“Matthew invited Jesus and His disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners.But when the Pharisees saw this, they asked His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with such scum?” (Matthew 9:10-11).
Missing the forest for the trees?
Matthew, the tax collector, is on “cloud nine.” Feeling on top of the world, for once, he’s accepted as a real person instead of being looked down. He has just won a spiritual lottery: Dinner with Jesus! Not only that, it is the Rabbi, the Lord that everyone is talking about who has initiated the whole thing. It’s an invitation that is too good to turn down. It brings out joy, and generosity in him. Wow! Dinner with Jesus. I’ve to invite all my tax friends to celebrate together! 
A) Jesus’ Grace Promotes Open Generosity
So he gathers his friends. True joy is being able to share one’s happiness with people he knows and loves. He invites his tax collector friends to join in. He invites other “sinners” to come. He displays a spirit of open generosity amid a climate of judgmental religiosity.
The guest of honor is Jesus. Let the party begin. Better than meeting top powerful kings and princes. Better than shaking hands with movie stars and pop singers. Better than crashing a party where everyone toes the same line or adopts a patronizing stance. After all, nice words are not necessarily true. Truthful words are not necessarily nice. The best thing is to be one’s true self, and to be accepted. Jesus’ big heart of grace makes it all possible.
B) The Pharisee’s Non-Grace Caps the Fizz of Joy
However, there is a problem. Like throwing a wrench into the works, the keepers of the law turn party poopers. Not wanting to disrupt the gathering, the watching Pharisees take the sly approach. They ask the disciples in an accusatory manner: “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
I wonder why the Pharisees didn’t disrupt the whole gathering like a religious policeman bashing through the door? Maybe they were afraid of arousing the ire of the tax collectors. Maybe they just want to be nice and to avoid an embarrassing confrontation with Jesus. Understandably, they have a bad track record for losing arguments with Jesus.
It’s a known fact that tax collectors were despised at that time. After all, they made a living by charging an additional interest on top of everything else the governing authorities required. So for every $1, they charged $1.20. For every $99, they collected a few more dollars for themselves. It wasn’t illegal, just distasteful. After all, tax collectors were making the Roman Empire rich by taxing their fellow Jews. The normal thing was to shun such “traitors.” Don’t eat with them. Don’t patronize them. Don’t play golf with them.
Why then was Jesus eating and drinking with these scums of society? It infuriated the Pharisees. Perhaps they were caught in the middle, like between a rock of the Law and a hard place of Jesus’ popularity. So they spoke softly, not to Jesus, but to His disciples. They wanted to play it safe. Their hardened hearts had blinded them to put principles before people, law before grace, and convictions before conversions. E. Stanley Jones speaks of such negative people: “They came all the way from Jerusalem to meet Him, and their life attitudes were so negative and faultfinding that all they saw was unwashed hands. They couldn’t see the greatest movement of redemption that had ever touched our planet—a movement that was cleansing the minds and souls and bodies of men. All they saw was a ritualistic infringement. Their eyes were open wide to the little and marginal and blind to the big.”
C) Beware of Small Minds
Jones reminds us about the dangers of having a small mind. When we become fixated on “I,” we tend to miss the forest for the trees. When we’re consumed with obeying laws, we tend to miss the spirit of the law. John Ortberg reminds us about missing the bigger picture: “I do not see how it would be possible to find a meaningful life in a meaningless universe. The only purpose that is worthy of life is something bigger than life itself” (Know Doubt, Zondervan, 2008).
Beware of small minds that suffocate. Embrace a big heart and open mind to free yourself from hypocrisy. Free yourself from burdensome expectations that place principles before people. Learn from Jesus, the Man who came to earth to save, not to punish. Jesus responded to the Pharisees secretive words: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.”
Yes. Let those of us who are sick, not call others “sick.” Let us instead call upon Jesus, the Doctor and the Healer. Often, when we try to prescribe Jesus for others, we are actually the ones who need Jesus more. Big-hearted faith comes only after we meet Jesus . . . like Matthew the tax collector. —pic and copy submitted by Conrade Yap, Canada
daisymarygoldr on November 29, 2011 at 9:24 pm
For Jesus to hang out with the scum of society was not to make us feel good and great about ourselves. His purpose was to extend God’s saving grace to all—publicans, prostitutes, pedophiles, rapists, murderers, adulterers, addicts, homosexuals, witchcraft, demon possessed, drunkards, liars, cheats, thieves, atheists and every other wickedness known to humankind.
Let us not be deceived, “The scum of the earth are no ways fit to fill the heavenly mansions… Men are very much inclined to flatter themselves that God is such a one as themselves, and that they may live in sin and yet die in Christ, may lead the life of the devil’s children and yet go to heaven with the children of God… We cannot hope to sow to the flesh and yet reap everlasting life.” —Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
We are all sinners by birth and choice. Matthew 9:9-13, is a personal testimony of the tax collector’s call and complete conversion—by the pure grace of God. After being cleaned and healed if there is still scum and sick in the church, then we are in big trouble. Christians are called to a much higher standard of God’s laws. The Psalmist said it best “You skim off the wicked of the earth like scum; no wonder I love to obey your laws!” (Ps 119:119)
Thanks Conrade Yap for the thought-provoking post!