Follow me Matthew 9:9-13

SCRIPTURE

Matthew 9:9-13
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.
And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 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.”

LANGUAGE

Vs 13 mercy - compassion
Vs 13 sacrifice - the act or the victim

COMMENT

The choices that Jesus made for His disciples are interesting, and I think should speak clearly to us about what kind of followers he does and does not expect.

Take Matthew for instance. Matthew was a tax collector. On the scale of socially acceptable people, you could not get much lower than a tax collector. For one thing, tax collectors bought the privilege to be a tax collector, and then used that job to get wealthy by taking extra tax money from those they were collecting from. Another thing is, as a tax collector, they had to be in contact with gentiles, thereby defiling themselves constantly. So, if you really want to make a statement and tick off the established rulers, you definitely want a tax collector as one of your disciples.

So when Jesus was in the house (not sure from the text if it was Matthew's or not), it just made sense that some of the others would be friends and acquaintances of his disciples as well, including Matthew. And that appears to be the case. Here was a Rabbi who not only tolerated this type of individual, he embraced them! Boy, did this get him noticed. The Pharisees questioned His choice of companions, interestingly here not too Jesus's face, but to His disciples. Why does your teacher hang with such riff-raff? (To which they might have answered, "You mean people like us?) But Jesus must have overheard their question. Or perhaps the disciples went and brought the question to Him. Either way, Jesus makes two important statements in his answer.

The first one is that He came for the sick, and not the healthy. He came to set the prisoners free (Isaiah 51:14). He came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10). This again, goes back to the type of person Jesus was talking about in the Sermon on the Mount. Humble, hurting (mourning), meek people who need a physician (think Savior), and not proud and self-righteous people who God owed salvation. Healthy people don't go to the doctor, and self-righteous people don't need to go to the cross.

Second is that Jesus desires mercy over sacrifice. In other words the heart of compassion is what Jesus desires, not just the mere act of sacrifice (obedience). Again, go back to the Sermon on the Mount. Or better yet, think about the Pharisee who prayed, "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." (Luke 18:11,12) Now here was an obedient man, one who had sacrificed mightily for his faith. Yet it was the tax collector who went away justified.

I recall being asked to talk to a youth who was a Junior or Senior as I recall, very active and faithful in church, but had not been baptized. During our conversation he explained, "But I am a sinner, and there are some things I need to fix before I do that." I told him he had it backwards, we don't fix ourselves in order to come to Jesus, we come to Jesus because we need Him to fix us. I pray that we  all might understand and pray like the tax collector, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" (Luke 18:13)