Tax Collectors and Sinners!

Sermon for the Feast of St. Matthew

Note:  Today St. Matthew's celebrated its feast day with a bilingual service followed by a grand festival for the community!  We had games, rides, a barbecue and the Sheriff's Canine officer as well as Metro-Fire!  A grand time was had by all - especially the kids of every age!  The sermon was preached in both English and Spanish so it is necessarily short!

Proverbs 3:1-6

2 Timothy 3:14-17

Matthew 9:9-13

Psalm 119:33-40

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

Today we are celebrating our feast day – the Feast of St. Matthew.  The actual date of the feast on our church calendar is September 21 but it is a tradition to move a church’s feast day to the Sunday before if the feast is not on a Sunday in any given year. 

Today we will have a festival after the service where we welcome all in the community to play games and eat a feast with us.  We invite everyone – even if they don’t come to church regularly – or at all!  How very much like the Jesus in our story. 

Jesus sees Matthew sitting and collecting taxes from his fellow citizens.  Matthew was considered by the others in his society as a leach on society.  He was employed by the occupation army to collect taxes and most tax collectors collected more than was due.  They made extra money for themselves so that they could live a very good life.  They were despised as traders and crooks.

Jesus sees Matthew collecting money and instead of despising him he calls Matthew to follow.  And Matthew gets up, leaves his booth and follows Jesus.  And then we hear that Matthew invited Jesus to dine in his home – along with Jesus’ other disciples and a bunch of tax collectors and sinners. 

Of course the super righteous – who are sure that they have it right with God – are upset that Jesus is eating with these people.  Jesus – hearing the grumbling and complaints said “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”  Which Dear Abby years ago famously summarized as “The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.” 

Which is not to say that we don’t have some true saints that inhabit the church at large!  We do.  And they are usually considered crazy by mainstream society.  Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu come to mind – they insisted that the way to move South Africa forward after the horrors of apartheid was not revenge but forgiveness and reconciliation.  So instead of setting up criminal trials The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up. The Commission provided a way to heal a country that had suffered tremendous human rights abuses.  And I am pretty sure that if you asked most people when it started they would have predicted failure – instead there is forgiveness and peace in that country. 

Unfortunately too many in this country see reconciliation as for the weak.  Revenge and locking people away seems to be what we hear in our own society.

Which brings me to the really important part of this reading when Jesus says “‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”  And we are called – as followers of Jesus to desire mercy too.  We are called to welcome all into this thing we call church – and perhaps just as importantly we are called to bring this thing called church out to the community. 

We are not called to round people up because of their race, nationality, sexual identity, or immigration status and to build walls to isolate us righteous folk from the sinners.  We are called to invite them to dinner.  We are called to show mercy.  We are called to tick off the self proclaimed righteous in our society – just as Jesus did during his earthly ministry.

And that is what we are doing today.  We are throwing a festival in honor of the tax collector – St. Matthew.  And we are not throwing a private party – no we are inviting our entire community to come and eat.  We are inviting our community to come and play games.  No strings attached.  No expectations that they will pay us back. No expectations that they will be righteous.

I am thrilled to minister among a group of people who take their patron Saint to heart and invite all to the feast.  A feast that is hosted not by us but by Jesus Christ our Savior who came to show mercy and invite the outsiders to the party!