The Disciples: The Tax Collector

For these few weeks as the year has begun, we've been talking about the disciples. And if you remember, we started with Andrew who was the protokletos, which means the first follower of Jesus. He had been a follower of John the Baptist. John the Baptist was not a disciple of Jesus. He was a forerunner of Jesus. But he had disciples and he told them, “Look, the lamb of God.” So Andrew goes and follows. He brings his brother, Simon, who Jesus later renames Peter, to meet Jesus. And then they're still by the Jordan when he calls Philip and tells Philip to follow me. Philip goes and gets his friend Nathaniel. They studied the scriptures together. Remember Nathaniel has the question, could anything good come out of Nazareth? But he follows, and goes and meets Jesus. And then Jesus goes back to Galilee in the north. He leaves the Jordan, goes back to the north and that's where he calls the fishermen. We have Andrew and Peter. Simon Peter officially called at that time. James and John, the sons of thunder. So now we're to six. And then we have Thomas and Thaddius. Remember, he has a second name, Judas, but he's not Judas Icariot. Are you keeping all this straight? Okay. So, now we're up to eight followers of Jesus.

And today we're going to talk about two more. One of them obviously being Matthew, and his story, I'm going to pick it out of the book of Matthew, although it's found in Matthew and Mark and Luke, and it's almost identical. There's a couple of little additions and places. But we pick it up from Matthew because it's Matthew's story and he's going to tell the story. But in the other accounts in Mark and Luke, he also has the name Levi. The thought is that maybe his original name was Levi and that as he's transformed into a disciple, they start to call him Matthew, but Levi and Matthew are the same person. They're the tax collector. He was a tax collector in the Capernaum area, which is a city on the Sea of Galilee where we know Peter was from because Peter had a house there with his mother and his mother-in-law. He had must have had a wife because he had a mother-in-law and so they live in Capernaum. They go back there and Jesus is teaching in the area. Matthew, the tax collector. was Jewish, but he collected taxes for the Roman government. And that made him and all tax collectors very, hated because they were thought to be ones who collaborated with Rome to oppress the Jewish people. The Jews considered tax collectors to be among the greatest traitors to their nation. They were thought to be greedy, dishonest, trustworthy, disloyal and notorious sinners. They were considered unclean which means that they were not allowed in the temple area just because of their job being tax collectors. They were a disgrace to the Jewish race. And they're often listed with sinners and prostitutes. Oh, you know those tax collectors and sinners and prostitutes, right? They're often listed together. The fishermen would have hated tax collectors because they were making a good honest living as fishermen and then the tax collectors would come on and collect some of the money. So immediately we have this awkwardness on the team now calling a tax collector and we really just cannot underestimate how despised the tax collectors were. They were considered to be extortionists that they would collect the money that was due but then they would collect additional money and they would pocket and keep that extra money for themselves. So this is Matthew.

But when Jesus looked at Matthew, he saw something different, something deeper. Now, we have to assume that Matthew knew who Jesus was. It's not very likely that a person in this situation would just get up and follow a Jew who says, “Come and follow me,” if he didn't know something about him. We have to take our imagination just a little bit and think about Matthew sitting in that tax collector's booth, hearing Jesus speak about being greedy and about taking care of the poor and about not stealing from other people. And he was hearing these things and they started to penetrate in Matthew. But you know, Matthew writes this little bitty snippet about this story. He doesn't tell us any of that. I really want Matthew to say, 'You know, that really made me feel bad. I really would but I never figured that Jesus would ever want me to be one of his disciples. And so I just sat in my tax collecting booth and kept doing my thing and had my little pity party about how Jesus would never want me. He doesn't write any of that. I have to make all that up in my head, right? I want to know how do you feel, Matthew? How'd you feel when Jesus called you? But we know one thing about Matthew. He got up immediately and followed. And Luke adds this little snippet where he says he left everything and followed Jesus. And that's really true. He left everything. Leaving his job was a huge risk. Like for the fishermen, if this thing goes south, they can go back tomorrow, pick up their nets, and keep fishing. Zebedee is going to take those sons of thunder back. And Andrew and Peter, they're going to have their job back. If this thing doesn't work out, they can go back to being fishermen. Matthew cannot. He cannot! First of all, he can't. He's betrayed Rome. He's probably on some kind of hit list for Rome. And then the Jews hate him. So where is Matthew going to go if this thing doesn't work out for him? But he leaves everything, Luke tells us. And he follows him. Now, we can assume that maybe Matthew took his pen with him or he found one later, thank goodness, because he wrote some of this stuff down for us. But he could not return. He left secure money and he left this big influence he probably had within the Roman government. He left it. It's hard to leave something familiar for something uncertain. But that's what Matthew did.

