"Tax collectors and sinners" is the familiar lumping together of two notorious sorts. The Empire collected taxes. They installed regional Roman tax officials. The tax officials would then hire local talent to do the tax collecting. That’s where Matthew fit in. Matthew and his cronies were fellow Jews collecting already exorbitant tax rates from poor fellow Jews. Then Matthew could set the tax rate higher so he could earn more. A tax collector worked for the Empire, the avowed enemy of Israel and especially Israel’s faith. And rip off his fellow Jews. We can only imagine how many days, hours and years Matthew sat at his tax office, his little cubicle, at the crossroads of Capernaum, on the north shore of the Gennesaret Lake, or Sea of Galilee, lining his pocket with others’ living. But the Lord of life called him from that living, which Matthew found out, was actually dying and death.
Until then Matthew did not know, he was working at the quintessential dead-end job. And Jesus called him, just like that with two simple words found every day: Follow me. No one bellowing he was a sinner, no band playing, ‘Just as I am’, no tortured record of a struggle of conscience to make a decision to follow Jesus. By Jesus’ word, his rocklike word, Matthew, "…rose and followed him." Rose: the N.T. Greek is ‘anastasis’, as in Anastasia and it means ‘resurrection’; and “followed”, in Greek, acoulotho, from which we derive our word, acolyte. By Jesus’ word…by God’s Word the heavens and earth were formed, by God’s Word Abraham packed up his bags and tribe and flocks, by God’s Word He tells Ezekiel, showing him a valley of dead bones, can these bones live, only you know Lord Ezekiel tells him and the bones grow flesh, life and that Word became flesh and bone…by Jesus’ word Matthew leaves a dead end job he could no longer fit into because Jesus called him by His Word. Just like that. At just the right time, while we were still sinners Christ died for us, the righteous one for the unrighteous that we be righteous through faith in him, by nothing we can do, have done or will do apart from Him and faith in Him.
Now Matthew and his cronies gather together with Jesus for dinner, a great feast, Luke tells us. And the Pharisees said in effect, there goes the neighborhood. But maybe Matthew’s business associates said to one another,
Yeah, Matthew is throwing a party! What for? He’s leaving the business. Sounds like a going-away party. Is he off his nut? Why is he leaving? Promotion?
Get this: A rabbi called him to follow him and he just got up and followed the guy.
That doesn’t make sense…I thought interested disciples kind of signed up with a rabbi as a disciple…but this man calls His followers?! Goes out looking for them?
Yup. And you haven’t heard the best part, this rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth is invited and is going to be there reclining at table with the likes of us. I’ve got to see this!
After the banquet:
Those Pharisees are always a sneaky lot…they asked his disciples but not Jesus about why he eats with us.
But this Jesus is right in their face and what a line, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick."
Yeah, in the Pharisee’s face and ours, he called us sick!
You mean to tell me you never, ever thought what we do and don’t do is not a little bit sick, more than sick, plain wrong?
Yeah, I don’t like to think about it…it pays the bills.
You mean it fills the bill and it gets bigger every day. So he tells the Pharisees to go and learn something as if they didn’t know the Scriptures! What chutzpah! I desire mercy and not sacrifice. But what did he mean he came to call sinners not the righteous? I thought rabbis were only interested in the righteous, making them more righteous by studying scriptures and keeping the commandments? This rabbi is interested in those who don’t keep the commandments
You mean he is calling us?! Nooo.
Yes.
Yeah, I heard the other day he not only made a paralytic walk but he forgave him his sin.
Get out of here!
Only God can forgive sins and Jesus did it without even being asked! Noo.
Yes!
He’s the devil. No wonder Matthew followed him!?
But, Joshua, would the devil actually want us to leave our business? And you didn’t follow him when he went the ruler of the synagogue’s home, the ruler of the synagogue no less! His daughter is dead and while going over there, someone else, an unclean woman, with a flow of blood, touches his garment. He calls her daughter! And she is healed by faith in Him. Then he and his disciples, Matthew tagging right along now, get to the ruler’s house. The mourners are there, including the hired mourner. Jesus tells the crowd, she’s not dead but asleep. They laugh at him. From mourning to mocking...well Jesus will have nothing of that and casts them all out. In a minute, in minute the girl is alive. Satan doesn’t heal, he destroys, Joshua. He’s not interested in life.
You have a point there…well, if he is not the devil, because the devil won’t heal or forgive, then who must this rabbi be? God almighty?!
Don’t even think it.
The only Gospels that report the call of Matthew are the ones that bear his name, and Luke and Mark. Mark and Luke call Matthew ‘Levi’. Only Matthew tells us his own name. And so one of the church fathers has an interesting speculation about this. Why the difference in names? Mark and Luke wanted to help Matthew save face from his sordid past by using this other name he might have gone by. Call it Christian kindness. But Matthew wanted us to know his name as the one, a sinner, whom Christ Jesus called to Himself. Sin, sickness and death…sin is the sickness unto death. And Matthew knew sickness has a name, his own. In fact sin has many names, Matthew’s and Mark’s and your own. Forgiveness, healing and life...forgiveness is the healing to life, eternal life. Forgiveness has a name, one name only, the Name above all names: Jesus Christ. Sin has a following, acolytes, a procession...to death and the graveyard. Forgiveness has a following, acolytes, a procession, from life to life, to the Kingdom of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And notice from the lesson: Matthew rose and followed the Lord at His word and at the word of the request of the synagogue ruler’s daughter being dead, Jesus rose and followed him to the place of death which is sleeping. Jesus followed. Jesus followed sin, sickness and death. All the dead end places and situations we are in: sin, sickness and death. And we will be in. And He did follow sin, sickness and death, He had in order to forgive us, all the way: to the place of death, called the place of the Skull, to the graveyard of our sin bearing our names on our tombstones. This lesson has at least two resurrections in it. The usual word for resurrection are used of Matthew and the daughter of Christ. And Christ is rise to call us by name. As the disciples on another occasion to a blind man: "Take heart; rise, he is calling you." The difference between the processions of sin and death is faith, Spirit given in Christ Jesus to the glory of the Father in the preaching and teaching of His Word. But when did he call me? Has he? Answer: in Baptism. It is Matthew who tells us alone the great commission: Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Just like that, so we won’t fit into the way of sin and death. Uncomfortable with the way things are in the way things shall be in the Kingdom coming. Christ Jesus is the power unto salvation.
This is our calling with the apostolic church: Baptism and with it teaching and formation in Christ, the Holy Spirit’s work. Not only ourselves, but other sinners, like us, for whom Christ died and rose, not to make right sin, but sinners by forgiving sin, crucifying it so that the image of God is clear. As one pastor I know has said, He justifies the ungodly, not ungodliness. I have come to call sinners, not the righteous, said the Lord. He still does. "Lo I am with you always even to the end of the age." But Jesus says there are the righteous and sinners, so which one am I? If I have to ask that question, then I know the answer. If I were righteous I wouldn’t even know it. I think that when the Lord called Noah, Noah’s first response must have been, Who? "Take heart; rise, he is calling you." Who, me? Yes, again and again, in true turning around, called repentance. He calls us to dine with Him, with tax collectors and sinners, by name, giving us no happy meal, but a joyful one, His body and blood, broken and shed for sinners.
