Untitled Sermon (3)
The Merciful Christ Follower
They understand Jesus’ syllogism: (1) only God can forgive sins; (2) I am forgiving sins; (3) therefore, I am claiming to stand in the very place of God and to exercise his authority.
The taxes in mind here would have been tolls levied on goods passing through or customs duties, so that the toll booth would have been situated in a strategic spot, which may have been on the great road from Syria to Egypt (when Matthew would have collected tolls) or near the lake (when Matthew would have been concerned with customs levied on goods that came across the lake, for the eastern shore lay outside the dominions of Herod Antipas; it was ruled by Herod Philip and thus was another country). The Romans allowed Herod Antipas to collect and use the taxes from this area (Josephus, Ant. 17.318).
Jesus called him with the words “Follow me”; the present imperative seems to indicate a continuing following, and there is no doubt that Matthew is describing a call to discipleship with all that that means. And Matthew obeyed: he got up and followed him.
Follow me must be taken in the sense of “come and be my disciple.” The translator should take care not to suggest that Jesus is merely inviting Matthew to come and follow him in a physical and geographical sense, though this certainly is involved.
The RSV footnote indicates that sat at table may also be translated “reclined at table.”
The question of the Pharisees is a rhetorical one. They are not so much asking for information as they are criticizing what Jesus is doing. The teachers of the Jewish religion had many regulations regarding eating. Anyone who willingly sat with outcasts indicated his acceptance of them and in a sense identified himself with them. To convey the tone of criticism, some translators have said “Your teacher eats with tax collectors and other sinners. Is that proper?”
Tax collectors were usually wealthy men, for there was ample scope for profit in their business, so Matthew was probably making a great material sacrifice when he walked out of that office. And the action was final. They would surely never take him back again if he later decided he wanted to return. The fishermen might go back to their fishing, but the tax collector would not be able to return to the levying of customs duties. Anyway, his lucrative post would soon be filled. And if he tried to get another job, who would want to employ a former tax collector? Matthew’s response indicated a thoroughgoing trust in Jesus.
Sharing a meal was considered a closer association (and therefore more blameworthy) than simply teaching them. A religious teacher might well pass on words of wisdom to sinners (though the Pharisees seem to have been slow to do this). But to eat with them meant to refrain from condemning them; it gave countenance to their laxity. The Pharisees could not understand it. They saw Jesus as claiming to be a religious teacher, and they could not understand how a religious man could associate with irreligious people.
The righteous means persons accepted within the Jewish religious structure. They are here contrasted with sinners, that is, persons not accepted within that structure. As in verse 10, so here also TEV uses “outcasts” in place of sinners.
And we owe to Matthew the first written records about Jesus, contained, along with other material, in this Gospel. He would have had facility with a pen, and Jesus took this quality and used it in his cause. He can do the same with any who, like Matthew, get up and follow him.
The divine mercy welcomes sinners like Matthew when they repent and follow Jesus.
There are, of course, no ‘healthy’ under God’s expert examination, but there are lots of people who think they are. Such people do not see their need of a doctor, although they harbour germs of the same fatal disease of sin which they condemn in its cruder forms in others. There is no room for the Pharisee spirit in the kingdom. The word means ‘separated ones’, proud that they stand out from the crowd and are good people. Such an attitude stinks in God’s nostrils. The kingdom is a one-class society—for sinners only.
Since they were ready to let these people die in their sins, their attitude lacked compassion and thus failed to comply with the standards taught by the prophet they professed to honor so highly. This failure meant that in fact the Pharisees belonged among the people Hosea condemned—a startling accusation for these so outwardly religious people! Luke tells us that Jesus came to call the sinful people “to repentance” (Luke 5:32), but Matthew lets this be understood. He leaves his emphasis on the fact that the people Jesus came to call were sinners. Later we find that he came to die for them (20:28). Jesus never said that the people in question were anything other than sinful. But that was not the point. The point was that he came to save sinners.
To share a meal was a sign of intimacy, and Jesus’ notorious willingness thus to identify himself with the undesirable is a prominent feature of the Gospel portrait (see especially Luke 15:1–2; 19:1–10).
for the Pharisees the first priority is obedience to regulations, for Jesus a mission to people. A healer must get his hands dirty.
The common people and nonaristocratic pietists despised tax gatherers as agents of the Romans and their aristocratic pawns (E. Sanders 1985:178), perhaps something like what the Dutch or French felt toward local collaborators with the Nazis or Africans felt toward slatees, African assistants to European slave traders.
The average Jewish person in ancient Palestine had several reasons to dislike tax gatherers. First, Palestine’s local Jewish aristocracies undoubtedly arranged for this tax collection (E. Sanders 1990:46–47). Second, the Empire sometimes had to take precautions to keep tax gatherers from overcharging people (Lk 3:12–13; Carmon 1973:105, 226), which suggests that some tax gatherers did just that (Hoehner 1972:78; compare Phil Leg. Gai. 199); some also beat people to get their money (Philo Spec. Leg. 3.30; N. Lewis 1983:161–63). Further, nearly all scholars concur that taxes were exorbitant even without overcharges; in some parts of the Empire taxation was so oppressive that laborers fled their land, at times to the point that entire villages were depopulated (N. Lewis 1983:164–64).
