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In the name of Jesus. Amen. Beloved in the Lord, today we observe and celebrate the Feast of St. Matthew, giving thanks to God for his calling, for his faith, for his apostleship, and then, of course, for the gospel he penned that we know by his name.
Now, ironically, though he did write this very carefully ordered and precise gospel, he may have actually been a man of few words, because he is one of three apostles in the entire New Testament that is never recorded as saying anything. Now, even if he was a quiet man, we know that the Holy Spirit has a great deal to say to us through Matthew, who today teaches us exactly what the Church of Christ is all about.
Now, our gospel reading is fairly short; it’s only five verses. But in those five verses, Matthew gives us three short scenes to observe and to contemplate together. Now the first of these is his calling, his conversion affected by Jesus. We know from the text that Matthew was a tax collector of some kind, employed by the Roman occupiers and quite likely despised by the vast majority of his fellow Judean countrymen.
Now, we don’t know what his rank or his position was within the tax collecting system. He never records that. And in his humility, he also never tells us what all he left behind to follow his Lord. Although the evangelist Luke does, saying that Matthew left behind everything to follow Jesus. But Matthew does share with us what’s important. Namely, that Jesus was walking by and he saw a sinful man. And when he saw him, he called that sinful man to himself with a word.
And I love that the text uses the term “rose” here. It says that upon hearing that word, Matthew rose and followed Jesus. Now, both in English and in Greek, this term here for “rose” literally means to stand up before following. But it is also used in the context of resurrection of the dead. And so, while we don’t want to push this too far, because again, it means that Matthew stood up and then followed Jesus, we can also see here an image of conversion.
Because we who are dead in our trespasses, as St. Paul wrote, can only be made spiritually alive by grace, which comes to us through the word of Christ. Now, Matthew understood that. And here he shares with us that the church is all about the powerful word of Christ, which calls us into life.
Now, the second scene from our gospel lesson takes place in Matthew’s house, where we see Matthew and then all the rest of the disciples reclining at table with Jesus and a whole host of tax collectors and sinners. And here again we have a very real, very historical event that took place in time but that Matthew also provides as a catechetical, a teaching metaphor.
See, our Lord called Matthew, a tax collector, and then proceeded to eat at table with the degenerates, the undesirables of society, if you will. Now, did these people earn or deserve Jesus’ presence in any way? Certainly not. In fact, I don’t think it would be going too far to say that several of the apostles were probably uncomfortable reclining at table with those people.
But just as Matthew’s call is an image of conversion, so too is this gathering and meal in Matthew’s house an image of the church. Having converted and called every Christian by his word, God then calls us together to recline in the presence of our Lord himself. And this house is not made holy by any of us or by the things we’ve done, but by the very presence of Jesus Christ.
Now, the house belonged to Matthew in our text, similarly to how a church and a congregation is entrusted to a pastor. But yet in both situations we have Christ our Lord himself as the host. And here we see again, it’s the poorest, most despicable people who are brought together to relax in the presence of God incarnate himself.
And so too are we, poor, wretched, and miserable sinners gathered together into God’s presence to receive His gifts of life, forgiveness, and salvation day after day, week after week, in His church. And then we see another parallel. While the sinners come to Jesus, the world judges them as fools and as hypocrites.
Now, I’ve heard many people who will say something to the effect of, “I won’t go to church because the Christians who go to church are hypocrites.” They talk about what’s right, what’s wrong. They talk about morality and the things we should be doing, and then they don’t do them. Now, there are some kernels of truth in there that we learn from the law, but when people say that, their understanding of the gospel is totally flawed.
See, yes, we know that we still sin, and the reason that we come to church isn’t because we think we’re good enough to be in the presence of God by merit of our own, but rather because we know that we are in desperate need of the forgiveness that is only offered here by our crucified and risen Savior. And it’s sad but ironic that some of the people who complain about Christians being hypocritical might consider themselves good enough to live their life without the forgiveness that is offered here.
But as Jesus teaches us today, he came for sinners. In fact, he’s only come for sinners because only sinners need him, which of course includes every one of us. And it’s for this reason that the church has been likened to a hospital, where sick people come in looking for healing and for medicine that they can only receive there.
And just like a hospital for sick people, so too is the church a place for sinners in need of the great physician and his healing of forgiveness. One of the earliest church fathers, Ignatius of Antioch, really latched onto this metaphor in quite a beautiful way. And he said that the Lord’s Supper is the medicine of immortality. And I think that is a beautiful thing to call it.
Only sinners go to church. And Matthew here in this episode shows us that the church is all about sinners being in the presence of God who graciously hosts them. And the judgment that we see from the world brings us to our third scene, where the Pharisees come to Jesus and his disciples just utterly disgusted by their fellowship with these tax collectors and sinners.
