Who Needs Healing?

Who Needs Healing?

Matthew 9:9-13

            The quick answer to this question, of course, is that we all need healing.  There’s not one of us who is in perfect spiritual health, so we are all in need of Jesus’ touch on our lives.  We may actually be in better physical than spiritual shape, at least in part because we spend more time working out our bodies than we do our souls—but that’s, unfortunately, human nature.  If I spent as many hours a week in prayer and in Bible reading as I do at the gym, I wonder what I might accomplish for God?     

            This passage begins with Jesus calling Matthew to discipleship.  Once again Jesus has taken someone who, by all reasonable standards, should not have been chosen.  After all, he was a tax collector!  That meant he collaborated with the enemy.  He was a traitor to his people.  What’s more, he had a license to steal.  Whatever he could wring out of the people over and above what was owed to the Romans was his to keep—and tax collectors did very well for themselves.  As much as we might hate the IRS today, it was nothing compared to the contempt in which people held the taxman in first century Judah.

            But Jesus called him; and Matthew responded immediately.  The gospel writer (Matthew or one of his followers) says he rose from his tax booth and followed Jesus—left everything behind for his new Master.

            It wasn’t bad enough that Jesus honored this despicable character by issuing him an invitation to become one of the inner circle.  Jesus turned right around and went to dinner with “many tax collectors and sinners.”  Goodness gracious!  Didn’t he know these were the kind of people a righteous person was to avoid at all costs?  We are known by the company we keep, aren’t we?  Remember the old saying, “If you lie down with dogs you’re sure to get up with fleas?’  Jesus reputation with the “right people,” the good folk, took a hit every time he broke the cultural rules.  Here, he’s going from bad to worse.  Does Jesus have no shame?

            I find it interesting that the Pharisees don’t have the nerve to confront Jesus directly about his behavior.  Instead, they talk to his disciples—but I suspect they spoke loudly enough for Jesus to hear.  They may have been afraid to question him directly, but they wanted him to know he had really blown it this time.

            “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”  Jesus heard their question—oh, yes, he heard it loud and clear; and he wasn’t shy about answering them.

            “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”

            A good answer, and one that makes excellent sense.  In effect, he was saying, “If you religious leaders were doing your job properly, you’d be eating with them too.  How else are they going to be reconciled with God and made whole?”  This is a pretty scathing condemnation.  I wonder: did they get it?  I know they didn’t agree with Jesus.

            Lest you think that Jesus was letting these religious leaders off the hook by declaring them well, read on to the end of his comment.  He continues: “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.  For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

            Jesus wasn’t calling the Pharisees righteous, not for a minute!  He hit them right in their religious snobbery.  We might be tempted to change righteous to self-righteous, and we wouldn’t be off the mark if we did.  Jesus was putting them in their place.

            So…we return to our opening question:  Who needs healing?  The answer remains the same:  we all do—and if we don’t believe it, we’re the ones who are self-righteous.