Proper 5A 2008 Matthew 9:9-13

There is some really Good News in today’s Gospel lections that tell us Jesus likes sinners, likes them enough to eat and drink with them, to defy the authorities in order to do it, and finally die for these same sinners – all of us included. Jesus was pretty specific: “I have come to call NOT the righteous, but sinners.” This is astounding Good News.

I know an Army Chaplain who likes to do personal evangelism witnessing. While he was in seminary in New Haven, Connecticut – a town with some rough neighborhoods – he had a special tee shirt designed. The message on the tee shirt was in Greek from today’s Gospel. The English translation: “He eats and drinks with sinners.

The seminarian would wear the tee shirt into the bars in those rough New Haven neighborhoods, sit down, and order a beer at the bar. Each and every time, some one would ask what language that was and what the saying meant. When he told them, the person usually asked: “Who eats and drinks with sinners?” The answer, of course, was “Jesus” and this usually led into deeper conversations. One standard response: “Well, if Jesus wants to eat and drink with sinners, this is the right place!”

We really don’t have to go to a bar in a rough city neighborhood to find sinners. All of us pass muster in that regard. If we weren’t sinners we wouldn’t need to be here. And each Sunday, we sinners will gather around the Lord’s Table and eat and drink with our sweet Lord who loves us.

And if we were gathered around that table with Jesus, Matthew the tax collector, and the other sinners, where would we be sitting? When we hear the great stories from Scripture, from both Old and New Testaments, it makes all the difference in the world where we are sitting in the story. And in today’s gospel, where do we find ourselves seated?

Eating a meal with someone has always been a serious sign of relationship. When a couple begins sharing meals with each other, it’s a sign that a relationship has become serious. A young couple were getting serious. So they were invited to dinner by his beloved grandmother whose approval was necessary to everything.

The grandmother cooked a feast. Three kinds of meat. Fresh garden vegetables. Hot fresh home made rolls, corn bread, and cake. Two kinds of pie. All for just three people. The meal was the seal of approval being set upon a new relationship with and within the family. As a result the couple could go public about their plans to marry. Everything was now different -- and better -- for the couple and the family for having a seat at the grandmother’s table.

That eating a meal with someone was a serious sign of relationship and approval was even more true in Jesus’ time. That’s why it caused so much consternation among the righteous ones who asked the disciples, “Why does your teacher eat and drink with tax collectors and other sinners?”

To the righteous ones of the Palestine of Jesus’ time, tax collectors were a special set of sinners. Tax collectors ranked as the lowest of the low, the scumbags of society. They collected the Roman taxes and they made their own livings by imposing a surcharge as large as they could with the support of the Roman imperium. Tax collectors were accounted by the righteous as more unclean than Gentiles. So for Jesus to enter into a relationship of table fellowship with such people – to take a seat at the table with tax collectors and other sinners -- was a great scandal.

The temptation is to think we sit outside with the righteous. But inside the Church is just the place where we sinners should be. The message of this Gospel passage is that Jesus thinks so. So, where do we sit at this table, this holy table? What relationship do we want with this Jesus Christ we meet there, the one who is both meal and host?

Life was never the same for Matthew after he took his seat at the table with the other tax collectors and sinners and with Jesus. He gave up his old life and followed this Jesus about whom the righteous were skeptical.

The tradition is that after the first Pentecost Matthew traveled to the East and to Ethiopia spreading the Good News about the Jesus who came to eat with and save tax collectors and other sinners like us.


Where do we sit at the table? Or kneel or stand?

AMEN

(Grandmother's table story from unknown InterNet Source)