Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Matthew 9:9-13
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date:  June 11, 2023

Have you ever seen a sign that says, “No Shirt. No Shoes. No Service.” I don’t see them around much anymore but growing up they were quite common in restaurants in northern Wisconsin. I dug a little this past week and found that they first popped up in the 1970s as a reaction to Hippie Culture. A newspaper clipping from Eugene, Oregon in 1972 reads: Hippies have taken over the north end of town and the business people don’t like it. They have signs on the stores which say, “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service.” Businesses didn’t want those longhaired, barefooted, progressives turning off their customers so they used the signs to sidestep discrimination laws. 

People have always been pretty good at finding ways to draw lines between themselves and those they deem undesirable. The same is true today: Whether conservative or liberal, whether religious or secular, there is a bright line in every mind which discriminates between the good from the bad, the righteous from the evil, the useful from the useless. What would your sign say? Who do you think is bad for business?…Did you know that Jesus has a sign outside of his business too? His sign says, “No Sin, No Service.” Today we are going to look at the call of Matthew and consider how our Savior discriminates.

As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting in the tax collector’s booth. He said to him, “Follow me.” Matthew got up and followed him. My mom is a nurse and when I was growing up I remember the nights when she was “on-call”. She hated it because she could never really relax. If her phone started ringing, I knew that  she had to get up and go, regardless of what we were doing at the time. Perhaps you know someone like that, some poor person who really isn’t in control of their schedules because they are on call. Matthew’s call reminds of that. Jesus calls and Matthew must follow.

There’s that passage that everyone loves from Romans 8:28 “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Most people just like to talk about the first part, but focus on the second half here. Everyone who loves God has been called according to his purpose. In other words, you know that you do not belong to yourself anymore. You’re ‘on call’ for the Lord. When Jesus called, Matthew’s life was changed. He was no longer in charge of it. This is what it means to follow Jesus, when you realize by the Spirit’s power that Jesus’ words and desires are the ultimate good.  It’s a growing sense you have, sometimes joyfully-sometimes reluctantly, that Jesus owns the central location in your heart and life—both privately and publicly. 

And that’s exactly what we see happen with Matthew. Matthew hosts a dinner at his house and he invites all of his tax collector buddies, but then he also invites Jesus, the esteemed Rabbi. An interesting mix to be sure! We read: As Jesus was reclining at the table in Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were actually there too, eating with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” Now, this meal was no backyard BBQ. The text talks about reclining and this gives us the hint that this was a more traditional meal. It was likely a meal given to introduce Jesus to Matthew’s friends, and the guests who came expected to learn from the honored Teacher. And this really bothers the Pharisees. You can imagine the disdain in their voices as they ask his disciples:“Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

It’s usually at this point when we get out our Pharisee fly-swatter, right? Oh those Pharisees, so close-minded and stuck up. Those unspiritual, religious-types. Right? They are just unloving and should be more loving to Matthew, the poor tax-collector. But the truth is that they have a very good point here, probably a lot better than we realize. In the first century, tax-collectors were not poor and they certainly were not oppressed. They were barred from temple worship and were marginalized socially, but this was more by choice than anything. They knew what they signed up for. They had hired themselves out to the big government, or big business, of Rome. They would collect taxes from their own people for Rome and made their money by charging extra. Tax-collectors were in many ways the oppressors. There are records of Jewish tax-collectors getting so vicious that at times the Romans had to step in because they charged so much that entire towns were abandoned! In his commentary, Craig Keener includes the record of elderly women being beaten at the command of tax-collectors and of many immoral bribes tax-collectors accepted. Now, we have no reason to assume that Matthew was the worst of the tax-collectors, but we also don’t have any grounds to assume he was the best, either. This is who Jesus probably greeted with a kiss on the cheek as he entered his large house, built on the backs of the common laborers. This is the type of wealthy men who recline at the table furnished with good food taken out of the mouths of more-deserving by taxation. Can you see why they asked the question?! Why is your teacher eating with them!? Doesn’t he care about our people? Doesn’t he care about the people who have been abused and oppressed by these wicked men? We love to hear when Jesus welcomes the outcast and the downtrodden? But how about when Jesus welcomes the rich oppressors? Are we willing to follow Jesus in welcoming those whom others reject for good reason?

