SERMON

SUNDAY, JUNE 9, 2002

CHURCH OF THE REDEEMER

And as Jesus 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?”  (Matthew 9:10-11) 

Just when it looks as though Jesus is succeeding in his quest to gather disciples and begin his world-shaking ministry, the Pharisees appear.   Those excessively righteous scholars of the Mosaic Law, those Torah literalists, so quick to raise suspicion and judge others, seem ever present, waiting for Jesus to make what in their eyes is a mistake or worse.  They are deadly serious, but it almost seems as if they are having a wonderful time catching Jesus breaking or at least bending one law or another.  In the time of Jesus there were two sets of laws, those of the Roman Empire that occupied and controlled the Holy Land, and those God given statutes that governed personal ethics and religious observance.  Because in our time we live in a country that fervently separates church and state, it is always a bit of a strain for us to imagine being subject at once to two distinct sets of laws, one religious, one civil, both equally demanding.  Jewish law, or Torah, contains such foundation statements as the Ten Commandments and related sets of principles that summarize the elements of decent human behavior.  Above and beyond such rules, though, are dozens of regulations governing rituals and obligations, the extensive kosher laws, and all kinds of very detailed demands on personal behavior.  While some of the laws fall into the category of eternal verities, others seem trivial and picayune. 

Still, the minority Pharisee party upheld and guarded each Law of God and sought to enforce that Law among all the Jews over whom they would have influence.  Jesus was fast becoming a major public figure, a threat to the establishment, and the Pharisees strove to keep him on the straight and definitely narrow legal track.  In today’s concise Gospel Jesus invites the tax collector Matthew to be a disciple, and they join others at dinner.  I suppose the meal was celebratory; a new follower had agreed to join the growing band of Jesus’ inner circle, and the group gladly welcomed him.  We don’t know whether some Pharisees just appeared in the house, or whether the meal was in a public place where anyone could wander by.  No matter, they ask some disciples why Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners -- hardly an ingenuous question.  Guilt by association serves the Pharisees well.

How bad were these people at the dinner anyway?  One source I consulted says: “Customs officials like Matthew were greatly despised because they were suspected of collecting more than was due.  They were shunned as little better than swindlers and murderers.  Who were the other ‘sinners’ with whom Jesus dined?  It is not clear whether these were people who were thought guilty of flagrant moral offenses or people whose sin consisted primarily in laxity in observance of the food laws, tithes, and ritual baths.  It [may be] that the ‘sinners’ were people whose very profession constituted a violation of Torah, such as the bankers, whose business involved lending at interest.” (Douglas A. Hare, Matthew, p. 101) 

Jesus was such so charismatic and powerfully holy, why would he break the Law by hanging out with those alleged low-lifes?   That’s the whole point – Jesus knows exactly what he is doing, every step of the way, right up to the cross.  He is not making a grievous error by sitting down with sinners, he INTENDS to gather them into his presence.  He wants to be with them.  He likes them and recognizes that they need his influence.  His is a mission of mercy and forgiveness.  If he spent his ministry dealing with only moral giants, he wouldn’t have anything to do.  He is the physician of those who are sick instead of those who are well.  Jesus did not ERADICATE sin, nor was that his purpose.  Sin is a real force, a drive, the capacity for wrong in each of us, all the way back to the mythical Garden of Eden.  Each creature of God is given free will from birth, and with free will comes the capacity to choose.  You and I make choices every day of our lives.  The point of Jesus Christ is to recognize what is right and good and true.  He gives us that ability.  Whether we pay attention is entirely up to us.  We can sin.  We can do what is right.  Ironically, sin seems often to be the easy way out of a dilemma.  Yet we know what we ought to do.  Jesus through the Church, our families, and other positive influences teaches us the way, the truth, and the life.  He is both teacher and lesson.   

Because Christ does not hate us or seek to entrap us when we are heading in the wrong direction, his association with tax collectors and sinners begins to make sense.  How often Jesus does the thing he believes is right rather than what the Law demands.  We know the stories: how he let his hungry disciples pick ears of corn on the Sabbath, how he forgave the woman accused, caught in the very act of adultery, how he reminded us in the Sermon on the Mount not to judge lest we be judged, how he conversed with a Gentile woman at the well, how he overturned the tables of the money changers at the Temple, and how he touched the body of a dead man.  Such great deeds bend but do not break the Law.  For Jesus righteousness lay in the intrinsic value of human life, with its wonder, limitations, stains and follies.  The mission of Jesus in this world then and now entails looking at each human being with love, adding neither judgment nor intrusive questions. 

Jesus teaches us by example to look below the surface at each person we encounter, to reserve judgment, to look into the real person, to offer the chance to change and grow, even to take risks.  Of course there are all too many notoriously wicked people who fall way below the line.  Daily headlines chronicle their evil.  Some never seem able to rise above the line.  The sinfulness of a tax collector in whatever guise may indeed be real, and he or she may need transformation to a new life.  The man or woman made unclean by giving in to base instincts may be quite able to learn, to repent and change.  What such stories as today’s Gospel teach you and me is to resist in ourselves the cheap tendency to emulate the Pharisees.  Our vocation is to follow Jesus Christ and to walk in his ways with open minds and open hearts.  The Pharisees quickly affixed labels to people to whom they believed themselves morally superior.  They preferred a closed society.  Jesus preferred an open community of all sorts or people, capable of receiving the gift of redemption.   

Try to picture a group of people gathered at a dinner table in our own time.  The host and hostess are both recovering alcoholics.  Among their guests this night are a trial lawyer and his wife, a native of Iran.  A young business associate of the host, a gay man, has brought his new partner to the dinner.  An elderly woman recently widowed is present as is a bachelor African American public school teacher.  The other two guests arrive late from a town hearing about a proposed halfway house for teenage addicts in their neighborhood.  Look carefully at the scene in the dining room. Who are these people?  What would a staunch Pharisee have to say about these people?  And, if I could borrow the superficially popular but existentially significant question: what would Jesus say?  And finally, what would you and I say?   

                                                                        The Rev. Richard H. Downes

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