We are continuing our time in the book of Matthew this morning, looking at the record of Jesus calling the apostle himself to follow him. As we continue our survey of the book of Matthew, we have to remember that the gospel writer has a specific purpose in presenting these accounts in the order that he does. In chapters 8 and 9, he relays a series of nine miracles, splitting them up into three groups of three. Three miracles, then a response, three miracles and a response, three miracles under response. We saw the first three miracles in chapter 8, the healing of the leper, the century and servant and Peter’s mother-in-law and the more apathetic response by the two men who wish to follow Jesus but whose lack of commitment was quickly revealed when Jesus challenged them.
Matthew then presents us with a crescendo of power in the next three miracles demonstrating Jesus’ authority over nature with the calming of the storm and waters, then his authority over the supernatural by casting out the legion of demons, and finally with the height of his authority on display by forgiving the sin of the paralytic as we looked at last week.
We are given an account of responses to Jesus and Matthew takes this opportunity to present his own mixed with that of the Pharisees and the disciples of John the Baptist. And what we see is Matthew’s positive response, the Pharisees negative response and the confused response of the disciples of John, which we will look at next week.
In the last miracle, Matthew presents Jesus’s authority to forgive sins on earth. He has that ability, that power to forgive sins; but how much sin can he forgive? Who’s sin has he come to forgive? What are the extents, the limits of that forgiveness? We saw that he healed the paralytic, and in the minds of the Jewish people who witnessed that miracle they would have connected his condition with sin. But maybe his sin was not that bad, maybe it was not even his, maybe it was the sin of his parents who brought that upon him. And that is the question that Matthew answers in verses 9-13. Jesus came for the worst of sinners. He has the authority to redeem the ones the Pharisees thought irredeemable.
Let us read the short passage that is truly an inspiring message of hope for those who know they are in need of the great spiritual physician.
“As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector’s booth; and He said to him, “Follow Me!” and he got up and followed Him. Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, “Why is your Teacher eating with tax collectors and sinners?” But when Jesus heard this, He said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
After the episode with the paralytic, whether it was the same day or the next we are not told but Mark mentions that Jesus heads down to the shoreline and in doing so comes across a tax booth manned by Levi. Matthew, like many people of his time was known by two different names. We do not know if he was known as all his life Levi and given the name Matthew by Jesus later as Simon was renamed Peter or if there was something else behind it, but either way, we learn that he was a tax collector.
Matthew normally goes pretty sparing on the details, but one the things that I think we can see from this account of his own conversion, or least his decision to follow Jesus, is that he is also a humble man. All that we see of this account is Jesus walking by, seeing him sitting at the tax booth, Jesus saying “follow me” and that is it; Matthew is a disciple.
But there is far more to it than that. If you want to know the true extent that Jesus is willing to forgive sins, Matthew is that extent, at least in the eyes of the Jewish people. By the mindset of the time, in the eyes of the Jewish people, especially in the eyes of the scribes and Pharisees, Matthew was the most wretched sinner in town. He uses himself as the extremity for how far the forgiveness of Jesus will go.
And though we may not pick up on that immediately, the Jewish readers of Matthew’s Gospel would have. Being March, if you have not filed your taxes already, the deadline is approaching and it is something that we are constantly reminded of until April 15. Though they might be wonderful, kind, may be even Christians, and yes I do think it is possible, people who work for the IRS today are not looked on very kindly. Now multiply that by the feelings of the French resistance toward the Germans in World War II and you have something of an idea of what the Jews thought of tax collectors. Actually, you would have to go further than that. Think of what the French resistance fighters thought of French collaborators with the Nazi occupiers in World War II.
The publicans, the tax collectors, were people who served Rome. When the Roman empire moved in and took over Palestine, they wanted to exact taxes and individuals living in the land of Palestine would buy tax franchises from the Roman government. They then had the right to operate a taxation system in a certain district or town. Matthew was one of the Jewish people who bought into the Roman system. He was willing to sell out his fellow Jews in order to make money. There was nothing in the minds of the Jews that was worse than being anti-Jewish, anti-Israel and to higher on with the oppressors and exploit your fellow countrymen was the worst thing you could ever do.
Matthew literally had to buy into the Roman system. He purchased a tax franchises and was required to collect a certain amount of money and send it to his Roman governors. Anything that he collected over the amount he had to send in he was allowed to keep and the Roman government would support and protect him in his excesses and abuses when he did overcharge because they wanted to keep the money coming in.
As a tax collector, Matthew would have been recognized in the eyes of the Jewish people as a completely unrepentant sinner. He was not allowed to attend the synagogue, he was not allowed to have any interaction with the Jewish religion. He was considered unclean, worse than a Gentile. In the eyes of the Jewish people, he was completely beyond redemption, there was no way for him to reenter the Jewish religion. The Jews went so far as to forbid tax collectors from serving as witnesses in any law court because they could obviously not be believed. To be a publican, a tax collector was to label yourself a liar and a thief.
