God’s grace, peace
and mercy be with you. My sermon is entitled Follow, Fellowship and Friendship,
and my focus is our Gospel (Mt 9:9-13). Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the
psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the
Lord.’” Now that our feet are within your gates, we rejoice to hear
your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds and move our
hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most Holy Trinity.
Amen.
Follow. As I
started writing this sermon, I came across a website listing 171 synonyms and
antonyms for the word follow. Needless to say, I did not give it more than a
cursory glance. If I had nothing else to do, I am sure I might come up with list
of a few dozen synonyms and antonyms for follow, but who has that kind of time?
People at Merriam-Webster, that’s who!
Over time, we develop
new meanings for words and phrases, such as “Follow Me.” When I started playing
Dominoes with my wife and in-laws, I learned that “follow me” meant to play the
suit that my partner plays. With the establishment of social media, someone can
follow me, and I don’t feel paranoid. And who can forget the line from Vince
Offer, aka, the ShamWow Guy? “Are ya followin’ me, camera guy?” Well, Jesus was
not playing games, was not on social media, and certainly was not pitching ShamWows.
Jesus’ call for
Matthew to “Follow me.” is as short as the call of the fishermen
– brief and to the point. The fact that like the fishermen, Matthew stood up
and followed Jesus tells us how much authority our Lord possessed. His command
to Matthew was simply to follow him in faith and service; and his summons to
Matthew is the same one for you and me. Jesus calls us to follow him in faith
and service. Do we delay Christ’s call because we offer him some flimsy excuse?
A few words about
Matthew. Matthew is mentioned in his own Gospel twice. We first read of him in
today’s passage, and then again in chapter ten, when Jesus called his Twelve
Apostles. Matthew is also mentioned in Mark, Luke and Acts, and the only other
thing we know about him is that he was a tax-collector. He was not a major tax
collector like Zacchaeus, but a minor official who collected customs and sales
taxes.
My next-door
neighbor is a friendly and likeable woman. She is also our township tax
collector. Rules for tax collectors are stricter today than a few years ago,
when another local tax collector was arrested and imprisoned for embezzling over
a million dollars. In Jesus’ day, tax collectors had few or no rules to
observe. Here’s how they operated.
First of all,
there were separate tax collectors for different taxes. There were
tax-collectors who worked directly for the Roman Empire and others who collected
indirect taxes and operated under the authority of local rulers. In Jesus’ Israel
the first group reported to Pontius Pilate, and the latter to Herod. The Herods
were not Romans and tended to be more favorable to the Jewish people than the
Romans, but this made little difference to the people.
In the Roman
system, individuals bid on the right to collect indirect taxes in a town or
region. The local ruler, in this case, Herod Antipas, awarded the contract to
the highest bidder, who then had to recover his money as best as he could.
Obviously, this system easily led to corruption since we humans are already
geared to greed and dishonesty. Is it no wonder why common folk saw tax
collectors as traitors and unclean individuals?
What does this
have to say about Jesus’ ministry that he called such a person like Matthew to
be one of his disciples? What does it have to say about Jesus reclining at
table not only with tax collectors, but also with sinners? Who’s a sinner?
Well, each of us is a sinner, and we know that Jesus came to save all sinners
from their sins (Mt 1:21). But who’s calling who a sinner here? The Pharisees.
In the mind of the
Pharisee, a sinner is defined differently than our own understanding of the
term. Most Biblical scholars today do not think that the Pharisees regarded the
general population as depraved or alienated from God.[1]
There were, however, people who flagrantly and publicly violated God’s Law.
Among these were the tax collectors and people who exchanged their bodies for
cash. The Pharisees were concerned that Jesus was participating in a banquet or
formal dinner in Matthew’s home, eating with tax-collectors and sinners. That
brings me to my second point, fellowship.
Fellowship. There
are different types of fellowship. The US State Department employs scientists,
engineers and various other professionals to work on global issues such as counterterrorism,
human rights, the environment and other matters. These positions are known as
fellowships. Tolkien fans know that The Fellowship of the Ring is the
first of his Lord of the Rings trilogy. Nurses, actors and others join
fellowship organizations. Churches develop fellowship programs for people who
wear uniforms, like athletes and prisoners. We enjoy informal settings of
fellowship when we spend time together before and after worship. There does not
seem to be a dark view of fellowship at all, does there?
Turning to our
passage, the question posed to Jesus’ disciples has to do with his fellowship
with moral and religious outcasts. In that culture, meals functioned as
important ceremonies that reinforced the stability of society and the relationships
that existed between members of certain groups. Joint participation in festive
meals signaled the strongest possible bonds of intimacy and mutual affirmation,
to the extent that a comrade who betrayed your fellowship would be the most
bitter of all betrayers. We read in Psalm 41, “My close friend in whom I
trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me” (v. 9).
