Matthew 9:9-13 - The Calling of Matthew (and you)

The Calling of Matthew (and you)

 

Matthew 9:9-13, NIV - As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.  While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?  On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

 

                One of the most effective pastors I know was a drug dealer before he became a Christian.  God has used his ministry to reach hundreds of folks who have had similar experiences.  Another man I knew years ago had served time in prison for violent crimes and before becoming a  Christian while incarcerated.  He began a ministry upon getting out of prison that continues now long after his death. They help inmates and recently released convicts find a path to a better life. And for the last two months, we have been working our way through a gospel in the Bible written by a man who exploited his fellow Jews to get rich collecting taxes for the Romans.  It is more than a little curious to see who God will choose to serve in his kingdom and yet, it is deceptively simple.  God will choose anyone.  God chose me and God chooses you. 

                When asked why he ate with “tax collectors and sinners,”  he quotes Hosea 6:6 in his answer: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”  We may miss Jesus’s edgy intent here, but the Pharisees would not have missed it.  The prophet Hosea was calling out his people for observing proper sacrificial rituals, but conducting them without the heart of love of God and neighbor that was supposed to be the reason behind those rituals.  Jesus, in quoting the prophet, was accusing the Pharisees of doing the same.  The Jews were a people that were set apart by God beginning with Abraham in Genesis 12.  But they has long forgotten that they were set apart so that “all peoples on earth will be blessed through [them]” (Genesis 12:3).                 They got the “set apart” part right, but they were not seeking to bless those who needed it the most. 

                Matthew wants to remind us that it is very easy for us to make the same mistake.  We can deem others (or even ourselves) unworthy of God’s blessing and isolate them from the community of believers.  In my lifetime, I’ve personally seen this happen to divorced people, unwed mothers, people of other faith backgrounds, and many other would-be “tax collectors and sinners.”  Ironically, the very Gospel quoted to legitimize such exclusion was written by a reprehensible tax collector.  When we do this, we forget two essential truths:  (1) we are “sinners” and (2) God and God’s people sought to bless us anyway.  There is no category or label we can put on someone that, in God’s eyes, excludes them from a place at the Lord’s dinner table.  Think of the most disgusting, repugnant person you know.  Seriously, conjure up that person in your mind and then picture this – Jesus having dinner with them.  Because I assure you  - Jesus would do just that.  As soon as we begin to think that we deserve a place at Jesus’s dinner table, we have, at the same time, begun to presume that there are people that don’t deserve it. 

This is not Jesus-like thinking/acting.  When we catch ourselves thinking/acting like that, we are already on the right track.  It’s people who don’t ever consider that their exclusionary thinking/acting is exclusionary that are departing from Jesus’s ways.  Awareness of what’s not like Jesus in us actually makes more space for Jesus in us.  As the old saying goes, recognition that there is a problem is the beginning of a solution.   

 

Question:  Do you ever catch yourself thinking you are more “deserving” of blessings than others?

 

Prayer:  Lord Jesus, help us see our desperate need for Your mercy.  And then, help us to see others’ desperate need for the same and offer it to them. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for God to help you see un-Jesus-like patterns of thought in you.

 

Song:  Jesus, Friend of Sinners – Casting Crowns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJXIugwiN7Q

 

Matthew 8:5-13 - God Showing Up in “All the Wrong Places”

Daily Devo w/ Pastor Eric September 17, 2021

God Showing Up in “All the Wrong Places”

 

Matthew 8:5-13, The Message - As Jesus entered the village of Capernaum, a Roman captain came up in a panic and said, “Master, my servant is sick. He can’t walk. He’s in terrible pain.”

Jesus said, “I’ll come and heal him.”

“Oh, no,” said the captain. “I don’t want to put you to all that trouble. Just give the order and my servant will be fine. I’m a man who takes orders and gives orders. I tell one soldier, ‘Go,’ and he goes; to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

Taken aback, Jesus said, “I’ve yet to come across this kind of simple trust in Israel, the very people who are supposed to know all about God and how he works. This man is the vanguard of many outsiders who will soon be coming from all directions—streaming in from the east, pouring in from the west, sitting down at God’s kingdom banquet alongside Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Then those who grew up ‘in the faith’ but had no faith will find themselves out in the cold, outsiders to grace and wondering what happened.”

Then Jesus turned to the captain and said, “Go. What you believed could happen has happened.” At that moment his servant became well.

 

This passage always steps on my toes.  It should step on the toes of all of us who claim to be “on the inside” of God’s community.  This is one of those passages where we want to be the Roman Captain, but we are not.  We are Israel where Jesus has not seen such faith.  We’re supposed to have such faith, but it often escapes us.  We sometimes get “outfaithed” by outsiders and it’s not fun. 

One of my favorite theologians is Soren Kierkegaard.  He spent much of his life as a self-imposed outcast of the church because he felt the Danish state church had lost its way.  He was embraced more as a philosopher in his own day (he is regarded as one of the founders of existentialism) and was not really taken seriously as a theologian until almost a century after his death.  But his writings on the nature of faith and the church have called many insiders to greater faith.  I am one of those beneficiaries. 

I have often gotten the chance to officiate at weddings and funerals for families that are not “church-goers.”  Many times, during those experiences, I encounter folks who talk about their faith in a way that is so refreshing and inspiring that I leave the encounter feeling like I received more from them than I gave.  I have often read magazine articles/books by people who don’t call themselves Christians and found that I encountered Christ in their writings.  I have heard God speak through podcasts/TED Talks from folks who would be offended if I called them a Christian.  Some of the most profoundly moving music I have ever heard was not created by Christians and yet I feel the Spirit in the notes they put together.  My point, and I think Jesus’s point as well, is not that the insiders are bad.  The point is that we insiders often forget that we do not have a monopoly on the things of God.  God is not confined to work through the church.  God’s voice can be heard in places where the church has not/will not go.  God’s healing is not reserved for those who “deserve” it (as if that were possible).  We professional faithers sometimes get too big for our britches and need to be humbled. 

 

Question:  When was the last time you were humbled by someone who is an “outsider” to the faith?

 

Prayer:  God forgive us for our presumptions about where you will show up, how and through whom you will speak, and who will receive your healing.  Give us humble spirits so that we experience your grace in whatever way it is offered.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray that God will speak to you today in a surprising way and then spend the rest of the day anticipating how it will happen.

 

Song:  Not surprisingly, I chose a song today from an “outsider.”  This is one of my favorite songs ever.  It awakens my spirit every time I hear it.  I hope you have music that does the same for you, regardless of where it comes from:

My Oh My – David Gray

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_M8fQG9OSI