So you can imagine the gasps, the collective confusion, the wonder, even revulsion of the people around Jesus when he walked past Matthew and said to him, “follow me.” I am sure there was just as much confusion and shock when Matthew then stood up, left his tax booth with all of the money and the books and his assistance just sitting there and followed Jesus.
This was not random, this is not some chance encounter, Jesus did not happen to walk across somebody who had no idea who he was, reach out in divine knowledge and invite this tax collector to follow him. Jesus had been ministering in the area of Capernaum for some time. Preaching and teaching and performing miracles. Matthew would have known exactly who he was and may have even witnessed or would have at least heard about the events from verses 2-7. I am quite sure that he was a man under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. You do not have to have all of the details, but when Jesus said “follow me,” he jumped up and followed because he knew that Jesus was willing to forgive the worst of sinners like him.
It also goes beyond that. The decision that Matthew made was one far more difficult than the other disciples. If James or John or Peter decided they were done following Jesus, they were done being fishers of men, they could go back to their nets, they could go back to their boats, they could pick up their profession right where they left it and continue making a living. The sea of Galilee was always going to be there and their experience was always there.
That was not the case for Matthew. If you are tax collector, you got the position because you had connections and because you are willing to go over everybody else who wanted that job and because you were willing to earn the trust of the Roman governor you are sending money to. If you broke that trust, if you left your tax booth to follow some rabbi, you could never go back because the next day Rome would have somebody else in your place who was more than willing to do your job for the money that was in it. When Matthew got up and Luke says it this way in his account “he left everything behind, and got up and began to follow him,” he really did leave everything behind. There was no going back. And if something happened, if he decided not to follow Jesus no one was going to hire him because he had been a tax collector. Matthew made an all or nothing choice when he got up to follow Jesus.
I am sure that he was hoping for forgiveness. I do not know if he had come to regret his lifestyle before Jesus came, if he had been longing for a way out but knew that the Pharisees would never allow him back. I am sure that when he heard Jesus was willing to forgive sinners there was a spark of hope. I am sure that when Jesus said, “follow me,” his heart leapt out of his chest before he could get his legs moving to get the rest of him out of the chair. But he knew what he was leaving and he knew the grace that was being extended to him, and he was going to hold onto it no matter what.
He gave up his career, his livelihood, his security. This goes so far beyond the foxes’ holes and the dead burying their own dead from 8:18-22. I am sure that Matthew could not understand why anyone would not follow Jesus when offered forgiveness like that. He had lost all of his material things and gained a spiritual fortune. I do not know if he understood exactly what Jesus had come to do, but he knew that Jesus was here to forgive sinners and he knew that he was the worst, the most unforgivable man in that town and Jesus offered to forgive him.
And like every new believer who is overwhelmed by the love and mercy and forgiveness of Jesus, Matthew wanted all of his friends to know his Savior and so he threw a banquet. And when you are this scum of society, when the religious elites down to morally upstanding poor think you are the worst of mankind who do you tend to hang out with? All of the others who are viewed that way. The only friends that Matthew had would have been the other wretched sinners of the area. Because any good respectable citizen would not go near him. The friends of Matthew had were people like himself: other tax collectors, the irreligious, pagans, Gentiles, prostitutes, and thugs.
Matthew does not go into much detail himself, but we read in Mark 2 and Luke 5 that he puts on a banquet for all his friends, the dregs of society and Jesus is invited as the guest of honor. And seeing this kind of party take place the Pharisees were incensed. They would not even enter the house, they would not be caught dead with those kind of people. So they asked his disciples, “why is your teacher eating with tax collectors and sinners?” That was their term for the worst of society, tax collectors had their own separate category because they were the most vile, but “sinners” encompassed all of those people that lived outside of the law, outside the tradition of the scribes and Pharisees.
Now this is not meant to be an honest question. This is not looking for clarity, this is an inquisition, this is meant as a rebuke against Jesus and a way of shaming his disciples for following him. “Shame on you, fraternizing with tax collectors and sinners, what kind of respectable person does that? If you were really religious, truly righteous like us then you would have nothing to do with these vile sinners.”
There are a lot of people today who think like that. “Do not drink, do not chew, and do not go with those who do.” People who would never go into a bar, who would not dream of entering a casino. There are people I grew up with, and some people that I went to seminary with that believe the worst thing you can do for your child is let them go to public school where they will simply be corrupted. Can they be? Sure. Might you fall into sin if you spend time around sinners? Absolutely. But do you think isolating yourself from all those who are not as righteous as you will keep you from sin, keep you above temptation?
There is a fine line between being in the world and not of the world. And we need to always be sure that we are not being dragged into sin by those we associate with. We do need to constantly watch our hearts and our minds, to be on guard against temptations. But at the same time, if we isolate ourselves from the world, keep ourselves away from all those who do not believe and behave just as we do, then we have no ability to win the world to the truth. We are called to be a light shining into the darkness and to do that sometimes we have to enter the dark places in this world. Those who are lost do not need criticism, they need help. They do not need to see you held up in your righteous castle, keeping them and their sin at a distance, they need to witness your mercy and love as it flows through you from Christ.
