“At the Heartbreak Café”

June 11, 2023

Matthew 9:9–13

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.

As Jesus sat at dinner in the house, many tax-collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?’ But when he heard this, he said, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’

This is a fast-paced scene of Jesus calling one of his disciples. Good news in there — the Divine does act quickly!

No one knows why Matthew, the tax collector, got up so abruptly to follow Jesus. One verse is all we have. There is nothing to indicate that Matthew knew Jesus or if Jesus knew Matthew.

All we know is that after Matthew follows Jesus the scene shifts quickly from his empty tax office to a meal in a house with a bunch of tax collectors and sinners. It probably was Matthew’s house.

In just five compact verses a particularly important value of the Divine is revealed: a verse for the call to Matthew, one to get seated at the table, one for the “good people” to complain, and two for Jesus to lift up his radically different idea of community.

“Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” The Pharisees, the Jewish rule-keepers asked the question.

In Jesus’ day what you ate and whom you ate it with were critical matters.

For Jews, eating was a religious experience. To eat together was to celebrate faith, including specific rules where cleanliness was paramount: clean food, clean dishes, clean hands, clean hearts. A proper Jewish meal was a worship service in which believers honored God by making holy the most ordinary details of living.

Jesus offended a lot of people with his table manners. He ignored the finger bowl by his plate. He ate whatever was put in front of him. He thought nothing of sitting down to eat with filthy people whose lives declared their contempt for religion. People saw him eating and they knew who he was: someone who had lost all sense of what was right, who condoned sin by eating with sinners and who might as well have spit in the faces of the good people who raised him.

In those days, sinners fell into some basic categories: people who did dirty things for a living (such as pig farmers and tax collectors), people who did immoral things (such as liars and adulterers), people who did not keep the law up to the standards of the religious authorities, Samaritans and gentiles.

Author and teacher Barbara Brown Taylor imagines a sinners table at a café in our times which illustrates what was happening in Matthew’s house the day Jesus called him to follow.

Around the sinners table is an abortion doctor, a child molester, a guy who sells AR-15 assault rifles, a garbage collector, a Laotian chicken plucker, a teenaged addict, and an unmarried woman on welfare with five children by three different fathers, a transgender person and an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador.

The folks at this table have been chosen carefully as they would have been considered sinners in Jesus’ day: people who did dirty things for a living, or immoral things — goodness knows, I suppose we could include some government officials and politicians at the table, too.

Brown Taylor continues. “Did I miss anyone? Don’t forget to put Jesus at the head of the table, offering the doctor a second cup of coffee before she goes back to work.”

If that offends you even a little, then you are almost ready for what happens next. Because what happens is that the local ministerial association comes into the café and sits down at a table not far from the sinners table. The religious authorities all have good teeth and there is no dirt under their fingernails. When their food comes, they hold hands to pray. They are all perfectly nice people, but they can hardly eat their strawberry rhubarb pie for staring at the strange crowd at the nearby table.

The abortion doctor has on her blue hospital scrubs, the single mom has hair that has not been washed in days and the garbage collector smells like spoiled meat. The addict cannot seem to find his mouth with a spoon. But none of this raises much ire. The heartbreaker is Jesus, sitting there as if everything is simply fine. Doesn’t he know what kind of message he is sending?

“Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

Which table would you be eating at?

In Matthew’s house that day, Jesus reacts to the religious people complaining about his dinner partners. “Those who are well have no need for physicians, but those who are sick.” Well nobody had been talking about doctors or sick people until Jesus brought it up. “Go and learn what this means.”

Jesus went on, “I desire mercy not sacrifice.” Mercy, as Jesus calls for it is more than keeping the rules of religious ritual by some kind of sacrifice — like not eating pork. Mercy is true compassion. Jesus says if you do not have mercy and compassion for others, then all the rituals in the world will not bring you closer to God.

Then, he concludes by saying, “For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” Righteousness means a right relation with God. Mercy is right relation with our neighbor. These combined are critically important for Jesus.

Jesus called Matthew. He got up immediately and then a dinner gathering became a controversial and divine revealing event. But it is clear there is no arguing that Jesus is all about hanging out with the wrong people. Being in right relationship with him means not letting the rules get in the way of including people at the table.

Rather, righteousness is giving up the idea that we can love God and despise each other. We simply cannot, no matter how wrong any of us has been. The only way to work out our relationship with God is to work out our relationship with each other.