November 5, 2008 + Sick sinner to healed saint + Hayward Fong

Matthew 9:1-13

He sat in his booth by the side of the road. His toll-booth, located on one of the main roads from Damascus into Israel, was on the outskirts of Capernaum. It was a good station. Besides regular taxes paid by the residents, travelers had to stop, present their imported products to the tax official, and pay their taxes before they could go on.

Now it was almost closing time. He gathered his papers together, checked the bills, the receipts, and added the money he had collected. “Hmmm,” he thought to himself, “not bad; business is good and getting better every day. A few more years, and then…” He had put his mind to it early. He had seen it time and time again: money talks. So he had decided to make money—that was the important thing. He would not become rich, necessarily, but make enough, enough to live well, enough to retire early and enjoy life. And if others could retire at sixty-five, he could make it at sixty.

He was clever enough to do it. He had a mind for figures, mathematics, statistics. His classmates and teachers had always thought him clever at school. He was not a man for sports, too puny, not strong enough. He would never make it as a salesman, he was not the glad-handing type. People had often remarked about his high forehead, “a sign of wisdom and knowledge,” they had said. He knew he was clever, clever enough to make money.

So he had chosen to be a tax gatherer. Why not? It was a lucrative field. He had heard that tax-gatherers were hard-hearted, money-hungry, demoralized men. But it couldn’t really be that bad. After all, they were Jews—most all of them were Jews. Just because they worked for the Roman government in collecting taxes, should not make them outcasts. Though people charged these publicans, these tax collectors with taking too much, how would they know exactly how much went to the government, and how much went to them? Some took twenty to twenty five percent. He would only take the accepted fifteen percent. That had been established, and after all, a man had to make a living, even if he has to do it by working for Rome.

Furthermore, he was a true son of Abraham. He was proud of his Jewish ancestry. He would always be true to his heritage. He could never deny that, even if it meant losing this position working for the Romans. It hurt him when he tried to attend the synagogue. After he had become a publican, they tolerated his presence a few times, but they had been so cold to him. They didn’t want him in their congregation. He knew it, he felt it, and he had never gone back. Then, he was too busy anyway, too busy with his work. After his retirement he would go back. Then he would say his prayers, and do his duty toward God.

Yet, as he sat there, adding up his columns, checking his receipts, almost ready to close up shop, he felt discontent. He felt uneasy. It seemed as if from the figures before him, he heard the voices of people. “Robber!” “Thief!” “Crook!” What had that woman said to him today? “Swindler!” “I’m only doing my job,” he had replied. “Lady, I’m not getting anything out of this. Somebody has to collect taxes…”

So it had been lately, every day. He tried to put it out of his mind, but he couldn’t. He was an honest business man. He was a God-fearing man. This was getting on his nerves. Nobody seemed to understand. And the words rang repeatedly down the corridor of his mind: “Robber, thief, swindler, crook.”

The public ostracized him. His neighbors shunned him. The church people had made it clear how they felt. They looked down on him as they would a prostitute. That wasn’t fair. “Collaborator with Rome,” they charged, “traitor to Israel.” But he was not a traitor, and he would never be. Still he had no friends, that is, none outside the circle of other publicans. And yet they were not really friends. He could feel that. As long as he had money, he was acceptable. If he would ever lose it, he doubted if any of them, any one of them would be his friend. They were selfish. They were all out for what they could get. He had had so much more education. He had studied Greek and literature, yet he could never discuss it. All they could talk about was money, and women, of course, but mostly money.

His head was swimming now. He wondered if he could ever get through adding up the columns, as his whole life paraded before him this afternoon

And then he saw Him coming. Down the road He walked, a few of His friends with Him. He had seen Him from time to time, the Carpenter from Nazareth. He came to pay His taxes regularly. He was always prompt. Whenever he had told the Carpenter that taxes had gone up for the next year, the Man had looked at him, merely looked--and yet those eyes had spoken volumes--“was it the tax or was it his percentage.” But without a word He had turned quietly and gone His way. The next year He would be back with the required amount.

And now He was coming down the road toward his toll-booth. He had heard that Jesus had left the carpenter shop, had gone down to the river of Jordan to be baptized of John. He had come to live in Capernaum. Everybody was talking about it. He had cleansed lepers and healed demon-possessed people. People were coming all over to see Him and hear Him. He himself had joined the crowd one day. He had wanted to see for himself. He could not quite know what was happening up front when they had brought the paralytic to Him, but he could hear: “The Son of man has full authority on earth to forgive sins…” (Matthew 9:6).

Son of Man? Authority to forgive? To forgive sins? He thought of those words now. He was a sinner, he knew that. His whole money-hungry life--his whole “money talks” philosophy--it was not right. He bent over his work again as if deeply engrossed, but he was not thinking of his work. “The Son of man has full authority on earth to forgive sins…”

Then he could feel it. He did not have to glance up. He knew the Teacher, the Son of man as He called Himself, was standing directly before him. Now he had to lift his head. And those eyes that had looked on him many a time before, looked straight at him now…straight at him, and through him, and through his books, and through his accounts, and through his empty life.