Recall that Jesus said, “He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me
will betray me” (Mt 26:23). Given the meaning of a meal in that
culture, you can understand how a shared meal would be seen as the closest possible
fellowship and approval imaginable.[2]
So, when the
Pharisees asked Jesus’ disciples why he would desire fellowship with such
sinners, he answered for them. Because sick people need a physician, he called
such sinners. Put this answer into the greater context.
When Jesus
descended the mountain after his Great Sermon, he immediately cleansed a leper.
After that, he healed the Centurion’s servant, then a great number of people,
two men with demons and a paralytic. After this banquet, Jesus healed a little
girl and a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, restored the sight of
two blind men and the voice of a mute man. Jesus was not only a Great Teacher,
but also a Great Physician.
In an even greater
context, when he began his public ministry, the first words Jesus spoke were, “Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” His last words to the Twelve
were, to make disciples of all nations, baptize them, and teach them to observe
all that I have commanded you. In short, Jesus called the tax collectors and
sinners into fellowship with him through this meal which would affect
conversion. He called them not into inclusion, but into repentance. Law and
Gospel are not about diversity, equality and inclusion, but about a heart and a
life that emulates Jesus Christ. So, now you know why Jesus dined with tax
collectors and sinners. He did not come to live like us, but called us to live
like him. Today, Jesus calls you to follow him and calls you into a fellowship
of intimacy. That brings me to my third point: Friendship.
Friendship. Apart
from the TV show that aired between 1994-2004, the Old English word freond
meant one attached to another by feelings of personal regard and preference. We
all have and need friends. Sometimes friends are simply people who always agree
with us, but hopefully we develop friendships with people who are willing to
offer some resistance to all of our thoughts, ideas and actions. Hopefully, you
are or were married to your best friend.
If Jesus called
you into friendship today, would you want him to be your friend? I ask that
because there are a lot of lonely people in our world. Because true friendship
requires push and pull, acceptance and resistance, relatives and family members
who are loving and over-bearing, many Americans today look to technology to
provide an artificial friend. Through that artificial person, over a million
Americans seek a semblance of resistance to generate the feeling that another
person is nearby, but one not too overbearing.[3]
I am no expert in
this, but read recently on the number of lonely people have turned to
Artificial Intelligence (AI) machines to arouse the feeling that another person
is around. A user talks to an app and the app responds. The exchange mimics friendly
banter. The app may ask, “How was work today?” before moving on to deeper
issues, such as “How are you feeling?”—at which point it offers sympathy and
advice. The more frequently the person engages the app, the faster the app
learns the person’s likes and dislikes, and the tighter the connection grows.
The goal is to make the person and the app fast friends. Occasionally the app
fails to follow a conversation’s logic, but most users describe the experience
as pleasant, though a bit strange.[4]
The writer of this
article makes the point that by using such an app, you are really talking to
yourself. Because you are really having a conversation with yourself, there is
no resistance, and no true friendship. We all know that friendship takes time
to grow. After three years, we have begun to develop a friendship with each
other. At times, we tell each other what we need to hear. You tell me and I
tell you. Resistance lies at the very foundation of a friendship, because we
know that our friends consider our faults and good qualities, and have chosen
us, sometimes in preference to others.[5]
I have also come
to know from the people I visit – because physical disabilities make it
extremely difficult to attend worship – that once you are no longer visible,
your friends tend to forget you. Worse yet, it is possible that friendship could
result in betrayal. Thankfully, only one of Jesus’ disciples did that. The rest
just hid for a couple of days.
Jesus considered
the faults and good qualities of Matthew, his tax-collecting colleagues and all
the public sinners of his day, and still chose them. He chose them to follow
him. He chose them to be his disciples. Jesus knows your faults and good
qualities. He knows that you need healing of body, mind and soul, and he offers
that to you. He also calls you to be his friend, his disciple, and to share your
friendship with someone else who desperately needs an authentic friend. You are
the person to offer love and resistance, Law and Gospel to someone in your
family or your neighborhood, in your school or your workplace. When you do
this, you begin to learn the meaning of mercy.
My friends, today Jesus
calls you and sends you as a follower and a friend to people who need kindness,
mercy and love. As your pastor and friend, I ask you to heed Jesus’ advice and
call into fellowship one more person who deserves to be friends with you and
with Christ. When you do that may the peace of God which surpasses all
understanding keep your mind and heart in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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