A Short Sunday Sermon

 

Christ calls Matthew from the "receipt of custom," his tax collecting office, and Matthew follows. Of course the Pharisees aren't pleased, and who can blame them? Tax collectors were especially bad then, even more than now, with private corporations bidding the Roman State to tax a province. The highest bidder won the contract, obviously, paid the State an upfront value assessment and went on to collect the profit, as in anything above the base value they'd paid Rome.

Lucrative business, and it grew ever larger as Rome's conquests waxed large. The Publicani, tax farmers, grew so rapacious that several provinces rose up in revolt. By the time of Christ some of the worst excess may have been curbed, but still, these were bad people as were their enforcers on the ground, people like Zacheus and Matthew. No wonder the Pharisees weren't too keen that Jesus should hang out with these bad actors, and they were bad.

So they ask the disciples, "Why does your Master eat with tax collectors and sinner?" Guilt through association, eh? Not unlike, if you can imagine, a church council after the War of Northern Aggression taking a dim view of their Pastor having lunch with carpet baggers. Shudder the thought.

OK, we get that, but Christ wasn't condoning Matthew's sin or anyone else's, he was extending the hand of divine mercy, love and compassion to the utterly wicked in the hope that he might save them for life. A beautiful thing and the the Pharisees should have been in the same business, but they weren't, they were too full of self-regarding conceit and judgemental moralism. In old Brit Club vocab they'd have been classed as insufferable snobs. But that's as maybe.

Christ see's into their whitewashed, sepulchral hearts and cuts to the chase, quoting Hosea, "Learn what this means. I desire mercy not sacrifice." They must have gnashed their teeth, "How dare a 'Holy Man' who eats with total sinners tell us what to do." A fateful choice which threw them out of the orbit of God's mercy.

Message? Don't be like the Pharisee. Look, it even rhymes, so we can remember it. That said, take heart, if Christ can call an evil man like Matthew he can and does call us too. Follow.

Ad Maiorum,

LSP