Daily Devotion October 8, 2013 Matthew 9:11 “’Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’” Jesus has just picked up another stray. He did that on a regular basis. We call them disciples and they have names like Philip, and Mary Magdalene, and Matthew. In fact Jesus might have been having dinner in Matthew’s house. This passage starts out with Matthew leaving his lucrative business as a tax collector simply because Jesus asked him to go on a journey with him. Strays, the Book calls them “tax collectors and sinners” and the Pharisees were indignant that Jesus would have anything to do with them, they certainly didn’t. You see Jesus got in more trouble for his table fellowship practices than almost anything else because, at that time, it really mattered who you ate dinner with. You know, the whole story of Jesus is about making people indignant about one thing or another. Healing anytime, but especially on the sabbath, teaching from his own authority, surrounding himself with fisherman, tax collectors, and a previously demon possessed woman, eating with the wrong people, touching the unclean, all of these things irritated one group or another, well mostly the folk in charge, Pharisees, scribes and the like. It seems that Jesus’ whole job was to turn the apple cart upside down, which in reality was to turn it right side up again. The things that he did and the people that he cared for were not being seen to by anyone else. Part of the Law was to care for the least and the lost but they forgot that. In today’s, passage Jesus tells his detractors to figure out what Hosea meant about God desiring “mercy and not sacrifice”. You see the religious leaders were really good at sacrifice but mercy, not so much. The stories of Jesus lay this reality out in stark contrast to God’s desire for God’s creation. I said that Jesus picked up strays and I am glad that he did because I’m one of them and you are too. I know you don’t have leprosy or demons, and you don’t defraud folk through the collection of taxes but when Jesus gets us we are all strays of one sort or another. You might be able to tell someone exactly when you were “saved” and you might not have any clue when that might have been except to say, “Well always”. Whatever the case, we were once lost. I imagine that there are some strays out there who look really “Christian” on the outside, but on the inside… Remember the story about “whitewashed tombs”? Maybe this would be a good day for us to “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’”, and how that applies to our own table fellowship practices. We just might be surprised. Peace, Fr. Reid
Posted on: Tue, 08 Oct 2013 12:02:37 +0000
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