Dave spoke last week from Mattjew 9:9-13, the calling of Matthew as a disciple of Jesus. Matthew (Levi), a hated tax collector, was called by Jesus to follow Him. When this happened, he put down his pen, didn’t even finish the form he was working on, pushed back his chair, got up and just started walking after Jesus without once looking back over his shoulder. He left behind everything he had been doing, everything that had given his life meaning up to that point and started following this itinerant rabbi from Nazareth who had suddenly walked into his life and said that He wanted him with Him. Jesus did not wait for Matthew to come to Him, He called Matthew.
With that call there came the convicting power of God upon this man, and he was instantly changed. The same power that raised a little girl from the dead, that healed the sick, that released the demon possessed, brought salvation to a despised sinner. The result was that Matthew left his job and made restitution to all of those he had robbed. The call of Jesus brought salvation and repentance to this man.
Matthew then invited Jesus and His disciples to dinner at his house. But he also invited his fellow tax collectors and other sinners. Matthew was so overcome with the change in his life that he wanted all his fellow partners in crime to experience the same change. So, he invited them all along to meet Jesus, probably in the hope that they too would be saved. The Pharisees were not so impressed, believing that Jesus was consorting with sinners. But Jesus came for the benefit of every one of us who need Him. The irony is that the Pharisees needed Jesus as much as anyone, but their religious pride causes them to miss it.
We do well to learn from the mistakes of the Pharisees.It is possible to be so active in the service of Christ that we forget to love Him. It is certainly possible to be so busy in the service of Christ that we forget to love our neighbour. It can be so easy to come to church out of habit and to forget the One we come to worship.
In this incident we see Jesus as the one who moved from the comfort and security and power of being at God’s side, to being among us, as one of us, and suffering and dying as one of us, living out the message of the gospel. This is what He calls us to do as well. How will God answer our prayers for the lost in this world, how will people come to be blessed on account of us, if we do not leave behind our righteous judgements, our undoubtedly true judgement of a situation, and venture out to where it is most uncomfortable, and show mercy? We have to leave our cosy routines and our comfort zones to meet others as Jesus did. We are called to go and make disciples of all nations (Matt 28:18-20. Nothing else will do.
