The minster will be conducting worship in Brora Free Church this weekend so worship in BVP will be led by Derek Robertson.
We will be joining our neighbours in Partick South for the annual Wheel Trust service at 7.00pm.
On Sunday 6 November our studies in Matthew took us to the call of Matthew in Chapter 9:
'Mercy not Sacrifice'
Matthew has been painting the most beautiful portrait of Jesus
for us. Jesus is the master teacher. In the Sermon on the Mount He gives the
most wonderful exposition of goodness the world has ever known. Then Matthew
introduces the Jesus the healer; there is nobody so diseased, crippled or
decrepit that Jesus cannot restore them. Then he introduces us to Jesus the
sovereign Lord who commands the forces of nature. At His word the tsunami that
rocked the Sea of Galilee is quelled, evil retreats in disarray and is destroyed,
He even enjoys the divine authority to forgive sin.
Important though the authority of Jesus the most striking and
the most important dimension of this wonderful portrait of Christ is His love.
In love He dares to touch the unclean putrefying flesh of the leper. There are
no boundaries to His love; in love He heals the son of the wealthy aristocratic
Gentile centurion; in love he heals Peter’s mother in law. It is this wonderful
combination authority and love that makes Jesus so remarkable. He does so without
pretence, He said to young man who acme wanting to make Jesus his teacher, ‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have
nests but the Son of Man has no place to rest His head.’ Jesus whole life
was one of complete service.
Having completed this wonderful portrait of Jesus Matthew now
leads on to the next episode in Jesus’ ministry the calling of the disciples.
Well he does and he doesn’t. A new section definitely begins with Jesus calling
Matthew but certain themes continue.
The portrait of Jesus was completed with Jesus healing the
paralysed man by forgiving him his sin and we saw the paralysis was symbolic of
the incapacity sin has brought to the soul of man. But this theme continues as
Jesus goes to have dinner with Matthew and talks about healthy having no need
of a physician; and of course Jesus goes to Matthew’s home and eats with him.
Matthew was a tax collector and because he served the Roman’s, overcharged and
made money out of Rome’s occupation of Israel he was considered a quisling, a
traitor, someone unclean; no self-respecting Jew would associate with. It is as
though Matthew having completed the portrait of Jesus in its general form now
concentrates Jesus’ eyes to paint in wonderful detail the exact nature of
Jesus’s ministry.
Matthew was a tax collector; but not just any tax collector.
Matthew had a wee shop and sold licences to others so that they had the
authority to collect tax in that area. Imagine that in the Barrows here in Glasgow
you could go and buy an official government approved licence for imposing fines
on those who parked in the wrong place in Thornwood, Broomhill and Jordanhill
and you could add whatever percentage you liked so long as the council received
their £30 they would be happy. This would be e licence to print money. The
right to sell these licences would have been worth a fortune, the licences
would have to be renewed regularly and imagine the bribes that would be on
offer. Matthew was the tax collector’s tax collector. Tax collectors were hated
and despised, they contributed nothing to the community they just soaked people
for all the money they could. It was not only the ordinary people who despised
and hated them the religious authorities had no time for them either –
tax-collectors were answerable to their Gentile masters and they handled pagan
money and that made them ‘unclean’.
In calling Matthew to be His disciple Jesus was calling someone
nobody wanted to know. Matthew was a pariah and so he gathered all his fellow
pariahs together to meet Jesus.
The miracle is Jesus attended the party. Now for us having food
with someone is a pleasant enough affair but in Jesus’ day eating with someone
I have lunch with different folk all the time it is a good way of building
friendship and getting some work done at the same time. But in Jesus day going
to someone’s home and eating with them implied much more than friendship it
implied oneness, unity looking out for each other. Just as traditionally a
wedding reception is much more than just a party to celebrate a wedding but two
families becoming one. In going to Matthew’s home, in allowing Himself be the
guest of honour and reclining at Matthew’s Jesus is pledging Himself to Matthew
in a very special way.
So Matthew knows this transformation in his life he goes from
pariah to being the friend of this teacher par-excellence, this wonderful
healer, the master of the wind and the waves, the one who has ultimate
authority over evil the one who has the divine authority to forgive.
Fascinatingly the Greek word Matthew uses for his rising from
his booth to follow Jesus, is the word he uses later in the Gospel for the
resurrection of Jesus. This was Matthew experience of following Jesus, he knew
a resurrection. His old life of living for money, the old life bribery and
living to make a quick buck, the old life of despising and being despised was
left was dead; Matthew now lived to walk with the this wonderful, beautiful
Jesus, taught the Old Testament as no one had ever taught the Old Testament
before, who touched the leper, reached out in love to the Gentiles, healed
Peter’s mother in law, calmed the wind and the waves drove out demons and forgave.
It is wonderful that Matthew threw this banquet for his
colleagues so that they too could know Jesus. Matthew had lived in their skin.
