As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth.  “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

Matthew 9:9

***

Rome’s dominion stretched far and wide, far beyond the city of Rome and even the region of Italy.  And throughout its empire Rome collected taxes.  The region of Galilee, including its towns of Capernaum, Bethsaida, Korazin and even Nazareth, was no exception.  And oftentimes, Rome employed locals to do the collecting of taxes.  Now I don’t know how this went over in other regions, but in Israel the bond between Jew and Jew was exceptionally close, since Jews were an isolated, unique and persecuted people.  Many were rigidly opposed to paying taxes, and some like the Zealots, would refuse.  It was an ongoing dilemma among the religious leaders and teachers of the law as to whether Jews should, in fidelity to their God and in a climate of emperor worship, even pay taxes to Caesar.

And within this volatile context sat, literally, the tax collectors.  Often presiding at high tables in public areas, tax collectors would sit with their ledgers and their moneybags and would collect, under the authority and with the muscle of Rome behind them, the taxes of the Jewish people.  And these tax collectors were often Jews!

Now if that wasn’t bad enough, these tax collectors were not only paid generously by the Roman government, they were also known for collecting more than their share, and for padding their pockets with the money of their countrymen.  For these reasons, it was common to read in the gospel story accounts a reference to “tax collectors and sinners.”  They were lumped together with the most despised people in society, and were essentially excluded from their own Jewish identity and Jewish fellowship.

It is with this background knowledge that we read about Matthew.  Matthew sat on an elevated platform at the customs office in Capernaum, the landing place for the many ships that traversed the Sea of Galilee and the tollgate on what was called the Great West Road from Damascus to the Mediterranean, and collected taxes for Herod Antipas, the puppet king of Rome for that region.  As one writer noted: “Here was a Jew who loved money more than fellowship with his countrymen… and being employed by the Roman government, which bled its subjects for taxes, was hated and despised by the Jews, and classed with “sinners.”

What was Matthew like?  Why did he do this job?  And how did he live with it?  Was he ashamed?  Was he brazened to the constant abuse?  How did he deal with the constant shunning from his countrymen—the spiteful stares; the detours on the streets; the whispers?  And what did he enjoy—a nice house; plenty of food in a time period susceptible to hunger; security from drought and down fishing years; power and status with the ruling government?  He had money, security and power—but he had them perhaps at the price of guilt and shame. 

Now Matthew not only did a lot of collecting at his table, he did a lot of observing.  A perceptive man, insightful in his observations and interpretations regarding people and events, Matthew enjoyed “watching the world go by.”  A lot happened at these crossroads of commerce in Galilee: merchants, salesmen, performers, con artists and Rabbis made it their objective to pass through and do their thing in the square.  He enjoyed listening, watching and seeing how people responded to the various shows.  He particularly liked the out-of-towners.  They were new and not so familiar to what he’d seen and heard growing up in Galilee—new accents; new faces; new material.  But when it came down to it, it was all just entertainment—from teachers to jugglers—just performers out to make a name or a Denarius for themselves.

***

Until about a year ago.  Around that time a man showed up on the scene who was different.  Different not in the sense that he was an out-of-towner; in fact, he was from Nazareth and talked the part of a Galilean.  But rather, different in that his message—his teaching—was different.  His teaching wasn’t about him… in that it wasn’t teaching for self-aggrandizement, and it wasn’t teaching like the normal teachers of the law delivered.  Their teaching always seemed to imply that: “I’m here and you all are there, and if you jump through these religious hoops, perhaps you can, one day, sit at my table….”  You know, a message of rules, condemnation, more guilt than I already feel, and stuff that wears off in a few days or so after I try it and fail.  By contrast, this man’s teaching, as I mentioned, was different.  First of all, it made me feel worse even than the teachers of the law.  But in a different way.  They showed me how I wasn’t doing all the right things, and was doing a lot of the wrong things.  But this man, Jesus, was like a surgeon who opened up my heart and showed me its ills.  And it hurt!  (And I don’t exactly know how he did it… he never seemed to say: “You’re doing this and this wrong,” but rather it was as if he put a mirror up to my heart and invited me to have the courage to just take an honest look.  And somehow it was more about being around him more than his teaching that communicated this mirror idea….) But beyond its tendency to pierce the heart, Jesus’ teaching surpassed that of the law teachers especially at this one point: his message was filled with hope.  He said things like:

Blessed are the poor in spirit;

   for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

The poor in spirit!  That’s how I felt.  That’s who I was.  The Pharisees hated these words, but I secretly treasured them.

