Keeping Bad Company

Matthew 9:9-14

Matthew 9:9–14 NKJV

As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he arose and followed Him. Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard that, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?”

In this passage we are introduced by Matthew which is widely acclaimed at the writer of the Gospel of Matthew. In the other gospels, he is introduced as Levi. It was not uncommon for Jews to be called by more than one name. This is also true with people today who go by a name other than their given one.

Matthew is introduced as a ta collector. It is not known if he was contracted out to collect taxes for Herod or for Rome. At any rate, tax collectors were hated by the Jewish people, and for good reason. As they were contracted out by bid to collect taxes for a foreign power, their action was practically seen as an act of treason against Israel. They were no better than harlots or Gentiles in the eyes of the people. The tax collectors were allowed to keep everything they collected over what they pledged to rome and used strong arm tactics to shake money out of the people. And to make matters even worse, if Matthew was a Levite, then why was he collecting taxes for Rome rather than the Temple taxes and tithes for the Jewish people?

Matthew seems to have been the chief of the tax collectors and had either associates or others working for him. He was probably stationed along the main road looking for opportunity to collect taxes from those who passed by. Perhaps he ran what was the equivalent of a toll booth or a customs office. But on this day, Matthew’s life would change forever. This is because on higher than Herod or Caesar was about to employ him. This is the day Jesus came by.

Jesus simply says two words to Matthew, but they were life-transforming words. “Follow Me” he says. This was much more than a request to follow Jesus on Facebook, if Facebook had been available in Jesus’ day. Matthew may have been a bad Jew, but he know what Jesus was asking of him. Jesus may have been dressed as a Rabbi, in which case the connection was clear. It was the invitation of a Rabbi to have Matthew leave off his life and take up the life of a Rabbinic disciple. I doubt any other Rabbi in Israel would have ever asked this wretched tax collector that. Matthew takes up this unusual invitation, and like Peter and the other fishermen, he leaves everything behind to start a journey with the Rabbi called Yeshua. Little he could have imagined that this entailed, and where the journey would take him.

In the tradition of the call of the Lord to Abraham. Matthew leads aside everything good and bad in his life and starts a journey to a new land which is called for him by God. This is the call of every disciple. When Elisha the prophet was called, he burned the yoke of his oxen as fuel to roast the oxen. He calls his neighbors to a great feast to say farewell. Elisha burned his bridges behind him. Matthew would leave a table full of money and goes and calls a great feast and invites all his friends. As tax collectors had few friends other than tax collectors and courtesans who always hung around where they could make good money.

The interjection, “and Behold!” shows the startled reaction of Jesus’s disciples when they saw the banquet Jesus was coming to in His honor. A house full of tax collectors, prostitutes, and sycophants! None of his disciples seems to have asked Jesus why He was going to a banquet with such unclean sinners. We can only guess by the fact that later that some called Jesus a drunkard and a glutton what the feast might have been like. I do want to say at this point is that accusation does not mean guilt. The Pharisees saw Jesus and His disciples go into the feast, and they knew the reputation of such feasts well. How did they know? In Luke we hear the story of a woman who comes into Simon the Pharisees feast and washes Jesus feet with her tears and wipes his feet with her hair. Simon knew the woman. Just how did he know she was that kind of woman? And how did she have access to his house. I wonder.

There was a lot of rich food there and plenty of wine at a typical feast of this sort. Other perverse things happened at these banquets. Jesus was keeping table with very bad company. But while Jesus reclined at the table with this company, there is no reason to believe that Jesus acted in any inappropriate way. He lived a sinless life among sinners. But instead of the sinners defiling Jesus, the presence of Jesus serves to cleanse the unclean. Jesus was not one made unclean by the touch of a leper. Rather the leper was cleansed. And Matthew and his friends did not debauch Jesus. Rather a prodigal comes home. Matthew would no longer collect Gentile taxes. And he would not become a Jewish tax collector either. Instead of a collector, he becomes a giver. Through his hands, the gift of the gospel of Matthew was given. Matthew would go out freely spreading the Gospel as one of Jesus’ apostles.

The Pharisees were naturally outraged and scandalized by Jesus’ behavior. Here a man who was called a Rabbi was keeping table with whom the Pharisees considered was the very scum of the earth. Pharisees kep company with Pharisees, and Rabbis with other Rabbis. Why wasn’t Jesus praising them for their devotion to the Torah rather than castigating them as hypocrites.

Jesus is blunt in answering them. The cowardly Pharisees had not approached Jesus but instead had tried to plow discord among Jesus’ defiles. Jesus plainly tells them that He was called to heal sinners and not to praise the righteous. They did not understand the Scripture which said God was more interested in showing mercy than in the heartless sacrifices of those who showed no mercy. Jesus was a physician, and physicians needed to be where sick people were.

Jesus then tells what is recorded in the King James version that He did not come to “call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Although the idea of sinners repenting is certainly good theology, the majority of Greek texts do not have the words “to repentance.” It simply says that Jesus came to call sinners.

We can see what a motley collection of “sinners” Jesus had called. Simon Peter had a good heart perhaps, but was known for inserting his foot into his mouth at times. James and John were called the ”sons of thunder” who showed a lot of anger and had a conniving mother who tried to get her sons the highest seats in the kingdom. Matthew was a tax collector, Judas a thief and traitor, and another Simon belonged to the Zealots. This is a fine collection of sinners indeed. But in the Old Testament, Abraham was once an idolater, Jacob a deceiver, Judah who had twins by Tamar, Samson, and even David. And this is just a short list of sinners. And if we follow Paul’s statement, then “all have sinned and fallen short of God.” Jesus cannot call anyone but sinners if He expects flesh and blood to follow Him.

And perhaps here is a subtle message to the Pharisees. There is a prodigal who stays at home, who shows outward obedience to cover a sinner’s heart. The brother’s return from a life with sinners actually demonstrates how wrapped up in sin the older brother who stayed home was. He had no mercy on his brother and was rather put out at his return. He was outraged, in fact and did not celebrate with his father. This passage makes for a good analogy to the parable of the prodigal. The only difference is that Matthew left relative wealth to become poor for Jesus’ sake rather than the prodigal who had become financially impoverished to return to the riches of the house of Israel.

Matthew was like Zacchaeus, another tax collector. Jesus invited himself that time to a feast at Zacchaeus’ house. There he wee little man says he gives half his goods to the poor and would repay fourfold anyone he had defrauded. He meant it. And if you considered how many people he would have defrauded in collecting taxes, it would have left Zacchaeus bankrupt. But He had a far greater consolation. Jesus now numbered Him among the children of Israel. Matthew like Zacchaeus was also a sinner come home.

What does this all mean to us? Is church a place where righteous people praise each other for being so good? Is it a place to keep good company. Or is the church called to reach bad company, to even sit at their banquets with all that goes on there? If it is God’s mission to be a physician to sinners, is it not also true of a disciple of Jesus who is called to be like his master. This is not an invitation to participate in their sins, but it is one to at least sit with them and let the power of the gospel transform them.

Would we dare go the marketplace and summon people to follow Jesus withal that goes on there? It seems to be, that Jesus calls us to do exactly that. What a transformation there would be in the church if we would simply follow Jesus. The call is not a casual one. “Go and make disciples of all people (Gentiles).” Remember, we are sinners who are being healed also.