And after listening to them berate his disciples, Jesus rebukes the Pharisees by giving them homework. He says, “Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” And I can only imagine how insulted the Pharisees might have felt at these words.
Because these are the teachers of Israel. These are the experts in the law and of all things religious. And here they’re being told off by who they perceive to be this upstart theologian from Galilee, who’s reclining with unclean sinners. But we know that Jesus has been in the business of teaching the teachers since at least the age of 12 when those in the temple marveled at his wisdom and his answers concerning God and the scriptures.
By recognizing the attitude they had of self-centered righteousness, Jesus deals them a devastating blow by quoting Hosea. He says to them, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” And he’s quoting Hosea, who proclaimed against the people of Israel and Judah the judgment of God for their unfaithfulness.
Now, as a quick note, there’s this type of construction saying, “I desire X and not Y,” that is used throughout the Old Testament. Now, it doesn’t mean that God wants nothing to do with sacrifices because, after all, God is the one who instituted the sacrificial system. But what it’s conveying is that God desires mercy above sacrifices.
That is to say, God does want you to make the proper sacrifices, but only if they come from a heart rightly ordered in love toward God and toward your neighbor. And we see this as early as in the story about Cain and Abel, where God had regard for faithful Abel in his offering, but not for the faithless Cain in his.
And like Cain, these Pharisees thought that they could please God with their sacrifices and by doing all of the law, checking off all of the boxes, so to speak, but pushing mercy off to the side. This is evidenced by their pure disdain for the sinners with which Jesus ate. And the Pharisees thus reveal that they’re not particularly interested in the spiritual well-being or salvation of these tax collectors or sinners.
Amen. And that, well, as long as they’re doing all the right things for themselves, then quite literally others be damned. Now, Jesus recognized this attitude, this attitude that was unconcerned for the neighbor. And when he quotes Hosea, it’s as if he says, “You who see yourselves as so healthy and strong in your understanding of the law, well, you don’t understand the law at all.”
God has commanded you in the law to love him and to love your neighbor, and you show no mercy. Therefore, you do not even love God, but yourselves. And it’s that dual object of the law that these Pharisees failed to observe.
See, the law teaches us both to love the Lord our God with all our heart and our soul, mind, and strength, and then to love our neighbors as ourselves. Both are critical. And if you lack one, then you lack both. And it’s for this reason that James would later go on to write that faith in God, without good works oriented towards your neighbor in love, that faith is dead.
The law being two-dimensional in this way, I think, is really a useful image. Because first, there’s the vertical aspect, right? One who does the law is in a right relationship with God. He is loving and doing the will of God in the law, and thus in right relationship with him. And then second, we have this horizontal aspect, where when a person follows the law, they’re loving their neighbor in a godly way, looking to the benefit of their neighbor and working for good works pleasing to God.
And the law is both of these put together. That’s why we have the two tables of the Ten Commandments, right? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. But then we also have love your neighbor as yourself. This is evident in the Ten Commandments and in all of the law.
And so, with these two dimensions, the vertical and the horizontal, we see that the law itself is shaped like a cross. Now, we, along with the Pharisees, fail in pretty well every way to live out the law, and it was for that reason that Christ was placed upon that cross because the law convicts and it kills.
And it was upon the cross of the law that our Lord fulfilled that very law on our behalf as only he could. Because Jesus alone perfectly loved God and his neighbors. And so, with his voice and head oriented upward in perfect prayer to the Father, and with his arms spread out horizontally on the cross, as if to embrace the world with a desire to save, our Lord cried out, “It is finished.”
And in his death, it was declared that all who believe in him now have eternal life and stand before God as having fulfilled all of the law. So yes, Jesus came to save sinners, the sick, by making them righteous and healthy before God, not by their own works, their sacrifices, and saying all the right words and checking off every little box, but by His holy, precious blood shed for us in grace.
And so, in this closing scene, the rebuke of the Pharisees, Matthew records what Jesus imparts to us, that the church is all about the mercy of God which delivers to us sinners Christ crucified, our great physician for the forgiveness of every one of our sins.
And so today we give thanks to God for his servant Matthew, a man who, by receiving God’s grace, understood God’s grace towards sinners and teaches us what great and wonderful gifts that our Lord gives to us through his church: faith through his powerful life-giving word, his very presence as host among sinners, and healing by his death on a cross.
Now, it may be that Matthew was a quiet man; we don’t know. But regardless, through the gospel that he wrote, the Holy Spirit has been trumpeting for 2,000 years the victory of God over sin, death, and the devil. And the gospel of Christ crucified for us is proclaimed boldly. God be praised for his work through such a man as Matthew, a former tax collector turned saint.
And God be praised for the rich grace that he bestows on every one of us, sinners turned saints, who come to his church day after day, week after week, to bask in his glory and receive his gifts of life, forgiveness, and salvation.
In the name of Jesus. Amen.