As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, "Follow Me"

 

 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?"  And Jesus said to them, "Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?  But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.  No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse.  Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined.  But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved."

 

- Matthew 9:9–17 

 

Yesterday we read that Jesus got into a boat, crossed over, and came to His own city.  Then behold, they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed.  When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, "Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you."  And at once some of the scribes said within themselves, "This Man blasphemes!"  But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, "Why do you think evil in your hearts?  For which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven you,' or to say, 'Arise and walk'?  But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins" -- then He said to the paralytic, "Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house."  And he arose and departed to his house.  Now when the multitudes saw it, they marveled and glorified God, who had given such power to men.   

 

  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."   My study Bible tells us that Matthew is also named Levi (Mark 2:14).  It says that Roman overlords assigned specific areas to Jewish tax collectors, who were free to collect extra revenues for their own profit.  Their collaboration with the occupying Romans, their fraud, and their corruption caused other Jews to hate them and to consider them unclean (Matthew 11:19).  So, Jesus dining with them, and even accepting a tax collector as a disciple (let us note, with the command, "Follow Me") is offensive to the Pharisees.  But Christ teaches us His own defense:  He goes where the need of the physician is greatest.  "I desire mercy and not sacrifice" (Hosea 6:6) isn't a rejection of sacrifice per se, my study Bible comments, but rather shows that mercy is a higher priority (see Psalm 51).

Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?"  And Jesus said to them, "Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?  But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.  No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse.  Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined.  But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved."  My study Bible explains that the Jews typically fasted twice a week (Luke 18:12), on Monday and Thursday.  Additionally, there were public fasts which were regularly observed or occasionally proclaimed (2 Chronicles 20:3; Ezra 8:21; Esther 4:16; Joel 2:15), especially on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:31-34) and in times of mourning (Zechariah 7:5, 8:19).  But the day of the Messiah was something entirely different -- a wedding feast, a time of joy and gladness.  Jesus is proclaiming that day, and declaring Himself to be the Messiah/Bridegroom.  My study Bible comments here that for Christians, fasting is not gloomy but desirable, a bright sadness, for by fasting they gain self-control and prepare themselves for the Wedding Feast.  The old garment and old wineskins stand for the Old Covenant and the Law, viewed as imperfect and temporary; the new wineskins are the New Covenant and those in Christ.  The new wine is the Holy Spirit dwelling within renewed people, who cannot be constrained by the old precepts of the Law. 

Everything about Jesus' teaching and effect is renewal.  All that He does and teaching reflects the words spoken by the One who sat on the throne in Revelation 21:5:  "Behold, I am making all things new."  In the Greek, it means effectively, "I am [always making] all things new."  In today's reading we see this explicitly taught in these two encounters.  First, to draw Matthew, a hated tax collector, who, while he is a fellow Jew, is despised by the others for he works for the Romans.  Moreover, tax collectors were also notorious for using their position to collect extra revenues for themselves.  We can simply imagine the picture of tax collectors in the mind of the Jews at that time, in which they were seen not only as working for the oppressive Romans but against their own people.  Jesus orients us to the aim and meaning of this constant effect of renewal; it is healing and He is physician:  "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick."  These things are perfectly encapsulated when He says, "I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance," implying both renewal and healing.  Both together, taken with Christ as physician, imply transformation.   In this context, we come to the question of fasting, which will also be transformed through the renewing effect of Christ, and the new wine that will come as a result of His ministry.   Neither the old garment nor the old wineskin will do, because with the expansive movement of renewal, a stretch is necessary.  There must be room for growth, a way to take in those who will be coming into this place of renewal.  So this is the power of Christ, exemplified in His Passion, death, and Resurrection, in which while the old passes, transformation and renewal bring something new.  His healing power as physician will even transform death for human beings into the promise of Resurrection.  What this story implies is that sometimes healing is not the predictable thing we expect; transformation implies a change that might be new for us.  But, like Matthew and the rest of His disciples, we "Follow Him."