The Small Stuff~The Ven. Rose Bogal-Allbritten, Deacon

Text: Matthew 9:9-13

A popular book published a number of years ago, was entitled Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff. This self-help book offered ways to calm down in the midst of your incredibly hurried, stress-filled life. Offered advice included: make peace with imperfection, remind yourself that when you die, your “in-box” won’t be empty, chose your battles wisely. When I hear today’s Gospel, it makes me think that Jesus and Matthew might have co-authored that book.  By Jewish standards of the time, both Matthew and Jesus had plenty to worry about.  They both lived on the margins of society—Jesus as an itinerant preacher who lived a life of poverty, and Matthew as a tax collector whose job earned him contempt.  They both were despised by the Pharisees: Matthew because of his occupation, and Jesus because of his free association with social outcasts, but, compliance to the norms of society was the “small stuff.”

Let’s look at Matthew the tax collector. While we grumble about paying taxes, we don’t generally regard them as illegal or immoral.  In first-century Palestine, however, there was widespread resistance to and hatred of taxation, for taxation was seen as much more than the mere collection of money. The coins which were collected were stamped with the images of Roman rulers, a violation of the Jewish abhorrence of images. The taxation of land was especially offensive since the Jews believed that the land belonged to God, not even to the Jews themselves, much less foreigners.

This hatred of taxation was transferred to those individuals, like Matthew, who collected the taxes. Most likely, Matthew wasn’t even a chief tax collector. Chief tax collectors were usually local aristocrats who leased the right to collect taxes in a given area for a flat fee. The chief tax collector hired underlings, rootless persons unable to find other work, who would actually collect the taxes. There was a great deal of pressure placed on the tax collectors to bring in as much money as possible. Opportunities for graft, extortion, and theft were almost unlimited, and people simply assumed that every tax collector had his greedy hands deep into other people’s pockets. Even the money collected was considered to be so tainted that it was not accepted as alms. And the tax collector was considered to be as tainted as the money he handled; his evidence was not admissible in the law courts; he was barred from the synagogue. The tax collector was a true outcast.

We’ll never know what Matthew thought when he heard Jesus’ words, “Follow me.”  Maybe he didn’t think at all, but instead, responded with his heart. We don’t hear him asking, “why should I follow?” or “for how long do you need me?” or “what will it cost me?” or “why are you calling a tax collector?” We just know that Matthew got up and followed Jesus.  

And his response may seem very strange to us. We live in a psychologically sophisticated age. We want to know why Matthew responded in this way and we are tempted to try to figure out his motivations. We cannot imagine someone immediately getting up from his job and following Jesus without some significant subconscious reason, some prior inner need that was being met. In our world, people simply do not move instantly from busy bureaucrat to devoted disciple without psychological cause.  

But this was not about Matthew’s psychological make-up or his “readiness” to follow; it really wasn’t even about Matthew. Rather, it is about the power of Jesus’ word. The same power which calms the raging storm and casts out the demons living among the tombs in the Gadarenes, as told in the chapter which precedes today’s Gospel; the same power that pronounces forgiveness on the man who is paralyzed, an event which is described immediately before the call of Matthew, is also seen in Jesus’ call of an outcast. When Jesus speaks, his words have great power and authority over forces of nature, over demonic powers, over sin and disease, and now, over a tax collector. There is absolutely nothing in Matthew that commends him to discipleship. Everything about discipleship is based on the radical grace of Jesus’ call: “Follow me.”

“Follow me.” What were the implications of this command by Jesus? Tag along at my heels? Keep ten paces behind me? Sit and eat with me? Yes, sit and eat with me. Eating together meant much more than being given an opportunity to satisfy ones hunger—table fellowship was a powerful symbol of the great feast, the coming of the kingdom of God.  With whom one chose to eat was a matter of great consequence in first-century Judaism.

So it is significant that one of the first things that Matthew and Jesus did together was to share a meal. Jesus didn’t take Matthew to some out-of-the-way café—you know, one of those places where you hope no one recognizes you. Instead, he joined Matthew at his house, surrounded by an entire group of tax collectors and in full sight of the Pharisees.  In sharing a meal with a group of social outcasts, Jesus demonstrated that his ministry was inclusive. The despised tax collectors are embraced by Jesus not because they are good or pious, but because they, along with sinners, prostitutes, and outsiders like the Samaritans, are among the precious lost ones whom God finds in the ministry of Jesus.  They are the ones who respond to Jesus’ invitation.

When the Pharisees confront the disciples about Jesus’ behavior by asking, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus does not wait for the disciples to answer but responds to this overheard inquiry in three ways: with a proverb, with a question from the prophets, and with a statement about the nature of his ministry. The proverb, “those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick,” points to Jesus’ healing and saving role—to touch the diseased in mind, body and spirit and to restore them to full health.  

With the quotation from the prophets, Jesus sends the Pharisees back to Scripture, specifically to the words of the prophet Hosea (6:6): “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” In this passage, Hosea is describing God as the healer of Israel, loving and merciful. This love and mercy of God, extended to humanity in Christ, takes precedence over all else, so that everything in the Law must be understood in this light. And the servants of this God must also be genuinely loving and merciful, not merely ceremonially religious.  

And finally, in the last sentence of the Gospel that we hear today: “For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners,” Jesus turns the customary reading of the Old Testament on its head. Repeatedly, in the Old Testament, we hear that “sinners [will not stand] in the congregation of the righteous” (Psalm 1:5) and that God loves “righteousness and hate[s] wickedness” (Psalm 45:7). Jesus’ entire ministry is based on the opposite; Jesus the physician is there for sinners, not for the self-righteous, not for those whose religious practices have taken on a life of their own—as expressions of love of self and self-acclaimed goodness—and have, in doing so, become isolated from love of God and neighbor.

I wonder if the Pharisees ever went back and actually “heard” the words of Hosea. Did they get the point that Jesus was trying to make? Did they see that God did not call them to condemn sinners, but to embrace them? Did they see that God called them to extend their hand to those in need? Did they see that God called them to practice a religion of selflessness rather than one of self-preservation? Did they continue to distance themselves from those whom they viewed as tainted with sin, or were they able to reach out in love and forgiveness? Were they, like Matthew, ever able to get past the “small stuff” and hear what God really asked of them? Are we?