The importance of repentance has already been established at Mt. 3:2; 4:17; the need for sin to be dealt with has already received significant attention; and the importance of practical righteousness has been the burden of 5:17–7:27.
Matthew here shows us that the morally and socially reprobate sometimes humble themselves more readily than religious people. Having often witnessed the fruit of sensitive personal evangelism on the streets, I fear that sometimes we spend too much time trying to convert a few resistant sinners in the church while neglecting more sinners afraid to set foot in a church. Sometimes the latter have developed less resistance to the gospel; sometimes they are outside the church precisely because of the words or behavior of some within the church.
But we dare not stop at this point and conclude that Christians in general and Christian pastors in particular may thus freely associate with men of the type here indicated. These publicans and sinners knew why they were invited, namely in order that Jesus might free them from their sins. It was he who had control of the entire situation and kept control of it, doing his necessary and blessed work upon them. This is an entirely different thing from being drawn into questionable company where we stoop to the low level of those present and allow them to use us for their purposes.
I am the Lord that healeth thee,” Exod. 15:26. We know his power and his remedies. These Pharisees, however, refuse his healing ministrations and delude themselves that all is well with them. Yet in their heartlessness they would let those whom they themselves call sick perish. Their guilt is double, their disease twofold.
Hos. 6:6: “Mercy I want and not sacrifice,” i.e., merely sacrifice. “Mercy,” ἔλεος, is pity and sympathy with the suffering. God’s great mercy embraces us, and so he wants to fill us, too, with the quality of mercy. “Be ye therefore merciful as your Father is also merciful,” Luke 6:36.
Compassion or mercy is an attitude toward a need that is compelled to take action to meet that need. A compassionate and merciful heart finds it impossible to remain neutral when it sees a need of any kind.
The sinners, on the other hand, were aware of their sin (Matt. 5:3, “poor in spirit”) and hungered for forgiveness. They responded to his call to true discipleship. Jesus’ disciples were not perfect, but they accepted his forgiveness with humility and moved on toward maturity.
The Bible had clearly stated that one should not fellowship with sinners (Ps 1:1; 119:63; Prov 13:20; 14:7; 28:7); the point in each instance was to warn against being influenced by sinners. Jewish tradition properly developed this warning against improper association with the wicked (Sir 6:7–12; 12:13–18; 13:1; Ep. Arist. 130; m. ʾAbot 1:6–7; 2:9; Sifre Deut. 286.11.4; ARN 16, §36B; Ps-Phocyl. 134; 1 Cor 15:33). Yet in Jesus’ case the influence was going one way—from Jesus to the sinners (9:9, 13; Lk 15:1; cf. Ps 25:8); and as an early Cynic philosopher reportedly explained when charged with visiting unclean places, “the sun too visits cesspools without being defiled” (Diog. Laert. 6.2.63, LCL 2:64–65; contrast Mek. Pisha 1.40–41). Those who controlled society in David’s day had forced him to keep such company as well (1 Sam 22:1–2).
Mercy I desire, and not sacrifice:’ he shows, by this defence, that God is not worshipped by external ceremonies, but when men forgive and bear with one another, and are not above measure rigid. Again, in the twelfth chapter of Matthew, when the Pharisees blamed the disciples for gathering ears of corn, he said, ‘But rather go and learn what this is, Mercy I desire, and not sacrifice.’ Inasmuch as they were so severe against his disciples, Christ shows that those who make holiness to consist in ceremonies are foolish worshippers of God; and that they also blamed their brethren without a cause, and made a crime of what was not in itself sinful, and what could be easily defended by any wise and calm expounder.
6:6 This is one of the great texts of the prophets—Jesus used it to expose the hypocrisy of his opponents (Matt 9:13; 12:7). Here, again, the two great desiderata of Hosea, love and the knowledge of God, reappear. We should not fail to notice that the polemics against prostitution, violence, and corruption, although not unimportant, are secondary. Hosea is not a religious reactionary who simply desires to stamp out social sins and impose religious duty on people. To the contrary, he desires that his reader acquire the loving and compassionate heart that comes from a transformational life with God. In Hosea’s context the shrines and rituals of Israel had become impediments to true spirituality, and Hosea called upon the people to denounce them. This does not mean that Hosea regarded sacrifice or ritual worship as intrinsically bad, and it should not prompt us to suppose that the path to spirituality is to overthrow all liturgy and formal worship. In modern language one might appropriately rephrase this verse as, “I desire devotion and not hymn-singing, service and not sermons,” without thereby concluding that hymns and sermons were evil.