“Unlikely Heroes of Faith: Matthew”
Matthew 9:9-13

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost—October 18, 2015

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Our fall sermon series during October and November is on “Unlikely Heroes of the Faith.”  Maybe sometimes you don’t feel or act like what we think a “saint” should be, a hero of the faith.  It may surprise you to learn that the great saints of old often felt that way too. 

We continue this morning with today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus calling “Follow Me” to MATTHEW.  EVERYONE considered Matthew to be an unlikely hero of the faith: his friends, his enemies, and Matthew himself.  Because, Matthew held what was considered to be in that society the MOST sinful occupation: tax collector. 

Now, the Bible actually says, in Romans, “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. . .  Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities . . . This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes . . .”  And, when asked about paying taxes, Jesus himself said, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.”  So, why would tax collectors be considered the worst possible sinners?

It is estimated that taxes under the Roman Empire were 80%-90%, often near total confiscation.  Taxes on land, taxes on houses, taxes on crops; taxes on imports and exports; bridge taxes, road taxes, highway taxes, harbor taxes; caravan taxes, ship taxes, taxes for docking a ship, taxes for loading a ship, taxes for unloading a ship; axle taxes, wheel taxes, animal taxes, pedestrian taxes; taxes for crossing a river, taxes for crossing a dam; a sales tax, an income tax, a value added tax, and a luxury tax.  Sound painfully familiar?  Those are just SOME of the taxes levied by the Roman Empire.

Matthew’s tax collector’s booth was located on the shores of the Sea of Galilee NOT because of the pretty view, but because it was an important crossroads for commerce, and therefore collecting taxes and duties.  Matthew’s main business was probably imposing export duties on the #1 local product, pickled fish from the Sea of Galilee.  This was considered a great delicacy, the caviar of the Roman world.  It was exported throughout the Empire, and featured on the tables of the rich and famous, including Caesar’s table at Rome. 

There were also several major highways that passed through the area, on which camel caravans traveled, loaded with goods.  And the Sea of Galilee itself was an inland waterway for the transport of goods.  And right there, on the spot, was Matthew, probably one of the busiest tax collectors in the Roman province of Palestine.  The caravans and boats that passed by had to be all unloaded and unpacked for his inspection, and to calculate and collect the duties.  And every jar of pickled fish that left Capernaum had to pay an export duty to Matthew.

The Romans were ingenious at inventing new taxes, and long before the age of computers those taxes were collected with a thoroughness and exactness that would put our own I.R.S. to shame.  So, is it any wonder that the Roman tax collectors were so hated and despised?

But, Matthew was hated by his fellow Hebrews for a MUCH deeper reason.  Tax collectors were considered the worst possible sinners BECAUSE they weren’t just tax collectors, they were traitors, collaborators with the enemy, the Romans, who had occupied their country for nearly a century.  What made it both possible and profitable for the Romans to continue their occupation was the exorbitant taxes that Matthew and the other tax collectors extracted from their own Jewish people on behalf of the hated Romans.

One of the other original 12 disciples was Simon the Zealot.  The designation “the Zealot” probably means Simon was part of a guerilla resistance movement, fighting against the Romans and their collaborators—like Matthew.  So, right within the inner circle of the 12 disciples there was another disciple who started out as the most bitter enemy of Matthew the tax collector.  Most of the average people had sympathies with these Zealots, and the main reason they hated Matthew and the other tax collectors was not so much religious but political and economic, because they were collaborators with the enemy, confiscating on behalf of the Romans from the poor Hebrew people nearly everything they had. 

But, for the Pharisees in today’s Gospel Reading, the main reason tax collectors were considered the worst possible sinners was not political or economic, but religious.  As a Roman tax collector, Matthew handled coins with idolatrous images and inscriptions to pagan false gods.  Because these images and inscriptions venerated false gods and proclaimed Caesar himself to be a god, to handle such coins was considered by the Pharisees a blasphemous violation of the 1st Commandment, “You shall have no other gods before Me . . . you shall not make for yourself a graven image.”

In Leviticus the Lord forbids using dishonest measurements and standards in doing business, and that’s another reason tax collectors were so despised.  Because, they often inflated your tax bill, collecting much more than they were actually required to, and kept the difference for themselves.

Whether the objections were political and economic, like the Zealots and most of the common people, or religious, like the Pharisees, EVERYONE thought Matthew was an unlikely hero of the faith.  Tax collectors were excommunicated from the synagogue, shunned by their families, and outcast from every aspect of Hebrew society. 

“While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples.  When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’” 

“Sinners” was a catch-all phrase for anyone else who had been excommunicated from the synagogue.  The “tax collectors and sinners” were lumped together as the lowest, most despised segment of Hebrew society.  That is why it was such a great scandal when Jesus not only ate with tax collectors and sinners at Matthew’s house, but actually called Matthew to be one of his inner circle of disciples! 

Why in the world would Jesus choose such a hated and despised man to be one of his apostles?  Precisely to make the point that his Church is not a museum for the self-righteous, but a hospital for the spiritually sick.  “When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”  On hearing this, Jesus said, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.’”

You see, EVERYONE considered Matthew an unlikely hero of the faith—EXCEPT the ONLY person whose opinion matters! “As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. ‘Follow me,’ he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.”

The Pharisees thought the Church should be a museum and mutual admiration society, for the display and boasting of the righteous.  Luke tells us that Jesus told the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee, “To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else.”

“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’  But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God.”

That’s what the Pharisees thought the Church should be, a place to go and brag before others and even before God.  A museum and mutual admiration society, for the display and boasting of the righteous.

“I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. . .  It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.”  All of us are spiritually sick with the disease of sin.  But, the Great Physician of our souls has a miracle cure for your sins.  For, he cured the disease of your sin by taking all your sin-sickness on himself and suffering the deadly consequences in your place.  As Peter says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross.” 

The Great Physician of your soul invites you to receive the miracle cure from him: “Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”  “For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, even though he dies, yet shall he live.” “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” 

“I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. . .  It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.”  Christ’s Church is not a museum or mutual admiration society, for the display and boasting of the righteous.  Christ’s Church is the spiritual hospital of the Great Physician.  A place of healing and refuge and recovery for wounded and weary souls. 

In this spiritual hospital, the Great Physician cures your sin sickness with three medicines: the Word of God, which Isaiah calls, “The Word that sustains the weary”; the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, which Paul describes as “the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit”; and the Sacrament of Holy Communion, to strengthen you in the true faith unto life everlasting.

“As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth.” Everyone considered Matthew an unlikely hero of the faith: hated and despised, shunned and outcast, actually excommunicated from the synagogue.  Everyone considered Matthew an unlikely hero of the faith—EXCEPT the ONLY person whose opinion matters: “‘Follow me,’ Jesus told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.”

Martin Luther puts it this way: “Christ’s kingdom on earth is not made up of superlative saints who are completely free from sin or perfectly holy. Rather, he calls those who have weaknesses, frailties, and sins, and who therefore possess a timid, burdened, and disturbed conscience. He will not reject them or deal with them severely, as they deserve, with threats and terrors of wrath and damnation. On the contrary, he seeks to attract and invite such sinners in the most friendly, gentle, and pleasant manner to come to him and to seek and expect comfort and help from him. As he says: ‘Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest’; and again: ‘I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’  Therefore we are not loved by Christ because we are righteous; rather we are made righteous because we are loved. For Christ came to love the unlovely, and to make righteous the unrighteous.  This is the love and righteousness of the cross.”

Amen.