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Matthew 9:9-13 CEB As Jesus continued on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at a kiosk for collecting taxes. He said to him, “Follow me,” and he got up and followed him. As Jesus sat down to eat in Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners joined Jesus and his disciples at the table. But when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard it, he said, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do. 13 Go and learn what this means: I want mercy and not sacrifice. I didn’t come to call righteous people, but sinners.” Kansas City has many different restaurants, but one, in particular, is just a little peculiar. It has tables, chairs, servers, and menus. You go in like you would in any restaurant and get seated. You order off a menu and receive a good meal. Here’s where things get a bit strange: at the end of the meal, you would normally get your check and settle the bill. Here, though, there is no bill, no charge to its customers whatsoever. NourishKC is a restaurant that is also a community kitchen, and a food bank, that believes in human dignity and the power of everyone being welcome, no questions asked.[1] No one pays and everyone gets treated with respect. This unique non-profit, like our scripture this morning, shows us the power of being able to share a meal without barriers. Jesus invites us to consider who we eat with and who we avoid. Jesus invites us to consider who the kingdom of God is really for and how it operates. Finally, this shared supper with sinners and outcasts reveals to us all the final shape of what God’s eternal kingdom looks like, a banquet where the most unlikely of people find a seat at the table.
Breaking bread with people mattered a lot in the Jewish world. Eating with others, had an “ethical or moral” element in the ancient world as “it was understood that sharing a meal created or cemented a relationship.”[2] In other words, eating with sinners and tax collectors means you are willing to have a relationship with them. It means that Jesus accepts them as the kind of company he wants to keep, even though it disrupts the class and social barriers of his day. This is something we see throughout the Gospel of Matthew though, as Jesus often interacts and even “touches and is touched by those considered ‘unclean’ according to Jewish law.”[3] For instance, he touches and heals a leper in Matthew 8, and later in the same chapter, he heals two demon-possessed men living in a cemetery. In Matthew 9, we see him touching a dead girl, and in turn, he is touched by a woman suffering from a “continual bodily discharge of blood.”[4] In each of these miracles, he touches and is touched by those considered to be unclean, and now, here in this part of Matthew, we find Jesus sharing a meal with the socially unclean of his day! Our scripture passage opens with Jesus calling on Matthew, who was “sitting at a kiosk for collecting taxes” to follow, so Jesus makes a disciple from a tax collector of all people! After all, tax collectors were “social outcasts among Jews because they were seen as collaborators with Roman imperial authorities.”[5] They were also seen as greedy cheats, as they would often collect above and beyond the Roman tax rate. You see, no one was hired by Rome to be a tax collector, instead, would-be-tax collectors paid the Empire for the privilege of becoming one. In order to not only make a living but make a profit, “tax collectors along the way could ‘gross up’ the taxes as their fees.”[6] You can see why someone like Matthew would be hated, as his line of work not only cheated people out of money, but the money he collected also benefited the Roman Empire, their dreaded oppressors. As a traitor and outcast, it is no surprise that the only people Matthew can get to come over and eat with Jesus are other traitors, outcasts, and sinners. Unlike tax collectors, we do not know precisely how sinners are defined and why they are outcasts. Though, we know enough to say that they are “moral outcasts” of some kind in their day, the “socially marginalized” of their time.[7] Today, we might see them as the “prisoners, prostitutes, pimps, AIDs victims, dope dealers” in our society, in other words, those who we would rather ignore than sit by and share a meal with, “like Jesus.”[8] In both the case of tax collectors and the sinners, I am sure most folks felt justified in avoiding and excluding them! After all, it was not done without reason or simply because of pure prejudice, as they are the dangerous ones, right? They betray us, steal from us, degrade our society, and promote crime! Aren’t they the societal viruses that we need to expunge for the world to be truly healthy? That’s what the Pharisees may have thought when they asked Jesus’ disciples, “‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’” Jesus overhears them and responds with two things. First, he compares himself to a physician, saying, “‘Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do.’” In other words, he acknowledges that these people are sick– broken in fact! They