.jpg)
As Jesus passed by,
he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post.
He said to him, “Follow me.”
And he got up and followed him.
What did Matthew understand that we don't? Why was he able to get up and go immediately whereas we begin to stand, sit again, begin to walk, turn back again, and so on, only making gradual progress is following Jesus. Surely he spoke the same command to us, "Follow me", as to Matthew, and gave us the same power to respond to him.
The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples,
“Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
Isn't it probably the case that, like the Pharisees, we don't recognize ourselves as the sick in need of a physician and as sinners in need of a savior? We don't often have enough self-knowledge to know that we need Jesus. But this was precisely what Matthew had. He was fed up with the alternatives he tried, with the other possibilities life offered, and saw in Jesus the only solution, the only hope.
Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.
We believe we are well and thus don't allow the physician to touch us. We don't want to see ourselves as infected with the cancer of sin, nor even consider what treatment might be necessary if it were so. It is especially those of us who have considered ourselves Christians for longer that it is difficult to recognize in ourselves an ongoing need for healing and conversion. We believe that we should be better by now, and pay more attention to what we believe we ought to be than what we actually are. But this sort of wishful thinking doesn't draw Jesus closer just because we're putting on a good public face. It keeps him instead at arms length lest his healing touch expose the fact that we are not yet perfect.
I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.
Matthew knew something that allowed him to follow Jesus immediately and with all of his being. Is this self-knowledge something we can learn? Would it help if we thought poorly of ourselves, beat ourselves up, and condemned ourselves? Is that what it means to see ourselves as sinners? Such thoughts of condemnation lead only to despair, and not to hope. We are not worthless, for we were made in the image of the one who is worthy of all praise, honor, glory, and power. It is in seeing ourselves fall short of this promise that we realize the problem in a way that is helpful, because it cries out to Jesus who can solve it. We realize we have a disease we are not meant to have thwarting our full potential and that Jesus has come to set things right.
“When will the new moon be over,” you ask,
“that we may sell our grain,
and the sabbath, that we may display the wheat?”
We need to be able to look beyond our own immediate interests to that which can truly satisfy us. Matthew understood that no amount of wealth would finally be enough to fulfill him. The lies of the world had ceased to placate him. Indeed, he seemed disgusted and ready for any genuine alternative that Jesus could offer.
We will diminish the containers for measuring,
add to the weights,
and fix our scales for cheating!
In what ways are do we still believe that continuing to sit at the customs post is going to satisfy us? What is the past with which we refuse to make and clean break and what are the sins we refuse to give up or even have diagnosed for fear that we can't be happy without them? As Jesus comes to call us let us see in him a higher hope and possibility for our lives than we have yet realized or even guessed. We can be healed by him and conformed to his image. It is a reality so good we will not be able to help but celebrate, and invite others to experience it as well.
While he was at table in his house,
many tax collectors and sinners came
and sat with Jesus and his disciples.
No comments:
Post a Comment