The Call of Matthew

Today's Reflections 

      

The Call of Matthew

Mt 9:9-13

⁹As Jesus passed on... he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. ¹⁰While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples. ¹¹The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” ¹²He heard this and said, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. ¹³Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

WITH TAX COLLECTORS AND SINNERS. Jesus walks down a busy street in Capernaum and notices Matthew (“Levi” in Mark and Luke) sitting at the customs post. Matthew is shunned as a sinner and a traitor because he collects taxes for Herod Antipas and the tetrarch’s Roman masters. Still, people cannot avoid him because the tax collector has soldiers at his disposal. To Matthew’s great surprise, Jesus calls him to be a disciple. To his even greater surprise, Matthew leaves his post to follow Jesus.

Matthew gives a banquet, a goodbye party for his fellow tax collectors. So unlike the rabbis of Israel who disdain Matthew’s company, Jesus sits at table with them, eating and drinking and having a jolly good time. Naturally, the Pharisees, the “separated ones” because of their strict observance of the Torah, criticize Jesus before his disciples, as if telling them, “Is this the kind of Teacher you are following?” Jesus does not deny the moral state of Matthew and company; they are “sinners.” But as a doctor of souls, he—and God—seeks exactly people like them. He brings them forgiveness and reconciliation with God that must be celebrated.

We all, the Pharisees included, are “sick” and need a physician. We can either join others in the “company of sinners” celebrating with Jesus the mercy of God or remain on the sidelines murmuring against Jesus’ welcome of the “unworthy.”

Sometimes good people make bad choices.

It does not mean they are bad;

it means they are human.