So in the story he does tell that he throws a big dinner for Jesus and he invites his friends. Now we can really think of it as a little intimate dinner in a home where the doors are closed. But that isn't what this was like. This was like a big banquet in a banquet hall where other people could see that this was happening apparently because the Pharisees are outside watching. But Matthew invites all of his friends. Now, who were his friends, right? None of the Jews were his friends. They didn't want to come. No, it was the sinners and the prostitutes and the tax collectors. The other tax collectors. That's who he invited to this dinner. the very people that Jesus came to reach. Come to this dinner. Now, to eat with someone, indicates a sign of friendship. Even today, if I'm inviting you out to lunch and we're seen together in town, people assume there's a friendship there. It was a sign of friendship. And so, that's why they accused Jesus immediately of being friends with these people. The Pharisees see him and they ask his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus explains that he didn't come for those who are healthy, who think they're perfect, who think they have no need of him. He came for those who knew they were sin-sick and that they needed a savior and that they were in need of forgiveness.

This is a good place to contrast a little bit between Matthew and the Pharisees. So, Matthew was a social outcast. He was considered religiously unclean. The Pharisees, on the other hand, were respected religious insiders. Matthew's posture is to be responsive to Jesus. He gets up immediately and follows him. where the Pharisees posture is to be critical, to be defensive, to be judgmental, to be questioning, to be skeptical. Matthew, however, is the one that's at the table eating with Jesus while the others, the Pharisees, remain outside. Matthew is humble and he's aware of his need for forgiveness. The Pharisees are self-righteous and confident in their own standing, in their own credentials. Matthew becomes an obedient follower while the Pharisees remain observers and accusers. Ironically, maybe the outcasts in this situation. Spiritually, Matthew leaves his old life behind. Matthew is sick and he knows he's sick. He knows he needs something different in his life. The Pharisees cling to their old life. They're defensive and static. They they're stuck in it. They're sick, but they deny that they're sick. In fact, they would judge the sick and they would say, “Oh, if you only had a perfect life like mine.” And yet, they would never ever contaminate themselves by associating with the tax collectors and the sinners and the prostitutes. So in Matthew 12 and 13 it says Jesus says to them it's not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy not sacrifice for I have not come to call the righteous but sinners. You see, he tells them to go back to their scriptures. Hosea had really claimed and talked about this to the people that he told for God. He told the people at the time that Hosea lived, God didn't want their sacrifice. He wanted their mercy and compassion and love for those around them. And so that would have meant something to the Pharisees. God would rather have right hearts. Hearts that are right, and seek truth and mercy over outward appearances. of being right and looking right and and doing sacrifices. Self-righteousness. The self-righteous do not realize that they have a need for salvation, but admitted sinners do. We recognize that we have a need for salvation and a need for Jesus.

Jesus becomes known as a friend of sinners and tax collectors. And those were the very ones he came to seek. The rejected, the broken, the outcast, the overlooked, the Matthews of the world. And Matthew's story shows us that no one is too far gone for God's love. In fact, we tend to think that sometimes, don't we? Oh, if Jesus only knew the things I've done, he would never want me to be a disciple. If God only knew who I am, the thoughts I have, the things I do, he wouldn't want me to follow him. But then we realize, of course, that they already know. Jesus and God already know those things about ourselves. So then we rationalize and we say, "Okay, well the other people in the church, if they knew this one thing about me, if they knew this thing about me, they wouldn't want me to be among them. So I can't tell them that thing. If they knew this secret that I keep, this thing that's deep down inside of me, they would reject me like a tax collector. But Jesus tells us, it tells his disciples on the night before his he died that we are to love one another the way he loved his disciples. Look at how he loved Matthew. He never rejected Matthew for who he was. And our practice as being disciples following Jesus have got to mimic that. We have got to be open with one another and then help each other reach and come to forgiveness that we need in our lives. We need to be able to do that.