He also said:

The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field.  When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

The more I listened to Jesus as he’d come through the gate, and the more I was around him, the more I understood this kind of teaching… and longed for it.  Something in me wanted to sell it all in order to buy that field.  I started to want that kingdom—the Kingdom of Heaven—not the little kingdom I had built.  I began wanting to change.

But I was scared.  I mean, first of all I’d grown up with the teachers of the law.  Regardless of their content, it’s hard to leave the words on which you cut your teeth.  Could this new teaching—hope-filled as it was—actually be true?  I know that my old synagogue-teachers now hated me, but still, all that tradition seemed like too much to turn my back on.

And then there was my life as a tax collector.  I had all this money; I was financially secure as was my family.  I had influence, my word was heard among the city officials, and I had a place in local government that was significant…

Yet even as I took an accounting of these things in my mind, they seemed small.  I couldn’t believe I was saying it, but I started really imagining leaving it all.  But what really troubled me was, well, who I was.  How could I sugar coat it… I had been seeing it more and more.  I couldn’t keep rationalizing away my selfishness.  I am greedy, and I had been dishonest.  I’d put my own pleasure and security and future ahead of others—my countrymen, my own siblings.  I had been a selfish, selfish man.  And there was no way I could make up for it.  How could I ever start new?  Everyone knew me.  And everyone hated me!  And for good reason.  What would they say if I were to even pretend to be changed?  And the other followers of Jesus—Simon particularly, the Zealot—how would I ever be able to walk the road alongside them, I thought.

No way!  There was just no way I could do it.  I could listen from a distance, but I could not change.  I could not be a part of this group of followers.  There was too much at stake; there was no way it would work.  Just no way.

The only respite to this thinking was Jesus himself.  From the start; from the first time I heard him speak—and even at the huge gathering I went to on the mountaintop—he would always say hello.  He’d ask a question; say a word.  Like I said before, it wasn’t so much what he said, but how he acted—how he treated me—that stood out to me and gave me hope. He had Zealots following him, yet he clearly valued me, too.  No one seemed to be beyond the scope of his love and acceptance, not even the Pharisees, whom he confronted regularly.  His love seemed so broad, yet he knew each person by name.  Including me. 

Tension in me grew and grew.  I had deep unrest; I struggled to sleep; I longed for something… but I couldn’t move.  I felt paralyzed by fear, doubt and shame.  I felt numb, and I had no remedy. 

Then came October 9th.  It was late morning and things were starting to pick up.  A huge merchant ship had arrived from Tiberias and I was swamped at the table.  The line seemed endless and I was hardly looking up at each person who came through. 

“Name.  Papers.  10 Denarii.  Thank you.  Next, please…” and so on.  And then he came. 

“Name,” I said.  There was a pause as I waited, head down, shuffling papers.  “NAME.”

“Matthew.”

I looked up and there he was, staring me in the eye.  I wanted to look away, to kep my listening at a distance posture of safety, but I couldn’t.  He was so close.  My eyes and his eyes… Then he said, “Akoloutheo.”  Or in English: “Follow me.”  I love words, and the word he used was deliberate.  It isn’t really an invitation; it’s a command.  It’s not: “Would you like to follow me?”  It’s more like: “Follow me!”  And yet, in its authoritative nature, it was inviting—the way a friend might ride up to you with his new chariot and say: “Climb in.”  Jesus’ call meant: “Start following me, and continue as a habit of life to follow me.”  And the pronoun—the associative-instrumental case—implied not just “follow me,” but “follow with me.”  “Start walking side-by-side with me down the same road.” 

I don’t even remember what happened next, except that, without leaving his gaze, I got up, climbed down from the table, left my jacket by the cistern, and started walking with Jesus down the road.  It was exactly what I had wanted to hear all along, but never knew it.  It was exactly what I wanted to do all along, but never could on my own.  Jesus’ call to me freed me to be and do what I’d always wanted.  In a moment I knew: I had changed.

I didn’t even notice where we were walking at first—where I was following him to.  I really didn’t care at that point.  We spoke few words as we walked, which was to my liking.  Words would have stolen something from the freedom and joy of this new road and this new relationship.  We just walked.

