Given by Sherry Black on June 8, 2008. In his book, What’s so Amazing about Grace, Philip Yancey tells the following story. He heard it from a friend who works with the down-and-out in Chicago, who said
It seems to me that the church in most cases has become like the Pharisees in today’s gospel reading, the law-keepers who continually criticized Jesus for associating with tax collectors and sinners. We tend judge and criticize people who are not like us, not as fortunate as us. We have forgotten that we too are sinners and that if it wasn’t for the grace of God, we would be lost too. In Romans, Paul emphasizes that there is to be no qualification placed on God’s grace. It isn’t something that can be earned or achieved, no works, no actions earn God’s grace. God’s grace is his free and unconditional love and there is nothing we can do to earn it or deserve it. God’s grace is freely given to those who believe. In Matthew chapter 21, Jesus says that even tax collectors and prostitutes will enter the kingdom of heaven before the chief priests and elders—those who speak the will of God but do not live it out. They are eligible simply because they believe. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus calls Matthew the tax collector to follow him. Tax collectors were much despised. Although they belonged to the native and therefore Jewish population, they worked for the hated Roman government. “They were required to collect a certain amount of tax money for the Roman authorities, and whatever extra they collected constituted their own commission. A tendency to excessive extortion made them despised and hated by their own people.”2 He is considered a traitor, conspiring with the enemy. Then Jesus shows up and says to Matthew, “Follow me.” And he did. Previously Jesus had called four fisherman, Andrew and Cephas, James, and John, and now a tax collector of all people! Jesus implements a form of discipleship that “is unexpected and shocking because he breaks down barriers between social classes, overturns religious conceptions of well-being, and abolishes slavish adherence to religious cultural traditions.”3 He shakes things up! Mathew then prepares a banquet for Jesus and the other disciples at his home, also inviting many ‘tax collectors and sinners’ who probably are Matthew’s friends and companions—those who like he were alienated by their fellow Jews. This dinner, this fellowship meal, is representative of the idea that gatherings like this helped to define group identities. One other thing about tax collectors is that they were considered to be unclean, because they worked on the Sabbath in disobedience to the law as interpreted by the Pharisees, and so these self-righteous religious leaders ask why Jesus would eat with these tax collectors and sinners. In the eyes of the Pharisees, sinners are those who are opposed to their own understanding of God’s will, those who don’t obey the law and its interpretation as defined by the religious elite. “Matthew’s cohorts are not only traitorous tax collectors but also other Jews who live outside the law. In the minds of the Pharisees, for Jesus to share a meal with these types of persons indicates that he includes them within his own fellowship; it also suggests that Jesus condones their behavior.”4 Jesus replies that “it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick,” To the Pharisee, sinners are those who violate the law. To Jesus, sinners are those who are opposed to God’s will. There’s a difference. The Pharisees think they are right with God because they observe the law—and they are in reality blind to their own sinfulness and judgmentalism. So Jesus continues: “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” The tax collectors and sinners have no illusions; they cannot avoid their own sinfulness. Matthew has been one of them, and when he experienced Jesus’ grace and mercy, he called his friends together so they could have the same experience, healing for their souls. It is to these kinds of people that Jesus brings mercy and grace. And this idea of salvation and grace for sinners threatens the way of life of the Pharisees. But this is also the heart of the gospel of God’s grace. Our Old Testament reading from Hosea echoes this theme. God tells the countries of Ephraim and Judah that he is waiting until they acknowledge their guilt and seek His face, for the day that they will beg God’s favor. In the phrases that follow, Ephraim and Judah seem to call for repentance, but sidestep an acknowledgment of guilt. Many fine words and phrases are spoken, but they are empty of true repentance. The prophet Hosea condemns these words because of their shallowness and fickleness—like the fog or the dew that disappears with the sun’s rising. It is because of this lack of conviction and depth that God judged Israel through the prophets. What God really wants is “steadfast love or loyalty rather than sacrifice, acknowledgment of and obedience to God rather than burnt offerings. Two things should be noted.
Finally, there are two things that I think we should bring away from this weeks lessons. The first is a reminder that Jesus came to save sinners—this is God’s grace towards us. No matter what we’ve done, or haven’t’ done, no matter the reasons for our guilt, Jesus came for us. He came for tax collectors, sinners, and prostitutes like the one in our opening story. He came for you and me. No one is righteous; all of us are in need of a savior. Sin isn’t cured by religion, but by encounter with Jesus. All of us are guilty, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, all of our blood is original sin positive, and the one and only cure is Jesus, the Great Physician. The only response required of us is faith. “As we “put ourselves into God’s hands, he understands our lives better than we do, and at times he is more concerned with the development of our hearts than he is with the comfort of our lives. . . . Sometimes what we think [we need] does not always address the deepest needs in our lives. Our hearts have been tainted severely by the effects of sin, and sin hits the center of our affections and our ability to have a relationship with God. God is always concerned with what is best for us, but what is best may not always be what we think or pursue for our own well-being. The healing of physical suffering is only cosmetic if a sinful heart is not given into the care of the Great Physician.”6 The second thing I’d like to leave you with is the idea that God wants mercy and love, not sacrifice. We don’t want to be like the Pharisees, so concerned with our ideas of righteousness that we miss God’s plan. Jesus wants us to know him and follow him. This is the greatest commandments: to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves. We are called to follow Jesus examples and be agents of love and mercy to a sinful and hurting world, to care for the widows and orphans and those in need. “As we see the needs of people all around us, we must allow our heats to feel deeply with them. But we cannot stop there. We must get close enough to them to see how we can bring the healing touch of the gospel of the kingdom to their deepest needs.”7 This is a important and amazing charge given by Jesus to his disciples. By God’s grace I pray that we may rise to the challenge. ________________________________________________ 1 http://www.christianbook.com/ Christian/Books/dpep/excerpt.pl?event=AFF&p=1012212&sku=21327 2 Wilkins, Michael J. The NIV Application Commentary: Matthew, p. 364. 3 Ibid, 364. 4 Ibid. 367. 5 http://fontes.lstec.edu/~rklein/Documents/pentecosta.htm 6 Wilkins 37. 7 Wilkins 381. |