Jesus gave Matthew dignity and forgiveness and a new beginning. Matthew's skills then were used for a good purpose, right? He was organized. He was detailed. He was confident in interviewing people. He was adept at writing and he wrote things down and he kept careful records. And then Matthew, (that's why I say he probably took his pen with him), he recorded things as they happened with Jesus, and later was able to write an orderly account. He was the perfect person to write an orderly account of Jesus' life. Matthew was a Jewish person and he wrote to the Jewish people and he became respected as a Jewish person who tried to tell them that the Messiah, that Jesus was the Messiah. That's why he wrote the whole book. Jesus loved and he called Matthew to be a disciple and that love was well-placed. Matthew did just that. And Jesus calls the unlikely in the middle of life. And then that response requires everything. Okay. So that's Matthew.

We have a second one for today and that is James, son of Alpheus. Now he's listed every time the disciples are listed as James, son of Alpheus. And sometimes we read him called or hear that he's called James, the less or little James because of course we know there's James who is the son of thunder. They have to differentiate between the two and so he's James. the less or little James. Now like Thaddaeus from last week Judas who is not Iscariot, we know very little about this James but he's on the team. He's listed among the 12. He's not known for giving speeches or performing miracles or asking questions. His nickname may have meant that he was younger than the other James or that he was smaller than the other James or it may mean that he was lesser known than the other James. We don't really know. But his role is not to be in the spotlight. His service though is still important. He's one of the 12. He remains faithful and consistent and steady. And sometimes our greatest strength is just to be steady. Jesus’ mission needs faithful people who are willing to do the work even if no one notices. Because God always notices. God always sees. God doesn't measure greatness by fame. He measures greatness by faithfulness. He says, “Follow me.” And he's looking for those who will. Okay. So, James, it's thought, might have been a zealot. And we're going to talk about the zealots next week.

But why on earth would I pair Matthew and James together? Well, Matthew was a tax collector. In the book of Mark, it's the one and only place that this is written. And it doesn't really tell us that much, but it tells us this little bit of this little snippet. It's the same story, but Mark says that Jesus was preaching to the crowd. And as he walked along, he saw Levi, son of Alfus, sitting at the tax collector's booth. “Follow me”, he says Jesus told him. And Levi got up and followed him. He's known right there by Mark as Levi, son of Alpheus. And James is known every time his name is spoken as James, son of Alpheus. Now, the Bible doesn't tell us that they were brothers. And they might not be because the Bible tells us that Andrew and Simon were brothers and that James and John were brothers. But he does the Bible doesn't tell us that they were brothers. But if they were brothers, they could not have been any two more opposing disciples. than these. James, who might have been a zealot, who would have hated Rome, who would have violently fought against Rome, trying to defeat the Rome, Roman army. “Get those soldiers out of here. We're going to be independent again”, against Matthew, the tax collector, the hated one who served Rome. Talk about family dysfunction if they were brothers. What this shows us is that Jesus did not call a bunch of friends who all had the same opinion, who all looked at life the same, and who all got along. He called disciples that looked at things very differently.

Now, Matthew had skills that were redeemed, and our skills can be redeemed and used for God's glory and God's purposes. Matthew shows us that he calls the unlikely to be his disciples. He wants every one of us, and he wants to use our skills and redeem them for his purposes. We don't have to have it all figured out to get up from the tax collector booth of our life and follow Jesus. Those that society rejects can become the most powerful witness for God. He took the gospel. Matthew is said of him that he took the gospel too far off places and it's even written that he took and spoke the good news to kings and died a martyr according to church tradition.

James shows us that each disciple is chosen and valuable, and loved; that we don't have to be the loudest or the fastest or the most famous to be used or treasured on the team with Jesus. He followed Jesus. He stayed loyal and he too remained to take the gospel to far ends of the earth. In fact, both of them took Jesus’ command seriously to go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit and teaching everything that Jesus had command. And that's what Jesus tells us to do, too.

Let's pray. Lord God, we thank you for the examples of your disciples and all that we can learn for them. We thank you that you accept us as we are, but you don't leave us that way. You change us and redeem us into who you are calling us to be. We pray that you would give us the strength. You would give us the courage. You would give us the bravery. You would give us the awareness to put down our lives and to follow you just like Matthew did, Lord. Just like James did. We pray that you would build in us the kind of disciples you're looking for. We're open. We want to be those disciples. And we pray that for one another, we can be the kind of disciples that show the love of Jesus to each other, that show the kind of love that Jesus showed to Matthew, to one another. We pray that you would help us to do that in Jesus holy and precious name. Amen.