I started to think about what I’d just left behind.  My job. My money. My security. My status and influence.  And I wondered what exactly I’d just left them for.  What did “Follow me” mean?  Where were we going?  These slivers of doubt crept in, but each time they’d come I would turn and look at Jesus, and I can’t really explain it, but they would disappear.  As his parable had described: I had, in my joy, sold all I had and had bought the field with the treasure in it.  It was costly—it had cost all I had—but it had been easy....  Not easy in the sense that it was a foolproof transaction or a “good deal,” but easy in the sense that it was like a call-and-response: Jesus had called and my soul responded.  It was as if God himself had called out from within me a new me, a real me who had simply been waiting to come to life.  Over the course of the previous year I had been counting the cost and weighing the pros and cons; but it was Jesus’ call to me that had the actual power to tip the scales.  It wasn’t so much a choice as it was a natural response to a new perspective on life: Jesus was my Lord, and at the same time he was becoming my friend.

After awhile on the road I realized that we were walking to my house.  With Jesus and me were his disciples.  They were an earthy group, to say the least.  James and John seemed always to be arguing over theological issues; Philip was pretty cynical; and Peter swore a lot.  And I had never been with any group that was so diverse.  Blue collar, white collar; Galilean, Judean; Zealot and now tax collector—socially, economically, ethnically and politically we were at the poles.  I was terrified when Simon the Zealot approached me—his right arm moved and I flinched thinking it might be an uppercut to my jaw—but he stuck out his hand and said, “hello,” and “welcome.”  As I think back on that now, that moment has played a more significant part in my own healing and change than I ever realized at the time. 

Anyway, we finally arrived at my house.

***

I watched the whole thing.  I had been following Jesus off and on for several months, listening to his teaching, considering his words, talking for hours about him with my colleagues, and struggling to make a decision about this “Rabbi.”  After all, I am a Pharisee, an authority on righteousness and the Law.  In this Roman era of religious pluralism, someone needs to protect the truth and keep Israel from heresy.  And that is what we were doing as we followed Jesus around.

Now make no mistake: I am no stranger to heretics.  They’re everywhere nowadays, and I have sniffed out my share.  I have worked fervently to dismantle their authority and voice among the people and, whenever possible, to have them punished.

But Jesus was different.  He was complicated.  His understanding of the Law and Prophets was exemplary and his teaching was powerful and stressed piety.  But he also broke many of our rules and ordinances, and challenged unashamedly the authority on which we are standing as we follow the Law.  He was tough to pin down, so we watched him closely.

And that’s when I witnessed the episode with the tax collector.  I followed Jesus into Capernaum and up to the customs office in the crossroads’ square.  I thought he was going up to pay his taxes, but instead I heard him say to the tax collector: “Follow me.”  “Follow me!?”  To a tax collector?  What was he…?  How could he…?  Why…?  This had to have been a mistake.  Surprise turned to shock, disbelief, anger and then rage as I watched the tax collector get up from the table, leave his ledger and moneybags, get down from the platform and started to walk alongside Jesus down the road.

Quickly I gathered with Ananias, Aristarchus and the other Pharisees who had seen this happen.  How could Jesus have done this?  Associated with a tax collector?  Even called this Matthew with authority to join him as a follower?  Why not go live in a leper colony!  This was the height of uncleanness.  Didn’t Jesus know that to associate with, even befriend, such a betrayer, such a sinner, was to become unclean?  How could a man who knew the Law so fully be so cavalier, so disobedient, toward it?  I was incensed.

We decided to go to Jesus—we needed some answers… so in the afternoon we headed to the tax collector’s house.  As we approached the house, the din of a rowdy crowd met our ears.  We entered the doorway to find nothing less than a party going on—a 30-foot long, oblong room, lined with cushions on which were sitting what seemed to be every tax collector, prostitute, adulterer and “sinner” in Capernaum.  To our left sat Jesus’ disciples, and on the other side of them, at the middle of the room, sat Jesus with Matthew, right beside him.

I couldn’t reach Jesus, and wasn’t sure I even wanted to speak to him anyway; but I approached one of his disciples and with fury, yet poised, asked the question we had resolved to ask: “Why does your teacher east with tax collectors and “sinners?”

