5 June 2005

Sermon: Matthew 9:9-13 (Proper 5A) Christ Church Riverdale,

The Rev. Robert C. Lamborn, Rector

Matthew 9:9 As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him. 10 And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" 12 But when he heard this, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners." (NRSV)

It’s safe to say that nobody likes paying taxes, and no matter people’s economic situation they usually think their taxes are too high. This makes the Internal Revenue Service and state and city departments of revenue into easy targets, lightning rods for taxpayers’ frustrations. Whether people express their frustration in the political process, or quietly in the cash economy that avoids sales tax, no matter what tax collection agencies do to improve accountability and customer service, some people will complain about their taxes. But if you think we have it bad as Americans and New Yorkers, consider the tax-collection system in Jesus’ day. Accountability meant one thing and one thing only–delivering the assigned amount of money into the Roman treasury. Tax collectors could bilk people out of as much as they could get away with and keep the extra, as long as Rome got its full amount. If that weren’t enough, tax collectors had sold their own people out to the despised Roman Empire. Jesus walks right into the middle of this system, where helpless people are being bilked–right up to the tax booth where a man named Matthew sits, collecting money on behalf of the oppressors, and probably lining his own pocket, as well. Jesus walks right into the middle of this unjust system and says just two words: “Follow me.” “Follow me,” he says to Matthew, someone whose occupation was the petty extortion of his own people.

“Who, me?” We don’t have recorded what was going through Matthew’s mind. Did he know Jesus already? Probably; he’s working in Capernaum, the town Jesus lived in as an adult. Has Matthew been listening to Jesus’ teachings, preparing him for such a call as this? We don’t know. What we do read is that when Jesus walks right up to the tax booth and says to Matthew, “Follow me,” Matthew does just that--gets up in the middle of work and leaves his gravy train behind just like that.

The story then cuts to the next scene where Jesus has come to Matthew’s for dinner, to the house probably paid for with some of the ill-gotten gains from tax collecting. Eating with someone in Jesus’ culture was a powerful sign of accepting that person. Did Matthew have to do some convincing to get Jesus to come over? Again, we don’t know, but it doesn’t look right to the Pharisees to have Jesus and his disciples sharing a meal with tax collectors and sinners, and they say as much, asking Jesus’ disciples why he’s doing it. (Notice they aren’t direct enough to ask Jesus himself; he has to overhear the Pharisees asking the disciples in order to know what the question was.) But with one of the shortest parables on record, Jesus is able to answer the Pharisees, and to answer those of us who may be wondering the same thing. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick,” Jesus responds.

“I have come to call not the righteous but sinners,” Jesus goes on, and Matthew, the tax collector, could be Exhibit “A.” Matthew the tax collector, in a category of person dismissed, looked down on by respectable society, Matthew Jesus calls to follow him. And not quietly, taking Matthew aside and saying, “I think you’ve got a lot of potential, and I’d really like you in our group, but you’re going to have to give up this tax collecting--it could really be embarrassing if it got out–you understand?” No, we learn something very important from Jesus’ walking right up to Matthew in the open and saying, “Follow me.” We learn that Jesus does not restrict his call to the perfect, but looks beyond the simplicity and convenience of human categories to the way we were created, in the image of God. Jesus looks until he can find that image, no matter how distorted it has become, and makes no bones about what he’s doing.

While we know Matthew as an apostle, respected through the history of the church, at the time of his call, Matthew would have seemed like the last person you’d want associated with your group of disciples. But the call of Jesus isn’t about who we’ve been so far, but who God will transform us into. Who knows how many more people from that dinner party at Matthew’s house ended up as followers of Jesus? Jesus calls us where we are–at the tax booth or worse, saying to sinners, sinners like we are, and even worse than we are, the same two words, “Follow me.” “Who, me?” “Yeah, now be sure to put on your seat belt, ‘cause we’re going places you haven’t even imagined!”