Matthew 9:9-13
St. Matthew

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

More than once our Lord Jesus Christ put the work of a tax collector in 1st century Israel on the same level as the work of a prostitute. And the comparison is quite valid. For the woman who was a harlot sold her body for money; but the man who was a tax collector sold his soul for money. Because he did this, you could even say that the tax collector was more degraded than the prostitute. He was there among the lowest of the low in society. And yet this is the background of the one we now call Saint Matthew, the Apostle and Evangelist of our Lord, whose day is observed in the church on September 21st.

A Jewish tax collector such as Matthew had paid a good amount of money to the Romans for the right to collect the taxes they levied upon his poor countrymen. Matthew, in a very real sense, was a turncoat. It's not just that he was like an IRS agent. It would be as if one of your neighbors had the power to force you to paid thousands upon thousands of dollars to some foreign government. The Romans expected to receive a certain amount of money from Matthew on a regular basis. The difference between that amount and what Matthew actually assessed was his margin of profit, his income. Therefore, there was a strong incentive for Matthew to assess high and tax his countrymen for all they were worth, since he was already hated by them anyway for doing this job.

St. Matthew tells us very straightforwardly what his occupation was before Christ called him away from it all with the Gospel. However, Matthew leaves out, unlike Mark and Luke, the fact that his Hebrew name was Levi. And we can well understand why Matthew might choose to neglect this ironic little detail. Levi was the name of the tribe which all of Israel's priests came from. A Levite received no portion of land like the members of the other eleven tribes. Rather, a Levite was to rely on the Lord as his portion and upon the gifts of his fellow Israelites, who were to honor the Lord by supporting the Levite priests. Well, our man Matthew-Levi here had decided not to wait upon the Lord but rather to go out and get hold of his own lucrative portion, not by receiving gifts but by taking required assessments.

And so it is somewhat understandable when the Pharisees speak to Jesus' disciples and ask with righteous indignation, "Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" However, to this question the Great Healer of sin-sick souls replies that it is not those who are well-or who think they are well-that have need of a physician. It is rather those who are sick and diseased and who know it. Think about it. If you don't believe you're sick, you're not likely to be seeking out a doctor. It's only when your health fails that you do so. So it was with these Pharisees. Though they had sinful, ill, self-serving hearts like everyone else, they thought that they had no sin-sickness, that they were spiritually healthy. And so they saw no need for Jesus and were repulsed by the company He was keeping. But many of the tax collectors and other sinners had come to know very well that things were all wrong with them. They knew they needed help. And when the Great Physician came to them, they received His healing medicine. Moved by His mercy and love, they turned away from their sin, and they believed in Christ's words of life, rejoicing in the fellowship of eating with Him in His presence. Like a skilled and caring doctor ministering to the sick in a third world country, Jesus had come to seek and to save the lost. And Matthew was one of those whom Jesus sought out and recovered. Let us then be sure to count ourselves not as those who are spiritually well, but as those who are sin-sick, so that we will always seek out the mercy and the healing touch of our Great Physician.

Jesus continues by telling the Pharisees to go and learn what the Scriptures mean when they say, "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice." Jesus is referring there to a passage from the Old Testament prophet Hosea. Hosea had actually been instructed by the Lord to go and marry a prostitute, a woman named Gomer. That action was meant to be a living parable of God's steadfast and faithful love to His people Israel, who continually went whoring after false gods. God was saying to His people, "I desire to show you My mercy and loving-kindness far more than to receive your half-hearted and inconsistent sacrifices." God was far more interested that they should know Him as Savior and live in His mercy than to see them try to work out their salvation on their own.

That beautiful Gospel of God's undeserved grace toward His people was the living message of Hosea to Gomer. She was entirely unable to free herself from her sin and her harlotry, but out of sheer mercy God gave Hosea to rescue her. Hosea literally bought her out of that life. Matthew, too, was entirely unable to free himself from his sin; he was all caught up in his money-grubbing covetousness. But out of sheer mercy, Jesus came to him, forgave him, and set him free from that old way of living, calling Matthew to follow him on the path of true life.

And the same thing is true for you, too. For we also are in bondage and cannot set ourselves free from our lost condition. As Hosea says, our faithfulness to the Lord is like the dew that burns away early. It's there and then it's gone. One minute things look good, and the next we're straying away from God to adulterate ourselves with other pleasures and priorities. We, too know greed. But our Lord Jesus does not turn away from you or forget you. Rather, He has literally bought you out of your enslavement to sin and death and the devil. This He has done not with gold or silver, but with His holy precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death. That is the price your heavenly Groom willingly paid to purchase your freedom and to have you back with Himself.

Just as Jesus came to Matthew, so also He came to you personally and individually in Baptism. He called you one on one to be His disciple, washing away your sins by water and the Word and setting you on the path of life in Him. Just as Matthew arose and followed Jesus, so also through Jesus' Gospel call your soul has been raised from the death of sin. Baptized into Christ, you disciples are given to follow Him through death into the resurrection of the body on the Last Day.
In fact Jesus' mandate to go and make disciples of all nations by baptizing and teaching is recorded for us in Matthew's Gospel. Matthew himself is one of the eleven apostles who was first given this charge. This also is a sign of God's great grace, that when the Lord calls certain men to be apostles and pastors, He even puts into his service messed up and prideful sinners like Matthew and Paul and Peter and me. Matthew was converted by grace from one who takes to one who gives. Once a thief by trade, now it was his calling to freely dispense the mercy of God to the undeserving. That is what every minister is called to do today, to dish out to repentant sinners the overflowing forgiveness of God in words and water and bread and wine.

As Matthew once extracted taxes for Rome from the Jews, now we have in Matthew's Gospel the Gospel written specifically for the Jews, that they might receive their long-promised Messiah. In this way Matthew lived up to his name, which means "gift of God." This man who had sold his soul for money was redeemed by Christ and made into a physician of souls for others. So it is that the words St. Paul wrote about himself certainly also can be applied to St. Matthew, "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life."

Let us learn then to view the church not as a health club but as a hospital. Far too many think of church as some sort of fitness center for those who want to do certain spiritual works and exercises to get themselves or to keep themselves in good spiritual shape. But the truth is that church is much more like a medical center for critical patients whose only hope is the treatment and ministry of the Great Physician. The church is only for the infirm. For Jesus said, "I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." If you think your spiritual health is just fine, then Jesus isn't for you. But if you know your spiritual situation to be hopeless on your own, if you're tired of your sin-sickness, Jesus is for you. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

That's why Martin Luther wrote to his friend, Phillip Melancthon, telling him not to deny or downplay his sin, but rather to acknowledge and confess it. Luther said, "God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world."

When we see the calling of Matthew by our Lord Jesus, we see the truth of those words and of Christ's victory. If God can save someone like Matthew-and not only that, but make him an apostle and writer of the first Gospel-then certainly He can also save people like us. And indeed He has. The same mercy shown to Matthew has been shown to us all in Christ the crucified. And just like Matthew, Jesus now even shares a meal with us, His own body and blood given and shed for you for the entire forgiveness of all of your sin.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

(In memory of and with thanks to the Rev. Stephen Wiest)