Before the disciple could say anything, Jesus spoke up—as the din died away to a hush:

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’  For I have come not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

What did this mean?  It’s not the healthy who need a doctor?  Go and learn what this means?!  How dare he?  That quotation is from the book of Hosea—I know Hosea by heart, as I do all the Torah and the Prophets!  Go and learn…!!?

I wheeled around after hearing Jesus’ response and ardently exited into the street.  I lived nearby and stormed home with my head down, my arms crossed and my lips muttering: Go and learn…; Not the righteous…; I desire mercy….

I must have sat in my home for five or six hours without moving—just reviewing his words and the events of the day over and over in my head.  But as I thought more and more about that quotation: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” my anger subtly shifted to curiosity… and at around 2 a.m. I found myself pouring over my scroll containing the book of Hosea.  I knew it by heart, but as I read it, it began to speak to me in a new way.  As I searched for the answer to this question: What does ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’ mean, I found the book to be as if I’d never read it before.

Hosea marries a prostitute named Gomer.

And after a few years of marriage, she commits adultery and gives herself to another man.

She is sent away for a while, but for the purpose of restoration, recovery, and even renewal.

And then Hosea takes her back as his wife.

How could he do that?  She was unclean.  She had violated the law and the covenant of marriage.  Not only was she undeserving, he was in danger of being guilty by association.

And then I thought of the bigger picture.  Hosea was asked by God to carry through with this marriage and everything for the purpose of showing Israel who she was, who God is, and what the nature of their relationship is.

Israel had been unfaithful and had worshipped idols, but God had chosen her to be his bride.  Israel then committed adultery by throwing herself to other gods, and had violated the covenant with God to be His faithful people.  Israel is then taken away—literally into exile to Assyria and Babylon—where her promise becomes, as a way to get back to God, to be obedient again—to perform the right rituals, to obey the right rules and to offer the right sacrifices.  But Israel’s heart remains unchanged; unconverted.

And God responds to their plans—to these strategies of their wayward hearts:

What can I do with you, O Israel?

Your love is like the morning mist that disappears.

My judgment will still be upon you, because:

‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,

and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.

And as I sat there the thought entered my mind: “Is that us?  Is that me?”  Am I offering sacrifice, yet incapable of a heart of mercy?  And was what I saw at the tax booth Mercy—the Mercy of God?

I stuffed the thought … it was too loaded to entertain.  So I read on.

At the end of the book, just as Hosea took back Gomer, God promised to take back Israel.  And not just take her back, but to do so in such a way that her heart is changed within her—that her infidelity is transformed into a heart of love and devotion to her God.  That is God’s purpose in converting Israel: that she would walk through life with Him as they had once done in the Garden.

At the end of the book I read these words:

O Israel, I will care for you,

your fruitfulness will come from me.

I sat there in the wee hours of the night staring at the candle.  “Your fruitfulness will come from ME?”  What did this all mean for me? 

I glanced back at the scroll and saw the concluding verse of Hosea:

Who is wise?  Who is discerning?  He will understand these things.  The righteous will walk in them, but the rebellious will stumble in them.

These words sounded like a voice calling to me.  Jesus’ words back at Matthew’s house called to me?  But wait a second… upon whose authority?  Was he equating himself with God?  And was that Mercy I had witnessed yesterday at the tax booth, or was it heresy?

What did this mean?  Is Matthew the sick or am I?  Or are we both?  Do I need mercy?  Am I a hollow sacrifice, clean on the outside, yet rebellious on the inside?  Who am I?  And who is Jesus?  How can he claim to be the Source of Cleanness?  When clean hits unclean, it comes out unclean!?  But he seems to be claiming to be the One who makes the unclean clean?!  How can he say that?!  In fact, how could God take back an unclean Israel?  How could Hosea take back an unclean Gomer? 

Where’s the sacrifice for their uncleanness… our law demands a sacrifice.  Our law demands justice.  You can’t just brush sin away.  There must be payment for sin.  It doesn’t just go away in the eyes of a holy God.  God may “desire” mercy, but He also demands a sacrifice to pay for our sin.  I can’t walk any road with Jesus until he solves that question.  And so here I sit, unknowing.  I’m going to keep watching Jesus… watching from a distance.  But here I sit…

Tim Loescher

The Navigators

University of Vermont

October 9, 2008