaced with joyful discipline to achieve closer relationship (vv. 14-17)

Imagine being in a marriage and only operating on the basis of duty. You have no passion, no concerns for the feelings or beliefs of your spouse. All you care about is fulfilling your obligations to maintain the marriage. And certainly, that marriage might be maintained, but it could hardly be called a marriage.

And here we see the foundation of Jewish customs is that of obligation in order to maintain righteousness. The hollowed out robot could fulfill these obligations. And many did fulfill these obligations with no regard for God or love for him.

Fasting out of a sense of obligation in order to maintain righteousness or any act of piety will do no good if it stays in obligation. And perhaps your spiritual disciplines start in the realm of obligation. Many good and righteous things have to begin there for us to accomplish. But these disciplines and practices cannot stay in the realm of obligation.

Notice the overtones of joy that Jesus gives here: bridegroom, wedding, new cloth, new wine.

Our spiritual disciplines should be marked with joy because the Christian goal for these disciplines is to build a closer relationship with Christ.

Why do you go on a date with your spouse? Why do you hang out with your friends? Is it a sens of obligation? Sometimes it may begin there. Is it because of personal fulfillment? That may occur, but should only be a byproduct. If it was the main goal, all our relationships would simply be self-centered like the person who posts on social media just hoping for the most likes. Generally, we do these things to build our relationships, to have a closer connection.

And so, our spiritual disciplines, like fasting, are no longer obligation induced misery to maintain righteousness. We know we have forgiveness for sins because of Christ. Instead, we partake in the spiritual disciplines joyfully to achieve a closer relationship with Christ.

A sense of joy over forgiveness rather than desperation to earn it or pride in accomplishing it.

Whole Text Relevance

Jesus is presented in these stories as a misfit. He does not fit in with people’s expectations of religious practice or purity. He goes to sinners and offers forgiveness.

The misfits are only misfits because the rest of the culture has decided they can live their life without need of Jesus.

Consider how many people there are in our very community who may even know about Jesus and his authority to forgive sins but refuse to believe. They continue on living as if they have no need of him. They’ve got their life under control. They don’t need Jesus to intervene.

Consider still others who attend church every Sunday. They sing the hymns and listen to the sermon. Yet they make Jesus fit their expectations and conform to their will like the Pharisees.

The choice is clear: we can either reject Jesus, try to get Jesus to fit us, or recognize we are the misfits. We are the ones who have to come to Jesus on his terms. And his terms are joy in the forgiveness of sins.

Application

Tell

Here’s one thing I want you to do this week in light of this text: pick one spiritual discipline whether it be fasting, bible reading or study, or prayer. I want you to focus on doing that discipline not from the stand point of obligation or self-betterment. Rather do that from the standpoint of building your relationship with Christ.

Image

When Martin Luther was a monk, everything for him was out of a sense of obligation so that God would not judge him. He spent hours upon hours in the confessional confessing his sins then confessing the way in which he confessed. He felt unworthy to sleep on a bed or mat and instead slept on the cold, stone floor. When he first officiated the Mass he was so shaking he could barely utter the Latin words.

Show

But when he was redeemed, he found joy. Listen to what he says about Bible reading, “For a number of years I have now annually read through the Bible twice. If the Bible were a large, mighty tree and all its words were little branches I have tapped at all the branches, eager to know what was there and what it had to offer.” How can a man who went from hours in the confessional afraid of God spend hours in a book with eagerness and joy? Because he traded principles for the person. He traded obligation for a relationship.

Implore

So take up a spiritual discipline this week. Maybe it starts with a sense of obligation. But may it lead you to joy of a greater relationship with this misfit Messiah.