All of a sudden he felt dirty inside, just plain dirty. He started shuffling his feet, and his hand twitched nervously. Was the Son of man going to call him names, like the rest of them? Then let Him get it over with! No, instead He smiled, and He said: “Follow me” (Matthew 9:9). Follow Him? He wants me to follow Him? Me, publican, outcast, crook, a thief? He trusts me and wants me to become a disciple?

Matthew couldn’t believe his ears. He was overwhelmed at the compliment, overjoyed at being wanted by the Son of man, and suddenly he did not feel dirty any longer. Just clean, forgiven, at peace. “The Son of man has full authority on earth to forgive sins…” That was it! He closed his books. He tumbled out from behind his desk. He shut his booth. And so it was that a publican, a gatherer of taxes, an outcast of society, abruptly made up his mind and made a decision that would alter the entire course of his life: from Matthew the publican, to apostle of Jesus Christ!

For Jesus to choose a publican was as “unwise” a choice as any He could make! The public classified tax-gatherers with prostitutes. They were dishonest, greedy, money-minded men. They were not fit for the synagogue, nor could they testify in court. Jesus was not blind to these facts. He knew the friends he had, the company he kept, the influence this would have made on his life. He knew the man’s ambitions, goals and desires. Yet when a scribe with social position and professional attainments came to Jesus, our Lord discouraged him from discipleship: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20). But to Matthew no such negativism, only the positive: “Follow me.” The qualifications of the past make no difference to Jesus.

He only sees the possibilities of the future. Matthew is sharp, keen, clever, and orderly. Matthew has set his goals in life. Matthew will attain those goals. Matthew is disturbed by his life as a publican. Matthew is empty inside. Matthew is already sick of a life that seeks only money. Matthew wants out of the rut! Humanly speaking—a poor choice! Divinely speaking—a magnificent choice! And the proof of that? The Gospel according to Matthew!

The first Book of the New Testament is a product of Matthew and his ready pen. For now whenever Jesus would teach, whenever He would preach, there was Matthew at His side. The pen which once added figures now took it all down. The keen perceptive mind which had kept his ledgers now preserves for posterity the Word of God.

And now I must tell you one more thing about this little, clever fellow, who once believed only in the philosophy “money talks.” He writes a gospel about Jesus, and he does not mention himself! Peter gets into the foreground, and James, and John, but not Matthew. Humility is a true mark of conversion. There is only one incident in which Matthew is specifically involved. But he is too humbled to put his own name into it. We have to put the pieces together from the gospel of Luke.

Immediately after his conversion, he invited Jesus to his home. It was quite a feast. Matthew himself is too modest to play it up, but Luke does (Luke 5:29). All his former friends and acquaintances were there. It was a going-away party. Matthew at the head of the table, Jesus in the place of honor, and around the table sat all the social and religious outcasts: worldly men, greedy men, money-hungry men, men with stunted minds, sick, hollow and empty men! Matthew had given suppers before, but never with a Man present who could lose His good name. And yet there was nothing in His manner to make any of his guests feel uneasy. If they wanted the friendship of Jesus, if they looked for help, they could find it in Matthew’s new-found Savior.

But the religious leaders heard about it. They came to see what was going on. As the publicans were ever looking for more money, as empty sinners are ever looking for more excitement, so the religious leaders were ever on the outlook for scandal. “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (Matthew 9:11) they criticized. Jesus, who has not condemned one of these outcasts, now turns to the religious people with a forthright answer.

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick! Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous but sinners” (Matthew 9:12, 13). That fits me, says Matthew, as he listens with new-found joy. It fits him all right, and that is why he records it following his call. “The Son of man has full authority on earth to forgive sins. I have come to call ‘sinners’ to repentance.”

Matthew has been rescued. Rescued from his sins, yes. Rescued from his empty life, yes. Rescued from his money-hungry life, from his disillusioning philosophy of “money talks.” Rescued from a life he has deliberately chosen, and has found unfulfilling, unsatisfactory—wanting! And Matthew could never get over it. He had found the pearl of great price. Into his narrow life has come the experience of grace and love. If Jesus could call a despised outcast, a disturbed sinner like Matthew, then He opens the door to all; then He has indeed come to “call sinners to repentance.”

Matthew would say it to you and me with all his heart. “The Son of man has full authority on earth to forgive sins.” He knows whereof he speaks. He has experienced it—he has been rescued. He knows we can experience it, too. And so he must record it in red ink when he takes up his pen to write the gospel: “If a man has a hundred sheep and one wanders away from the rest, won’t he leave the ninety-nine on the mountain side and set out to look for the one who has wandered away? Yes, and if he should chance to find it I assure you he is more delighted over that one than he is over the ninety-nine who never wandered away. You can understand then that it is never the Will of your Father in Heaven that a single one of these little ones should be lost” (Matthew 18:12-14).