The only thing as hated in prison as a sex offender is a snitch. And Matthew was a rat who didn't sell secrets. He collected the cheese for the cat. If you can think of a reason why you don't meet the standard, why you're not good enough to be called of Christ, you can think again. Matthew proves that Jesus is for losers, foul ups, failures and felons. If you can think of a type of misfit or outcast Jesus hangs with someone who fits the description, or used to fit it.
People wouldn't look Matthew in the eye. Some Jewish merchants wouldn't sell him their wares. No one invited him over for Hanukkah, no one respectable anyway. If he'd ever quit his job as a tax collector he better have enough money to retire, because no one was going to hire him or do business with him. He couldn't be trusted. He was a tax collector. Not an IRS agent. This was closer in the minds of the people as a Jew who drove the train for the Gestapo.
Even if someone thought about giving him a chance to better or different, few would, because of the guilty by association. What would the neighbors think? Worse, what would the Pharisees think? To show just how not a tax collector they were, the Pharisees would spit when they neared a tax collector. They would ridicule, mock and scorn, if they deigned to acknowledge one at all This was a man most certainly not welcome or accepted in the local church.
Now, with the stage clearly set, Jesus enters stage left. He walks up to this horrible man named Matthew. The crowd waits for the ridicule to begin, for the prophet to spit at the feet of the traitor, for the evil one to be put in his place by the teacher. Jesus says, "Follow me." Wait. What? Follow me? That's not what's supposed to happen right? You may wonder what the other disciples thought. After all, they were respectable business owners and hard workers. They had forsaken everything to follow Jesus on the premise that they would become fishers of men, not to be associated with tax collectors and have their reputations ruined. I really don't think that they were comfortable with Matthew at all, at least not at first. More on that in a minute,
Jesus told Matthew to follow Him, and Matthew got up and did just that. He followed Jesus. No promise of greatness here. No you will be a fisher of men. Just come to me. Come with me. OK. You see with folks like me you don't have to paint the sky with elaborate and lofty things to entice us from our nets. I accept you is enough to get our full attention. Why, because we, Matthew and I, didn't even accept ourselves. We wore our shame like cheap cologne and made ourselves sick with the stench.
He followed, and the first place they went was....Matthew's house. No one acceptable to society in any way, form or fashion ever went to Matthew's home. It's the first place Jesus went. It's also the first place Jesus goes with all of us. Let me come into your home, He says. Home is where the heart is, right? Home is our center, our retreat, where we keep the nick nacks and things we use to escape the pressure of the life and world outside. Home is where we take off our masks. This is where Jesus wants to go first. No masks, no retreat. Let's go inside. Yes, I know about the skeletons in the closets and the dust demons under the beds. Let's break bread and fellowship in the heart no one else would enter if they cared about their reputation at all. It's awesome, and it's frightening, but that's where Jesus wants to be, in the center of who we are with no pretense and no hiding.
Word must have spread, because Matthew tells us that when they were at his house, so were many other tax collectors and sinners that came to sit down with them. It's probably a safe bet that the crowd followed them just to see where this great teacher was going with such a man as Matthew. When Jesus sat down in this sinner's home, the rest of the crowd must have been shocked. It was an epic scandal to be sure. I'm sure the ida of a Rabbi and prophet sitting down to fellowship in a tax collector's home was about as outrageous as the idea of seeing Billy Graham or Pat Robertson hanging out in a crack house. The other sinners came running. They didn't want to miss the chance to be a part of this. Could it be that this man of God really accepted them and loved them?
Back to the disciples. Some of them sat down with Jesus and the sinners. We know this because Matthew says that the many tax collectors and sinners sat with Jesus and His disciples. But I don't think that they all did. I believe that some hung back, at the edge of the crowd. They didn't refuse to participate, but they didn't want to get too close and be associate with the sinners either. Like some Christians today who wouldn't want to be associated with a felon or an addict or a homosexual. even if Jesus was reaching out to those same outcasts. Maybe that's being harsh. Maybe the disciples didn't feel that way at all. But I know that the Pharisees felt that way. The Pharisees came on down to Matthew's house to see what was going on and to see what Jesus was up to, but no way they came into the inner circle and rubbed elbows with those guys. And at least more than one disciple was there on the outer edges as well, because the Pharisees asked the disciples why Jesus would do such a wicked and disgusting thing as eat, break the bread of fellowship, with such people.
Still, they were close enough that Jesus heard the question. Which means the tax collectors and sinners heard the question as well. I can imagine Matthew's face blossoming in shame. Here he thought he would finally be accepted and was able to associate with someone as important as Jesus, and the Pharisees had to go and remind him and everyone just what his status was in society. He wasn't worthy.
This is where Jesus uttered the famous line that He didn't come for those who are well but the sick. That's an easy verse to love. A simple truth, we all need Jesus, but He can only help those who realize that they need help. But have you ever stopped to think about the scene as it happened and how Matthew and the others might have felt? One minute the Great Rabbi is accepting them and having fellowship with them, and the next He's saying their sick right there in front of them. How would it feel to be hanging out with Jesus and have some holier than thou religious nut say it's not a good idea and have Jesus respond, yeah I know their sick, a disgusting mess, and that's precisely why I am here? But I don't think it added to their shame at all.
First, when Jesus looked at them, they saw the love of God, call them sick all day long, that look of love makes a difference. Secondly, every one of those folks knew exactly where they stood in society. They had resigned themselves to their fate as outcasts. They were sinners. They were traitors. They were everything despised by society, and there was nothing they could do about it. They knew this. But when Jesus said they were sick, He equated Himself with a doctor there to make them well. Matthew might always be associated with his shameful stint as a tax collector in the eyes of people, but Jesus was promising restoration with the Father. When God loves you, and you know it, what does it matter what people say?
Matthew latched onto that hope, that promise. I'm sure he wasn't the only one at his house to do so By the end, he was in the upper room with the other disciples waiting on the spirit, equal in standing to the fishermen. He received the same calling to be an apostel. He was set free from the shame of his reputation and his past. The love of Jesus set Him free, and all he had to do was get up and follow, when Jesus said follow, and let the Master into his home.
We all have something we are ashamed of. Somthing we hope others don't find out, or wish they didn't already know. Some of us have made minor mistakes, some of us are the tax collectors, the dregs and outcasts of society. We can't feel worthy to come, to fellowship with the good, clean folk, because we know that we're sick and disgusting. But the thing is, that's the best place to be. To know and understand that we're sick ad can't change it on our own, gives us an advantage over the people who think they're ok for the most part, who feel pretty good about themselves. If you feel that weight of self-loathing, the answer is not to bolster your self-esteem or try to focus on your good qualities. The answer is to get still and quiet enough to hear the Savior say follow me to healing and freedom. Then, immediately get up and follow Him.
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