He knew that making money by exploiting people made you feel dirty, his was a
demeaning life. He knew what it was to bear the contemptuous looks of the
Pharisees harden your heart and sneer back at them; he wanted his friends to
know this resurrection life he now enjoyed. Evangelism is no big deal; it is
knowing what it is like to be in someone else’s skin and showing friendship so
that they can share the resurrection life you enjoy in Christ Jesus.
But Jesus’ sitting down at Matthew’s table causes an outrage.
The teachers of the law who are always watching always looking to find fault
are appalled that Jesus should enter the home of a tax collector and what
follows leads to one of the great defining moments in the ministry of Jesus.
This is one of the passages from the Gospel that we think we understand but is
much more profound than we might at first imagine.
The central issue I think here is a question ‘What is the
essence of true faith and discipleship that is pleasing to God?’
For the teachers of the law the answer to that question seemed
to be that it was a man’s primary duty to offer sacrifice to God: to go up the
Temple and offer to God a bull or a goat, if you were wealthy, or a pigeon, if
you were poor, to prove your devotion to Him, to express your sorrow for your
sin and to find forgiveness. But you cannot come to God and simply do your
religious duty and wander off home again; nobody is as foolish to believe that,
so the life of offering sacrifice required that a man or woman devote
themselves to keeping God’s law, the understanding the commandments and living
to honour God, respect the Sabbath and do one duty to ones neighbour.
When we begin to unravel how the teachers of the law thought I
am not sure that we would disagree with them would we? What is true Christian
faith? Is it not coming to the Lord’s Table to express our trust in Christ and
to find the assurance of forgiveness? We know we must not come to the Table in
a casual, offhand way we must examine ourselves and come and so we seek to live
by the Sermon on the Mount. What is so wrong with that?
The primary fault with such a frame of mind is that you are at
the centre. Your devotion to God, your need for forgiveness, your holiness your
faith is all about you, you you; me, me me.
Jesus does not dismiss the importance of sacrifice and of
devotion to God, what He says is compassion
comes before sacrifice. Sacrifice is vital; Jesus gave His life in
sacrifice. Matthew could not know his new resurrection life apart from the
sacrifice Jesus makes for Him. Sacrifice is vital; but sacrifice without compassion
is meaningless.
Jesus goes to Matthew’s home in crossing the door into
Matthew’s home Jesus becomes unclean; the filth of Matthew’s life falls upon
Jesus. Jesus forgives Matthew, how can He do that? Matthew has no doubt taken bribes;
God hates those who can be bought. Matthew has lived well by exploiting the
poor and the vulnerable. How can God forgive him?
It is the sacrifice that Jesus made upon the cross that gives
Jesus the freedom to enter Matthew’s home for on the cross Jesus became sin, He
became filth in order to take filth away. On the cross Jesus died the death of
the most vile tax collector in order that God might be justified in forgiving
Matthew.
It is the sacrifice of the cross that sets Jesus free to go to
Matthew’s home and bring to Matthew and his friends a new resurrection life. What
led Jesus to Matthew’s home? Compassion. What led Jesus to forgive Matthew?
Compassion. What led Jesus to share a new resurrection life? Compassion. What
led Jesus to the sacrifice of the cross? Compassion.
God asks no sacrifice from us. Sacrifice is something Jesus
offers for us. The sacrifice of the cross sets us free from guilt and
condemnation that we might without fear, in the full joy of absolute
forgiveness so that with Jesus we might say to the Father ‘Not my will but Thy
will be done’ and pour our lives out in compassion and devotion.
Fascinatingly Jesus here quotes Hosea 6v6 and in quoting Jesus
quoting Hosea Matthew renders the Hebrew in Greek; Matthew does his best but
Hosea does not actually use the word compassion he uses the Hebrew word hesed. Matthew needed such a friend, a
friend who went to his home even though he was a pariah. A friend who would
give His life in sacrifice that he might know a resurrection from the old to
the new. This is the life Jesus calls us to a life of hesed love the love of a friend who is always, always, always
there; a friend who is utterly faithful will do whatever is necessary no matter
the cost.
So Jesus came in hesed
love to heal sinners Matthew. Did that mean the teachers of the law did not
need Jesus that through their religion they were OK?
Two years ago I had a secret plan. In nearly thirty years in
the ministry I had only missed two Sundays through illness. My friend in
Inverness, Anoghas Iain, always boasted that in thirty five years in the
ministry he had never missed a Sunday; then he was struck down with a heart
attack and was off for six months. I thought to myself I’ll easily beat his
record now, the bragging rights will be mine. In my folly I did not realise two
malignant tumours were growing inside me that needed major surgery to remove.
The teachers of the law railed at Jesus for going to the home
of the sinner Matthew in their folly they had no conception of the malignancy
of their own souls.
We all need to put ourselves under the care of the great
physician the lord Jesus Christ.
