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St Matthew 9:9-13
'Sinners Called'
Divine Service
St Matthew, Apostle's Day | September 21, 2008
Dear Sinners,
We don't know St Matthew's favorite Bible verse, but I think that we would be safe in guessing today's Gospel reading. There is Matthew the tax collector, despised, unclean, an outcast and a sinner, and Jesus calls him, “Follow Me.” And then, as Jesus is sitting at the table with the Pharisees, these Pharisees try to get after Matthew and after Jesus, but Jesus won't have it. “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]
“Not the righteous, but sinners...” How those words must have echoed through Matthew's ears and heart as he followed Jesus, seen His miracles, learned His doctrine, watched Him debate the Pharisees in the temple. Matthew was there in the upper room for the Lord's Supper, and in the Garden when Jesus cried. How Matthew must have clung to these words, “I came to call sinners” when he ran for it when the soldiers came, and when he heard that his Jesus had been crucified, died and buried.
But then Christ is risen, and His calling sinners to Himself continues as He gathers Matthew and the other disciples on the mountain and sends them to the ends of the world to make disciples, baptizing and teaching. “Call sinners.”
St Matthew, with the merciful words of Jesus, kept these words by writing the Gospel that bears his name. The most common tradition says that Matthew preached in Palestine, and then in Ethiopia where he was martyred, rejoicing all the while that the Lord, in His mercy, calls not the righteous, but sinners.
This is the surprise of the Gospel, the scandal, that Jesus would come for a fellow like Matthew, that He would come for people like you and I.
If we were there 2000 years ago, let's say we worked for the Jerusalem Times, the local newspaper, and we heard that the Messiah was coming to town, and we wanted to get a few pictures, we would have hung around outside the high priest's house, or in the neighborhood where all the Pharisees lived. You see what I'm saying. Surely the Messiah would seek out good company, the righteous people. The very last place on your list to expect the Messiah to visit would be at the tax collector's house. This is the last thing anyone expected.
Certainly it's the last thing that Matthew expected. How could he, such a tremendous and terrible sinner, sit and eat with and follow the Messiah? But the Lord's word, “Follow Me” sets him free.
And this is the last thing the Pharisees expect as well. They figured that the Messiah would come for them, come and visit them, come and call them. The last thing they expected was to be on the outside of the coming kingdom, to be rejected by the Savior while fishermen and tax collectors were called and prostitutes and sinners were invited to dinner. But this is the surprise of the kingdom, the surprise of the Lord's mercy.
You see, it is impossible to be “too bad” for Jesus, but it is possible to be “too good”. Let me say that again. It is not possible to be “too bad” for Jesus, for His church. It is impossible to sin too much, to be too guilty, too wretched, too unholy or unclean, it is impossible. There is no stain that His blood cannot bleach. But it is possible to be too good, too holy, too righteous.
That's what Jesus means when He says to the Pharisees, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick,” and again, “I have come not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Jesus is calling the Pharisees “well”, healthy, and righteous. Now we understand by this not that the Pharisees were not sinners, but that they thought they were not sinners. Like every child born in the natural manner, the Pharisees were stained with original sin, they daily sinned much, but the problem is that they didn't know it. They had invented a religion with the chief purpose was to deceive them and everyone else that they were healthy and righteous. That they needed no doctor, no Savior, no forgiveness.
The Pharisee could not have come in here and confessed with us that they were a poor miserable sinner. The Pharisee rather confesses his thanks to God that he's not like us, not a sinner. And for such pride Jesus has not place.
But look, dear saints, there is great danger here for us. Each of us has a little Pharisee inside of us. The flesh or our sinful nature we call him. And this little Pharisee is constantly trying to convince you that you are well, that you are good, that you are trying, that your are pleasing to God because of what you've done or who you are or because God is a nice fellow. And this preaching of the flesh never stops.
I'm sure you think some Sundays, as you sit there trying to concentrate on the sermon and learn the Lord's teaching, “When will this sermon end?” But our little Pharisee never stops preaching to us, self-reliance, self-justification, self-esteem, excuses for sin, blaming others for our mistakes. Its insatiable, this nagging pride that is hell bent on not needing Jesus and His mercy.
One of his favorite sermons is about how you are good enough for church, but he's not sure if that person is, or that other person over there. (Did you hear what they did?) Never, dear saints, never will it be said that someone is not good enough for Jesus, not good enough to be in His kingdom, and so not good enough for Hope Lutheran. Lord, forbid!
It's not our sin that keeps us from Jesus, but our pride, our blindness to our own wretchedness. It is not our weakness, but the delusion of our own power. It is not our sickness, but the deceptive clinging to the illusion of our own health. We are not “too bad”, we can't be. We think we are too good.
Repent. You cannot impress God. And you don't have to.
Jesus has done it. He has kept your commandments and brought a smile to the face of the heavenly Father and He shares that smile with you when He forgives all your sins. Your sins, dear saints, are forgiven. It is as sure as Jesus was dead. And it is you, dear sinner, that Jesus has come to call, to forgive, to put His word in your ears and in your heart, the word that endures to eternal life, your eternal life with Jesus.
That word that echoed in the heart and mind of our brother St Matthew echoes in ours as well, “I have come to call, not the righteous, but sinners.” And so we rejoice, dear sinners, that we are sinners, sinners died for and called and forgiven by Jesus.
If you were a reporter for the Denver Post, and you heard that the Messiah was coming to town this morning, I suspect one of the last places on your list to check would be Hope Lutheran Church, that small little church tucked away in the neighborhood on Macon St. That's the surprise of our Jesus. He comes into this crowd of motley sinners with mercy and truth, with His forgiveness and mercy, with His body and blood, for you.
May God be praised for this, His great mercy to us! Amen.
And the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller
Hope Lutheran Church | Aurora, CO