are not whole, so instead of expunging, they need treatment! We see this more clearly in the second part of his response where he quotes the prophet Hosea, “‘I want mercy and not sacrifice.’” In other words, it is not the “ritualistic practices and religious traditions”[9] of the day that will fix these people, as all those can do is continually make these already broken people feel more broken. Imagine if you went to the doctor after feeling sick for a while, and they put you through a barrage of tests and a whole litany of questions. Now, finally, the doctor arrives to give you a diagnosis, names the disease, and points a finger at what is wrong! What would you expect to happen next? Treatment, right!? Yes, we know now what is wrong, so what do we do about it? Imagine then, that instead of naming a treatment, the doctor simply repeats the name of the disease, citing the diagnosis over and over again, despite any questioning there’s no treatment in sight, just a constant reminder of how sick you are. It is easy enough to tell people how they are wrong and what they’ve done wrong, but that doesn’t actually fix anything. Nor, is the fix found in you telling them what they should be doing right, as that is also part of the sacrificial system of the day. It doesn’t fix their problem, instead, their problem becomes how others see and treat them. They can offer all the sacrifices they want to in the temple, will it ever make being a tax collector okay? They can observe all the rituals they want, but will anyone really want to touch a prostitute or be touched by one? Instead, Jesus outlines the treatment protocol: mercy. Here, the Gospel of Matthew keenly points to the “mercy of God, extended to humanity in Christ, [a mercy that] takes precedence over all else.”[10] Mercy, also called compassion, is that unmerited favor and kindness that we show to others. It is taking the outcast and including them, restoring them to community, to wholeness. Jesus does this by joining them at the table, Jesus heals through eating with them. Can you see it? There Jesus is, touching the person with AIDs, accepting food from the pimp, having his feet washed by a prostitute, and laughing with the gang-banger. It is dangerous, and it is a vulnerable place to be! And yet, it is precisely this place, at the banquet table with the social and moral outcasts of his day that Jesus gives us a taste of what the kingdom of God ultimately looks like. In Isaiah, the prophet gives a vision that looks remarkably like Matthew. There, Isaiah shares, “On this mountain, the Lord of heavenly forces will prepare for all peoples a rich feast, a feast of choice wines, of select foods rich in flavor, of choice wines well refined. He will swallow up on this mountain the veil that is veiling all peoples, the shroud enshrouding all nations” (Isaiah 25:6-7 CEB). One day, God will prepare a feast for all people, and they will share it together because God is going to swallow up the veil, the wall, those dividers between people. That day sees its start in the pages of Matthew’s gospel, where Jesus removes veils of uncleanliness and sin, to eat with people, to show them that God wants them, loves them, and has made room for them at the table. This will be the act that transforms people, heals them, and restores them. That banquet day is also today, here and now. What if I told you that it is no harder than eating with the people that you prefer to avoid? What if I told you it was as easy as eating with the ones others call dirty, sinful, wicked, and perverse? What if I told you it was through eating with the people both dangerous and harmful in our minds, that we too are saved? After all, do you think that the chances are good that someone else sees us as the sinner, the tax collector, and perhaps even the dangerous one? Who is preparing a table for us, and who are we preparing a table for? Remember these questions, next time you make up your guest list, and remember that all of our tables should be a reflection of the banquet that awaits. Amen. [1] KCNourish, “From FOOD INSECURITY to a FOOD SECURE Kansas City,” https://nourishkc.org/ (accessed February 24, 2024). [2] Cynthia M.Campell and Christine Coy Fohr, Meeting Jesus at the Table: A Lenten Study (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2023), 20. [3] Guy D. Nave Jr.,“Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26: Exegetical Perspective” in Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 3, eds. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 117-121. [4] Ibid. [5] Ibid., 119. [6] Campbell and Fohr 2023, 21. [7] Luke A. Powery, “Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26: Homiletical Perspective” in Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 3, eds. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 117-121. [8] Ibid. [9] Nave 2011, 119. [10] M. Eugene Boring, “Matthew 9:1-17, Christ’s Call Generates Opposition” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. VIII, Leander E. Keck, ed. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 232-236.
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