Sermon on Matthew 9:9-13

 

Wednesday before Trinity 3 - Matthew 9:9-13

 

Jesus was walking along when he saw Matthew sitting at his tax-collecting booth.  He was coming from having healed a paralytic.  If you remember, Jesus didn’t heal the man right away.  Jesus saw the faith of the poor man’s friends who had brought him to Him.  And so Jesus told him, “Take courage, child, your sins are forgiven.”  He only healed the man to prove His authority to forgive sins. 

 

Then Jesus saw Matthew sitting at his tax-booth.  He was stuck there, working to get taxes for Rome.  He was sitting in sin.  What was his sin?  Greed.  The tax-collectors had authority from Rome to gather taxes from all the people, and they had permission from the Roman government to charge more than the Romans demanded so that he could make his job worthwhile.  And so Matthew, whose Hebrew name was Levi, betrayed his own kin and country to get rich.  He made money by impoverishing and humiliating others, who had no power to resist the sword of Rome.

 

What does Matthew need at this point in time?  He has this world’s goods.  He is rich man.  He has more than most.  He has more than enough to support even an extravagant lifestyle.  Have you ever tried to think of giving a gift to a rich man?  It’s really hard.  What do you have that he doesn’t have?  But Jesus knows what we need.

 

Even the heathen sing their songs about how money can’t buy you love and money doesn’t make you happy, and the sociologists talk about how the happiest people are those who are neither very rich nor very poor, but somewhere right in the middle.  But the solution of men is never what Jesus has to offer.  Who would think that a paralytic’s first need from the Maker of all things was not to be healed and made able to walk, but the forgiveness of sins?  Who would think that Matthew needed anything from Jesus? 

 

And what did Matthew need?  He needed to follow Jesus, just as the paralytic needed forgiveness.  Jesus didn’t ask him for his money.  He didn’t ask him to forsake all he had, or to repent, or to consider the value of his money over the eternal wealth that Jesus offered him.  All of that was already included in and superseded by Jesus’ short little sermon to a man who was stuck in a tax-booth and greed that held him bound, “Follow Me.” 

 

God wants to be with you.  That is a call to repentance.  When Jesus began His ministry, He didn’t say, “Repent, for hell is waiting for you otherwise!”  He said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  Jesus says, “Follow Me.”  I want to be with you.  And for you to be with Me, means that you have to go where I am going.  I am going away from your tax booth.  I am going away from your idols and the things you have given your devotion to; I am leaving behind Me the pleasures that hold you captive and the pride that keeps you defending what is evil.  Follow Me.  I am not staying there where you exploit people and use people for your own ends.  I am going somewhere else.  Follow Me. 

 

Jesus in two words tells Matthew to repent and believe the Gospel.  We don’t know what happened to Matthew’s heart before this time.  There is no time for Matthew, who wrote this eye-witness account, to dwell on prevenient grace or some sequence of events that led him to realize his need and turn in some dramatic way to Jesus.  The drama, the play, the story, the focus, and the meaning, all revolve around the fact that Jesus passed by him when he was living in sin, and said to him, “Follow Me.”  And Matthew rose up and followed Him.

 

Matthew doesn’t even mention that he had left behind everything.  That’s certainly what happened.  You can’t just leave your job when you want to.  You’ll get fired.  And that’s what happened to Matthew.  But Matthew could care less what he left behind.  Just two words had given him more than everything he had gained by serving sin.

 

The first word is “Follow.”  The second word is “Me.”  Follow means going where He goes.  Where does Jesus go?  He goes to other tax-collectors and sinners.  Matthew modestly omits what Mark and Luke both tell, that Matthew gave a great feast where he invited all of his fellow greedy tax-collectors to hear about Jesus.  Matthew follows Jesus to his own people, to his own embarrassing, greedy, and unrighteous sinful friends. 

 

Jesus takes Matthew into the midst of his sinful life.  The story goes the same with Zacchaeus, the wee little man, who climbed up in a sycamore tree, for the Lord he wanted to see.  Jesus’ sermon to him was just as simple.  Zacchaeus, hurry up and come down.  I’m going to stay at your house today.”

