“When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
“Why,” indeed. Why is Jesus
eating with such people as…these?
Question: Who? Who were these tax
collectors and sinners?
Tax collectors were, universally,
disliked. There were several layers of the ancient world tax system, and
several layers of how taxes were collected. We might assume Matthew was one of
those whose job traditionally kept a heavy thumb on the scale, but we neither
know that for sure. So, for the sake of honesty all the way around, let’s just
say that the system was rife with ways for corrupt tax collectors to exercise
their greed and corruption. The result was tax collectors were all guilty by
association. Regardless, whether only slightly overcharging or massively
defrauding his fellow Israelites, we can say that Matthew and his cronies were
just as sinful as anyone else, then or now, so they were crooks. They
impoverished their already cash-strapped fellow Israelites and there were not
enough checks and balances in the system to stop such thing.
And, then there were the sinners.
This was, presumably, a broad-stroke, general description of various kinds of
the dregs of society. People who didn’t care or have the common care and
courtesy to show public respect for the commonly held standards of morality of
society. Every society has them. We have them, even here in Enid.
So, another question: why does
this teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? Jesus will answer that, for
the pharisees and for us, and it might surprise us almost as much as it did His
first-century listeners as we discover His reason.
Let me ask another question,
first, to help focus on Jesus’ answer. Here it is: why did the pharisees care
so much? To rephrase, why did it bother them that Jesus was eating with these
people. What was so obtrusive of this that it would become an excuse they would
offer for Jesus’ crucifixion? What was so different of this meal, in the home
of the tax collector, that bothered them?
It’s tempting to simplify and say,
here, that when dining with others, it was implying equality, a meal of
fellowship and acceptance with others. Maybe sometimes but not always. Invitation
did not always mean full acceptance and fellowship. You might recall in Luke’s
Gospel, Jesus was invited to a pharisee’s home for dinner. Invited – not
crashed. While Jesus was welcomed in as a guest, he was not a highly regarded
guest. Jesus wasn’t welcomed by His host, His feet weren’t washed, His head
wasn’t anointed with oil. The point is Jesus was a guest in the pharisee’s
house, but He was far from the guest of honor, far from full fellowship. Jesus
wasn’t even greeted at the door. You could say Jesus was put in His place –
literally – as though the pharisee said, “You are here, Jesus, but you are here
on my terms.”
This does not happen with Jesus.
This man eats with anyone. High, low; respected, despised; good, bad. That was
different about Him. But that was the rub. Such behavior wasn’t respectful
enough for that society. It wasn’t the way propriety was managed. There wasn’t
a system, an acknowledgement of the way the world worked out there with greater
and lesser rungs on the social ladder. And, they were right. Because in Jesus’
presence, there is no higher and no lower. He did not play that game. All
rankings, dissolved; all distinction, destroyed; all societal rungs, broken. But,
how would we function that way, the pharisees said. How will we figure out
who’s more important, powerful, acceptable, or righteous without these in
place? It would change everything! He cannot be allowed to overthrow our
culture, our society, our system.
Exactly. He desires to overthrow
everything, everything about us that would separate us from Him.
He wants to overthrow our pride
that comes from thinking and comparing, the idea that I am better than you, or
you are better than the person sitting two rows behind you, or you are better
than a coworker, a neighbor, the girl checking your groceries this afternoon,
the crew sealing the roads around downtown, or the man about your age who is
still working at Brahms. I thank God I am not like him…or her…or them. He
overthrows such foolish, separating, dividing pride and prideful thinking of
better than or less than. In the presence of Jesus, there is no “Better.” If
you think there is, you find yourself standing outside the meal, standing
outside of Jesus, asking, “But, why?” Jesus desires to overthrow that attitude.
He wants to overthrow the fear,
the fear that lives inside that says you are an imposter – that if people knew,
if they really knew you, they would ostracize you from work, the neighborhood,
the team, relationships, even the congregation. And, in the darkest moments,
moments when you’re confronted with your sins, with your memories, with death,
you wonder if there is even a place for you in the Kingdom. Some days it’s so
bad you can hardly believe there is a place for you, even among the tax
collectors and sinners. He wants to overthrow this, too.
This is why they asked, “Why does
this teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
Now, we are ready for Jesus’
answer. He says, “Well, it’s because the well ones don’t need a doctor. I
didn’t come to call righteous people. I came to call sinners!” In His mind,
there are only two categories: the righteous ones, who are well, and the sick
ones who desperately need a doctor to heal them.
The first category, the well ones, the righteous ones, is easy. It’s
easy because it’s empty. There is no one in it. Not even the ones who think
they deserve to belong there.
The second category, the sick ones, the sinful ones, is also easy.
It’s everyone, everyone is in it. If no one is righteous, then everyone is
guilty. Everyone is sick. Everyone needs a doctor. And Jesus is the doctor, and
He has come for you and for all.
By the way…this made the leaders
mad when Jesus spoke these words then, and it makes people mad today when we
proclaim Jesus words. Because it’s not about them, it’s about Jesus and Him
alone.
This is really quite remarkable:
He is the one, the only, physician who has that kind of authority. He cleansed
the leper, because He was willing to. He healed the sick servant of the
centurion from a distance because He had that authority. He raised up Simon
Peter’s mother-in-law, and He rebuked a storm like youth would scold a
rebellious child, and the storm obeyed, the sickness and the storm both
reacting to His authority. He threw demons into a herd of pigs, and after
forgiving a paralytic, He raised the man to health. The pharisees wanted to
kill Him, remember, but He didn’t let them do it until He was ready. Then, He
went into the Holy City and cast evil out of the temple, with authority, and He
tried to gather them all to Himself – all of them, even the ones who hated Him
enough to plan to kill Him. And He mourned them, because they were unwilling:
unwilling to hear, to listen, to believe His authority as the Son of God.
But, He was willing to do the
work of His Father, to be the doctor, to come down to the place of damnable
illness and the illness of damnation, to be the great Physician. He turned His
back to those who smote Him, and then His Father turned His holy back to His
Son, for as Jesus had once eaten with the sinners when no one else dared to do
so, He was numbered with the sinners in a way no one else could do. And, He set
a place at the table for you.
And then, with authority, doing
what no one else could do, He rose, soul and body. The Great Physician,
embodied, rose. He broke the friend and the tool of sin. He defeated the enemy
that, to this day, still hovers over every meal we share and every joy we
experience, and He undid death. He rose, immortal forever. In His resurrection,
He heals you. And, just as surely as He has forgiven your sins and my sins and
the sins of every saint who needs the Great Doctor of Souls, He joins you, body
and soul, to Himself in Holy Baptism. Then, to strengthen you in body and
spirit, He invites you to His Table where He is both the host and the meal,
itself. And, one day, there will be another banquet, a banquet of rich food and
fine wine, a banquet hosted by He who is both the Great Physician and the very
Bread of Life: this Jesus, who will raise and heal us forever.
And there, in that great
resurrection, there will no longer be any need to ask questions. The why’s, who’s,
when’s, and what’s, will all be answered for us.
Who? You - the Church
What? His mercy.
Where? The cross.
When? Forever
Why? Jesus
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