Jesus hears this question, “why is your teacher eating with tax collectors and sinners?” And he responds with the amazing statement of mercy, “it is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.” It is an amazing statement of mercy while at the same time a stinging rebuke. It is a statement of mercy because he is focused upon healing the sick. The analogy is very simple. A physician should be expected to go to those who are sick and the one who forgives should be expected to go among sinful people. He is simply stating what should be obvious to everyone, he is going where he is most needed.
At the same time, this is a stinging rebuke against the Pharisees. He is calling them doctors, physicians who are unwilling to heal the sick. Jesus points out that they know the tax collectors and sinners are in need of the forgiveness of God, they know the sickness of sin that dominates their life and the danger they are in and yet refusing to help. Their diagnosis is accurate, they know what the cure is, but they are doctors who have no desire to reach out in mercy to offer healing.
What an amazing indictment of their self-righteousness. A clear picture of the hypocrisy Jesus accused them of in the sermon on the Mount. Remember back to chapter 7, “how can you say to your brother, ‘let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold there is a log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
These are physicians who are just as sick as the tax collectors and sinners they refused to treat, they simply will not admit it. This is the worst kind of disease that infects the heart of man. God has been fighting this mentality amongst his people throughout the ages.
Jesus continues this accusation in verse 13, “but go and learn what this means.” This was a common but rather demeaning command that our rabbi would give to his students. Essentially what it means is “go back and read again.” Think back to your school days when the teacher would yell out of frustration at a student who asked a question that was answered right on the page they had just read, “go back and read.” I had a professor in seminary who would get so frustrated when a student would ask a question that was answered in the syllabus. “How many pages does this paper have to be? It is in the syllabus! When is that paper going to be due? It is in the syllabus!” Jesus is dealing with the Pharisees rebuke of him and his disciples like a teacher berating a student who should have learned this lesson already. “Go back and read!”
And what obvious answer were they supposed to know “I desire compassion, and not sacrifice.” Jesus is quoting from Hosea 6. “I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” This is a repetition of the accusation that makes up the whole first chapter of Isaiah, “what are your multiplied sacrifices to me… I have had enough of your burnt offerings of Rams… And take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats… Bring your worthless offerings no longer… They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them… Your hands are covered with blood. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from my site. Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”
God does not care about the religious rituals, the sanctimonious actions and attitudes when you have a heart that is devoid of mercy. It is the heart that God is after. What did Jesus say in the beatitudes? “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” He is saying to the Pharisees “you will never get the mercy of God because you have no mercy in your own heart.” Jesus is making it clear that their worship, their sacrifices, their ritual was meaningless and that they were just as vile as the tax collectors and sinners; even worse so because they were hypocrites. At least the tax collectors and sinners did not put on an air of self-righteousness.
Jesus concludes with the statement “for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” The Pharisees thought they were righteous. They were under the delusion that they did not need a physician, that they did not need the divine physician. And so Jesus essentially says to them “you think your religious, you think your righteous, fine enjoy the log sticking out of your eye, I have come to call sinners.”
If you have the King James version or the new King James version it adds “I did not come to call righteous, but sinners to repentance.” In Matthew’s gospel, he does not add repentance, that got added in later, probably because Luke does have the word. One way or the other, I think the implication is there. Jesus came to call sinners, call centers to what? To repentance. The Pharisees did not think they needed it. Now in principle, they would say they have course needed it. They recognized that God only forgave sin in a repentant heart, but what they were showing with their absolute lack of mercy was that they did not have one. They were too good for the tax collectors and sinners who were beyond hope.
But Jesus came to call sinners to repentance. He came to call all kinds of sinners to repentance the religious ones as well as the bad ones. As much as this was a rebuke to the Pharisees, it was also a call for them to repent. He was pointing out their sins and offering to forgive them if they would turn away. The tax collectors and sinners new where they stood, the Pharisees made sure of that, and Jesus was simply letting them know that there was an offer of forgiveness if they would turn away from that sin. At the same time, Jesus was pointing out the sin of the Pharisees in hopes that they would repent from it and except the forgiveness that was on offer.
Here stood a bunch of man who were convinced of their righteousness and across from them a man they saw as the worst kind of sinner, Matthew the tax collector. That morning, if you had asked anyone in the town of Capernaum who would be the most likely to be used by God to evangelize the masses, to be martyred for his faith, to write Holy Spirit inspired Scripture, that would inspire the faith of millions over 2000 years, Matthew would have been the last person any of them would have picked.
But that is who God has chosen to use. Broken people, sinful people. It is the same kind of people that God chooses to use today. People who recognize that they are sick, suffering from the disease of sin and who cry out for a loving physician who will come and heal their heart. There is no one beyond his reach.