Matthew 9:9-13

Further Criticisms

The second cluster of three “wonders” would be followed by a second doublet of explicit reflection on discipleship and the call to life within the Christian community.

Matthew 9:9-13 Mercy before Holiness - Jesus calls a Tax-Collector

(Mk 2:13—17)

9 As Jesus walked away from where he was,

he saw a man seated in the tax office.

His name was Matthew. He said to him, “Follow me.”

He stood up and followed him.

Mark had named the tax collector Levi. Since no Levi would be found in the list of apostles to be mentioned later in the narrative, the Gospel of Matthew apparently thought it wise to rename Levi as Matthew. (The substitution of names was one flimsy reason why later Christians thought that the Gospel as a whole was written by this Matthew – one who was an apostle, who knew the story well and was humble enough to identify himself as a tax collector.)

As was the case with the call of Simon and Andrew, and James and John, Matthew followed Jesus immediately. The same total response was required of all disciples (as Matthew had emphasised in the previous reflection on discipleship, after his first cluster of healings [verses 18-22]).

10 When he was reclining at table in his home,

quite a number of tax-collectors and sinners came

and reclined at table together with Jesus and his disciples.

11 The Pharisees noted this, and said to his disciples,

“Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?”

Just as the previous incident was Jesus’ first active encounter with scribes, this was his first face to face meeting with Pharisees. Like the scribes, they were critical, but their criticism was not voiced aloud to Jesus.

Their question was not surprising. In the culture, meals were significant. Guests were the peers of the host, carefully chosen to maintain and to enhance honour. By eating with tax collectors and sinners, Jesus was effectively identifying with them.

Matthew further extended the “inclusion” theme, which ran through the first cluster of healings, to embrace friendship and group identity.

12 Jesus heard them and said,

“People who are well do not need a doctor,

but those who are not well do.

Issues of personal honour were irrelevant to Jesus. What mattered were needs, and his capacity to meet those needs. The righteousness of Jesus could offset any unrighteousness of others. Rather than be weighed down by them, his presence, interest and love would lift them up with him.

13 Go off, and learn what this is about: ‘I want mercy, not sacrifice’;

I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

Jesus quoted Hosea [6:6]. Matthew would show Jesus quoting the same phrase once more in the narrative [12:7]. For Matthew it provided a clear insight into Jesus’ interpretation of the Torah. Conventional Jewish wisdom, followed earnestly by Pharisees, reflected another saying repeated insistently in the Book of Leviticus: Be holy, for I am holy [Lev. 11:13]. The call to holiness was answered in mainstream Judaism by an insistent emphasis on ritual cleanness.

Hosea’s comment was not so much a criticism of the institution of sacrifice (unthinkable still at that time), as a prioritising of God’s mercy. His insight into the heart of God, reflected unevenly in the practical requirements of the Torah, was that God was essentially merciful.

So much of the bitterness between members of the local synagogues and disciples in Matthew’s community arose from Jesus’ interpretation of the Torah.

The same questions of interpretation have been sources of conflict in the Church across the centuries – some Christians instinctively stressing the Church-centred practicalities of ritual, worship and law, and others emphasising the outward-looking exercise of mercy and justice in a world of sinners still en route towards the Kingdom. With Jesus, religion served life. The private quest for personal holiness could be justified only to the extent that it involved growth in compassion.

Next >> Matthew 9:14-17