Race Traitor Parties
Matthew - Masterclass • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 33:20
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· 4 viewsJesus calls Matthew to be his disciple.Tax collectors are the worst, in a way that is hard for us to understand. Jesus is constantly seen in bad company, bad influences who will drag his mission and ministry down. The people in the most spiritual danger are not the sinners who know they need help but the self-righteous who deceive themselves.
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Matthew 9:9-13;
Jesus calls Matthew to be his disciple. He is constantly seen in bad company, bad influences who will drag his mission and ministry down. The people in the most spiritual danger are not the sinners who know they need help but the self-righteous who deceive themselves.
New Kids on the Block
New Kids on the Block
Walking around, 4th grade, “do you like New Kids on the Block?”
And if they said “yes”. I don’t think we beat anyone up. But I do remember… that was our stated intention. Walking around, beating up anyone who liked the boy band.
They weren’t the “right kind of people.” Clearly.
Let’s talk about the wrong kind of people.
Tax Collectors. Gross.
Tax Collectors. Gross.
You think the IRS is unpopular?
Ancient Roman tax systems were regressive, they applied a heavier tax burden on lower income levels and reduced taxation on wealthier social classes. In ancient Rome, taxation was primarily levied upon the provincial population who lived outside of Italy.
So, the poorer you are, the more you pay, the further from Rome, the more you pay, and that money MOSTLY wasn’t for your roads and soldiers for local protection… it flowed to Rome and paid for palaces and temples to other gods.
You paid property tax on any property you owned, and each profession was assessed for how much they owed.
Then they practiced a thing call “tax farming.” People called publicani could get the contract for an area, and they would pay the tax out of their pocket, and then tax the local populace… and any extra they taxed would be their profit.
Other tax collectors in the Bible, liked Zaccheus, flat out admit that they would charge extra and got rich of the proceeds.
So these folks were traitors to their country, working for the foreign invaders, collaborating with the oppressors, and enriching themselves off by going beyond the tax burden of Rome.
Gross.
Well, 9 chapters into the book of Matthew, Matthew himself shows up in the scene.
Matthew Follows Jesus
Matthew Follows Jesus
As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him.
Fun fact: only Matthew calls himself Matthew. The others call him Levi. Levi means “uniter” or “joiner,” Matthew is the Greek version of MatiYahu… which means “gift of God.” I’d rather be “Gift of God” than “joiner” myself… and I am a Matthew. Dustin Matthew Mackintosh.
Matthew leaves the focus exactly where it should be: on the relevant action. He rose and followed.
Luke brags a bit on Matthew:
And leaving everything, he rose and followed him.
Fishermen could likely return to fishing… but Matthew’s post is gone. Fired. This is a lucrative posting, as despised as they were, there was a line of people ready to sell out their people for that sweet, sweet money.
… and could he get another job? Who wants to hire a former tax collector?!
He leaves it all and follows Jesus.
And… he isn’t sad about it at all. In fact, he throws a party at his house. A feast, TONS of people there. What kinds of people? The kinds that Matthew knows.
And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them.
Matthew is less kind to his friends.
“Tax collectors” … not “and others.” “and sinners.” That’s who they were.
Matthew Party
Matthew Party
This is actually a GREAT evangelical strategy, they call them “Matthew Parties.” Matthew meets Jesus, SUPER excited, invites all his friends to meet Jesus too.
A “Matthew Party” is the same idea. Invite your friends, invite your neighbors… find a way to include Jesus in the party. It doesn’t have to be weird. A prayer, an intentional conversation, an invitation or flyer to a Bible study, you could always invite the pastor, that’s a great conversation starter.
Side note: more Matthew parties.
What’s happening at this one?
Reclining at table
Reclining at table
This is “food fellowship.”
And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples.
Forget Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper.” Everyone in neat chairs. All on one side of the table for some bizarre reason.
More like this. Reclining at the table… because there are no chairs. In comfortable company. I think of our teenagers all sprawled out over each other on the couches out front. 6 butts squeezed together.
Why don’t we sit like that? There’d be some breakage for sure...
But also, it’s intimate, in a way that makes us uncomfortable. And that’s exactly what’s happening there.
More about the “feasting” next week… but it is a FEAST. It’s a party. Wine, cheese, milk and honey. Grapes, olives. Maybe Schwarma, did they have that yet? I don’t know.
Jesus’ intimacy, dining, feasting, drinking wine with “these people.” It’s uncomfortable. Wrong. They call him a drunkard and a sinner-by-association.
Estimated population of Capernaum, first century, 1200-1700 people. Smaller than your high school. Maybe some folks in from out of town, sure, Jesus is drawing crowds.
But you pretty much know the crowd, you know the people, party at Levi’s place (oh, sorry, I mean Matthew’s house). And you know and resent the tax collectors for getting rich at your expense, betraying their nation. But you also know what the rest of the unclean sinners are guilty of. There’s likely a reason they are willing to associate with tax collectors. Gross.
The wrong sort of people. The bad crowd. The ones your mom told you not to associate with, for sure. Wrong side of the tracks. Wrong occupation, wrong religion, wrong lifestyle, wrong actions. The wrong sort of people.
And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
Maybe this is some of the well-meaning Pharisees. There are Pharisees who want to follow Jesus, who do follow Jesus ultimately, maybe they are looking out for his reputation. The damage he is doing right now to his ministry, to be seen with race traitors like the tax collectors… and who knows what “sinners” is likely code for.