Part of the dynamic we don’t quite get here is the issue of contamination. We live in an individualized culture which often underestimates the value of community in character formation. Having a meal with someone is a personal thing, a sign of a relationship. You may not think about it much, but you become like the people you eat with the most, your friends and family, the people you let in close. The Pharisees were concerned about contamination.  The healthy should not be in contact with the sick, right? We understand that. But they also applied this morally and spiritually. They thought that Jesus was defiling himself by drawing close to tax-collectors and sinners. Especially if you read Matthew nine after reading chapter 8 where Jesus touched a man with leprosy, where he laid hands on the sick, and came into close quarters with the demon-possessed! Entering into Matthew’s home and breaking bread with him was the last straw. They thought Jesus was tarnishing himself by entering the intimate proximity of sinners—these sinful men who cheated people, who didn’t follow the Mosaic law, who didn’t sacrifice at the temple. No self-respecting Rabbi would do this! Has he no decency? “Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?” 

Well Jesus hears this public challenge and answers: “The healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.”  Now, on the surface that’s obvious. But what he is saying is more profound. He is saying, I’m a physician of souls. I am working right now. Jesus is our doctor! How wonderful! Sounds great, right? But what does that say about us? It says that we must be sick—spiritually sick. We who are so often proud and insecure. We who love our fragile self-righteousness and put up our signs to keep the bad our. We have sin-sick souls and that’s what Jesus came to heal. And realize what that says about him. It says that Jesus isn’t what most would consider a safe doctor! If a human doctor goes to work on a patient with a serious sickness, there needs to be some sort of distance maintained, there needs to be boundaries, like gloves, masks, etc. Just the same, the Pharisees would be okay with Jesus preaching to the tax-collectors and sinners from a distance because there’s a boundary there. But eating supper in their house? That’s not appropriate. But Jesus isn’t concerned with contact. He takes off the rubber gloves and masks. He isn’t worried about being contaminated! He chooses to touch the unclean leper and he wants to eat with the sinners.

This is why it’s profound, because we know that when the healthy come into contact with the sick, the healthy get sick. Right? When dirt gets on the rug, the rug doesn’t purify the dirt, the rug gets dirty. But Jesus is saying that whoever is in a relationship with him, no matter how defiled they may be, no matter their record, no matter what you’re done, no matter how ashamed you feel, are cleansed. Jesus says, “You cannot defile me. My holiness overcomes your sin!” He’s not another voice who tells you how to avoid the bad stuff. He, in himself, makes you clean and holy.

Other human religions and even secular ideologies can only create a fragile sense of righteousness. Everyone, religious or not, tries to validate themselves, tries to use some metric to demonstrate their self-worth. Everyone is trying to perform to feel good about themselves. But your righteousness is conditional, your goodness if you will is fragile. There’s insecurity. So you need to stay away from the unclean people, because that will ruin your reputation, that will have a bad effect on you. You can’t talk lovingly with the other side, that would be to compromise your own stance! You can’t have contact with the “sick,” as we subjectively define them. You have to hang the sign on the door. You have to draw that bright line between the good and the bad. We see this all the time, don’t we? We do this all the time, don’t we? We would never say there’s a line, but we act like it. We don’t cross over. We can preach to them, but we can’t eat supper with them. Lord, forgive us.

Jesus changes us.  How? Well, Jesus took our sin upon himself—he became our sin—so that in him we might become the unstainable righteousness of God!  In Christ you become clean on the spot, apart from your performance and apart from your feelings. And this gives us industrial-strength-confidence. We know that we are clean in Christ completely and perfectly apart from ourselves, so we don’t have to be insecure. We don’t need to worry about losing our status as clean. Our status as God’s children is not fragile. It is inscribed in the book of Life for all eternity, and stamped in the blood of our good physician. And Jesus  gives us his own bulletproof, non-condescending confidence in this righteousness so we can go out to the world with his Gospel. C.S. Lewis once talked about Jesus as a good infection. I love that idea. Doctor Jesus infects us with holiness, with his forgiveness, so that we are walking contagions of his grace. 

Jesus concluded his response to those Pharisees with these words: “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” In other words: “No Sin, No Service.” This is the way God discriminates, between those who acknowledge their sin and those who continue on in the delusion of their own righteousness. That’s the only line in God’s kingdom. My friends, don’t go today with your own fragile self-achieved image, your own insecure moral character. Take the robe of Christ’s unstainable righteousness and serve up some mercy! Don’t be squeamish about sharing God’s grace. Remember that Jesus called a tax-collector to be his disciple and he’s glad to claim you too. In Jesus’ restaurant there’s unlimited food and drink for all who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Amen.