For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance

 

 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 that 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 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, following the encounter and exorcism of the Gergesene demoniacs, Jesus got into a boat, crossed over, and came back to His own city of Capernaum.  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 that 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 called Levi (Mark 2:14).  It explains that Roman overlords would assign specific areas to Jewish tax collectors.  These Jewish tax collectors were then free to collect extra revenues for their own profit, using the power of the Roman state.  Because of their collaboration with the occupying Romans, their fraud, and their corruption, other Jews hated them and considered them to be unclean (Matthew 11:19).  Here Jesus is dining with them and has accepted a tax collector as a disciple ("Follow Me"), and so the Pharisees are offended.  But Jesus' defense is quite simple:  He goes where the need of the physician is greatest.  "I desire mercy and not sacrifice" is a quotation from Hosea 6:6.  This is not a rejection of sacrifice per se, my study Bible explains, but it teaches that mercy is a higher priority (see Psalm 51).

 Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, "Why do 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."  The Jews would typically fast twice a week, my study Bible explains (Luke 18:12), on Monday and on Thursday.  In addition, public fasts were regularly observed or occasionally proclaimed (2 Chronicles 20:3; Ezra 8:21-23; 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 Jews saw the day of the Messiah as a wedding feast -- a time of joy and gladness.  Here, Jesus is proclaiming that day, and He declares Himself to be the Messiah/Bridegroom.  For Christians, my study Bible notes, fasting is not gloomy but desirable; it's a "bright sadness."  This is because, by fasting, we gain self-control and prepare ourselves for the Wedding Feast.  The old garment and old wineskins stand for the Old Covenant and the Law, which are viewed as imperfect and temporary.  The new wineskins are the New Covenant and those in Christ.  The new wine is the Holy Spirit who dwells in renewed people; who cannot be constrained by the old precepts of the Law.

 

 Jesus makes a seemingly radical choice in today's reading: He calls a tax collector to become His disciple.  We're told that He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office.  And He said to him, "Follow Me."  So he arose and followed Him.  This might seem almost like a random event in terms of the way that you or I might read these words, but with Jesus, nothing is random.  He knows the hearts of people and He knows the ones He calls.  Matthew's response is an indication of how ready He was to follow and to become a disciple.  But Jesus' calling of the disciple Matthew (the author of our Gospel) is indeed a radical act, because Matthew is a kind of outlier.  He is, moreover, scorned and shunned by the community because he's a tax collector.  The next thing we read is that Jesus is sitting at table with a whole houseful of tax collectors and sinners, no doubt St. Matthew's friends.  This is yet another radical step, for He's openly among a community known widely as sinners, and unclean in the eyes of others.  In a sense, it's Jesus openly declaring His gospel by this physical act of attending a dinner.  He did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.  Note that, yet again, everything is not quite what it might seem to us as we read this Scripture.  For Jesus is not sitting at dinner to simply approve of and enjoy this company.  Matthew has become a disciple, has decided to follow Jesus, and Jesus is calling this table to repentance as well.  The fact that He is eating with them is yet another radical act, for He has no concern that in so doing, He is sharing whatever sinful or imperfect behavior tax collectors and sinners might practice.  Just as He touched a leper when it was forbidden to touch the "unclean" (in this reading) in order to heal him, so Christ's sitting among these people is also an act of healing.  Christ has nothing to fear from closeness to those who are either physically or spiritually unwell in any sense.  This is because He is the divine Physician; He has come to heal, to set us on the right path and give us the right medicine we need for our ailments.  This invites us to understand ourselves as those who might also sit at that table, and the particular perspective that engenders in us.  Jesus doesn't come to Matthew's table to celebrate and laud Matthew or the other tax collectors and sinners, He comes as honored teacher, while Matthew is pleased to tell the world that he has become a disciple, and to share this with his friends.  So even if one is not a notorious sinner, nor hated as unclean or despised in community for some reason, we think of ourselves at this table as one of those who are imperfect, and who need Christ's guidance and healing prescriptions for our lives.  It invites us to think of ourselves as part of a community, in which there may be all kinds of sins and their effects present, and so therefore whoever we are, we are a part of a community that needs Christ and what Christ has to offer.  He, Jesus, has come into the world to be part of this community, to do His healing and preach His gospel within this community, and to call us out of that community to be His followers and practice His gospel as He teaches.  St. Matthew will go on to become an apostle, and author of this first Gospel that appears in our New Testament, and so he continues to call people to Christ from the midst of our communities all over the world.  Let us understand ourselves also as those who need Christ in our lives and our communities, and be grateful as Matthew who invites all to sit at His table with joy and thanks for His Teacher.