Elsewhere we see pairings like “tax-collectors,” “prostitutes,” and “Gentiles.”
This goes beyond teaching tax collectors and sinners. That’s fine, if you hold your nose. If you keep your distance and wash your hands afterwards. This is like… intimate. This is “time together.” This is fellowship.
Be Sick
Be Sick
Jesus says Matt 9:12
But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Now, he doesn’t directly call the Pharisees “healthy” or “righteous...” and I don’t think they are either healthy OR righteous. But they certainly think they are, in contrast to those “tax collectors and sinners.”
Jesus certainly elsewhere shares with Pharisees generally, individuals in particular, that they are sinful and sick as well… but he contrasts those who at least think they are healthy… with those who know they aren’t.
So, simple question, do you want to be one one of those that Jesus came for… or not?
Life principle: I want to be one of those that Jesus “came for.”
Does that mean I want to be “sick” and “unrighteous?”
This “mercy and not sacrifice” piece helps us understand.
Mercy and not Sacrifice
Mercy and not Sacrifice
What does this mean? Doesn’t God want sacrifice? He invented sacrifice, he invented the sacrificial system. Sacrifices for sin, for worship, sacrifice is his thing. Jesus is the Great Sacrifice, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
This is contrasting a particular type of sacrifice and calls back to many of the prophets we learned from a couple years back.
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
or
“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
This is all about the heart. It’s all about the attitude.
The prophets called out Israel for going through the religious motions, but their actions revealed that their heart was actually far from God. They were doing “right things” and looked the “right sort of people...” but God is not fooled.
The sacrificial system is a tool, teaching them the cost of sin, teaching them humility before God, preparing them for the Physician, preparing them for Jesus.
The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’
But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’
How are you coming to Jesus.
The Pharisees come saying “I’ve done all the right things, I have done all the sacrifices, I am the RIGHT kind of people!”
It’s like filling out all the paperwork at the Doctor’s office, grabbing a lolly-pop, and then going home. “I’m CURED!”
Sir, no, you have to see the Doctor. You have to take the medicine!
“No, you fool, I have paid my copay, I’m good! Get away from me, sickee, you haven’t paid your copay!”
How crazy this sounds to Jesus who knows their heart. Knows that the condemnation they pour on him is actually judgment on their own souls. It reveals how far from God they really are.
Those who think they are the “good ones” reveal their sin. Their arrogance. And they think they don’t need a Savior.
It isn’t that the we should desire to be “sick” and “sinful.” It is that the sick and sinful realize they need a Savior. They have come into the house, they have pressed near to Jesus, they are at the feast.
The Pharisees stand outside judging. Their judgmental spirit and arrogance has them outside. Jesus is in there. Whatever has you NOT pressing in to where Jesus is… you’re wrong.
This is so common in the church. So common in our hearts. No… not “those” people. Fill in whoever “those” people are.
Not the liberals. Not the Trump’ers. Not the drugees. Not the gays or the trans! Not the
Homogeneous Units
Homogeneous Units
There’s this church growth principle, I heard it pitched in the 90s, called the “homogenous unit” principle. Basic idea, people walk into a room full of people who look like they do… and they feel comfortable, so they stay. Church growth: identify a group, like 30-something white middle-class young families, focus completely on that group, and grow.
You can easily see how that gets gross quick. Starts gross, actually, quickly goes to classism and racism.
But it works. Because people like seeing folks who look like them.
So… who cares what grows a church. That’s not our job, here, by the way. We are here to make disciples and be disciples. We want to grow in that, and we do that by following Jesus, e’ery day, next step after next step, faithful and obedient and BOLD for Jesus.
So… what’s Jesus’ type? What’s his “homogenous unit?” Here it is:
And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples.
Jesus LOVES the people who know they need Him.
Jesus LOVES the unloved and unlovely.
Jesus WANTS the ones no one else wants.
It isn’t about class, the tax collectors are probably filthy rich. The fishermen… less so. The prostitutes, these aren’t high class elite companions, this is small town acts of desperation by someone with no other options.
It isn’t about race, ethnicity, sex or sexuality, politics… it is the people who know they need Jesus. The ones who follow. The ones at the table because that’s where Jesus is.
Our People
Our People
So, never forget. This is me. God, never let me be the Pharisee tallying my sacrifices and religious accomplishments and condemning those in need of mercy.
Let me forever say “have mercy on me a sinner.” I am a sinner, saved by grace. I desperately need a Savior.
Someone asked me last week, if we can “forgive sins”, if Jesus gives us that super power, why don’t we practice confession like the Catholics do? Great question! And in most ways, we get that wrong. The Catholic practice misses in the idea that only priests can dispense forgiveness… but they are absolutely right that confession, out loud, to another human, should be a regular normal and normative part of our spiritual practice.
It helps us live in this posture: have mercy on me a sinner. And sometimes we need to hear with our ears: “you are forgiven, go and sin no more.”
And let me never be “too good,” “too clean,” “too anything” to press in and feast with my brothers and sisters saved by Jesus.
This is us. These are our people.
We are tax collectors and sinners, feasting with Jesus.
We are the sick, healed and being healed by the Physician.
We are all “the least of these.”
We are the sinners called to repentance, not a long ago memory, but a daily discipline.
We are a people of mercy, who love mercy because we are at the fellowship table only because of mercy… and we give mercy because it is all that we live by.
Welcome to the feast with Jesus. This is us. These are our people.