 

The Gospel is Jesus wanting you to follow Him.  And where will you follow Him?  Into your own house. Into your own life, where your sins are, and your sins are where your people are, where your family and friends are.  That is where Jesus wants to go.  Jesus wants to be with you.  God, against whom you have sinned, whom you have set aside for toys and games and money and leisure and pleasure and approval of others; God, who created you, but you have loved what He made more than your Maker, wants you to follow Him to your house, to your life, to your sins, and to other sinners like you. The doctor walks by and sees that you are sick, and he doesn’t send you off to a hospital, but tells you to follow Him to your house, where he will heal you, where He will see nothing He didn’t know about before, but now you’re not facing it alone, but with your Maker and Redeemer’s eyes of mercy and compassion, and with His heart that doesn’t first take away the paralysis, but first tells you why you can be of good cheer, why you can take courage against every battle in your life against the devil, the world, and your own sins – because your sins are forgiven.

 

Jesus passes by people at different times.  I have known people whom I admired, but they want Jesus to keep walking without saying anything to them.  St. Augustine talks about himself having this attitude, when he wanted to believe in Jesus, but wanted more to continue to enjoy this earth’s pleasures, but he knew he couldn’t serve to masters.  It doesn’t work to have your heart belong to the stuff that is on one side of you and also to Jesus who is walking by and telling you to follow Him.  You can either look at your stuff and your own hope of happiness in that stuff or to Jesus, the giver of greater goods than stuff. 

 

But Jesus keeps coming.  And He goes to places where people don’t want to go, and He goes to places where people judge Him for going, where we can see no hope of healing them because first they need to shape up if we are to hang around them. And there are times when we can’t be with people because they are simply too evil, and our mercy isn’t enough.  But Christ’s is.  “Go and learn what this means,” Jesus says to the Pharisees, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.”  There is mercy that we can’t give until Jesus comes to us and tells us, “Follow Me.”  And we watch him go to the ghettos of greed, where people are treated horribly, and simply pluck a tax-collector out of hell and He invites us to eat at his house, and then listen to the book that he wrote for our salvation. 

 

He goes to the places where you don’t want to go.  He faces your sin.  He looks at you with confidence, knowing you, and tells you to follow Him, and He promises mercy by His very command.  He plants and grows faith and confidence in your heart that this God whom you thought you had to hide things from wants you to be with Him.  And then He goes with you to your life and has mercy on you.  Those who are well have no need of a doctor.  But you are sick, and He is the true Physician.  His medicine is immortality, because His words are Spirit and forgiveness and life.  He can treat the disease because He has carried our sicknesses by bearing our sin.  He can cure the sickness because He rose from the dead and from the sickness that you thought you needed to hide from, as if He didn’t know it, but now bring Him into your home, into your heart, into your life, among your friends and family, and know what a merciful, perfect, compassionate, and divine Doctor this Jesus is. 

 

He will not pass by unless you want Him to.  But even if you feel inside that He should pass by, that you are unworthy, that you can’t do what is needed to be with Him, to be anything for Him, to receive anything from Him, then this Doctor doesn’t listen to your feelings. He stops and tells you, “Follow Me.” 

 

And the heart that had long rejected Him receives the water that flowed from His side and is cleansed from sins that long had bound him.  It doesn’t matter the sin.  Greed, lust, anger, hatred, pride, cruelty, gossip, slander, blasphemy, envy – this is all the disease, and He is all the cure.  He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. 

 

So follow Him this evening.  Leave the place where you are sitting alone with stuff you don’t need.  Follow Him away from your sin and your fear of it; away from your worry and your shame; away from whatever earth has to offer, and He will take you home.  He will make your home His home.  He will speak and dispel the devil and call poor sinful hearts to find mercy and forgiveness in His blood and suffering, and patience and endurance and love in His rising from the dead.  Follow Him, and leave death behind and find the life God wants to give you.  He wants to be with you, not to condemn you, but to save you, and in saving you teach you that this life is worth living with all your heart, and people are worth loving as much as you love yourself, and Jesus is worth more than everything.  Amen.