Ferocious

Propers: The Second Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 10), AD 2023 A

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Nobody likes paying taxes, at least not here in America. Call it our rugged individualism, attempting to keep our paychecks intact. It’s a different story over in Europe. The Danes, for example, will happily fork over half their income, because they see a good return on their investment: universal healthcare, higher education, job retraining, all the things one can afford when one is not the world’s policeman.

I knew the county tax collector in the town where I grew up. She had office hours twice a week in the barn behind her home. It seemed like a pretty good gig, and she must’ve been good at it, for she ran unopposed in most all our local elections. That’s not what Matthew is. Matthew’s not a soccer mom selected by her peers to handle communal finances, seeking out the greater good. No, Matthew is a traitor, a collaborator. He doesn’t work for his people; he works for the Roman occupation.

Keep that in mind, whenever we read the stories of the New Testament. These are tales told from under military rule, beneath the boot of the Empire. Romans were ruthlessly efficient. For over a century they had waged relentless civil wars, yet somehow managed to conquer vast swaths of territory in the midst of all of that. In the end, there could be only one. Caesar Augustus, son of the divine Julius, and savior of the world, arose as the one Emperor over one Empire.

The Herods ruled in Judea, but only because the Romans had placed them there. Marc Antony put Herod the Great on the throne, where he first married into, then promptly killed off, the previous royal family, along with several of his sons. When Marc Antony lost the last of the Roman civil wars, Herod went to Augustus, slippery as an eel, and said unto him: “Ask not whose friend I was. Ask how good a friend I was.” Thus did the puppet-king gain a more powerful puppeteer.

Now the Romans want money from their conquered barbarian territories. And they don’t much care how they get it, only that they get it. So they recruit from the local population turncoats who pledge and prepay a certain amount of revenue. In return, Rome gives them carte blanche to collect said revenue from the populace by whatever means necessary, while adding as much extra as they like. Savvy?

So the Legions roll up to conquer Judea—you can thank Pompey the Great for that—and then they find people like Zacchaeus, the wee little man in the tree, to serve them as chief tax collectors. He subcontracts with other folks like Matthew, to collect the promised taxation and to skim whatever they like off the top. Rome gets paid; you get paid. This divides the locals, as some of their own are now accessories to the occupying powers.

That’s why people hated Zacchaeus, hated Matthew. And it’s not like they were subtle about it. Matthew’s tax office is located on the outskirts of Capernaum, right on the main highway. He’s there for the same reason that Jesus is. Capernaum is located on the Via Maria, the Way of the Sea, one of only two major trade routes pumping economic lifeblood between the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia, right through the heart of Israel.

Israel is a tiny nation, about the size of New Jersey. If you’ve ever wondered why they have such outsized historical importance, why that little country has always seemed to punch above its weight class, this is why. It’s a chokepoint. In moving His ministry to Capernaum, Jesus’ preaching and teachings are carried far and wide by every trader coming through, every caravan, every soldier. But as they pass through, they first have to stop at the tax office in order to pay their due.

I guarantee you, Matthew has a sword, and probably armed guards. He is the most visible representative both of foreign military rule and of corrupt local officials. And this is the age of Sicarii, the dagger-men, who assassinate collaborators in the night. Violence, in other words, is always in the air. If the Romans don’t get their money, they’ll start killing people. And believe you me, they have made an art of death.

I paint you this picture as vividly as I can, so that we may begin to understand the shock, the scandal, and the very real danger, of Jesus walking up to the tax booth and saying, “Follow Me”—and of Matthew doing exactly that. That tax booth is a border, a militarized border. It divides the righteous from sinners, patriots from traitors, Jews from Gentiles, life from death. And Jesus just strides straight across it like He owns the place; like He’s a king; or a God.

And the Pharisees see all of this. Now, I know that we tend to paint the Pharisees as the bad guys of the Gospels, as the holier-than-thou, self-righteous religious prigs. But the Pharisees are the good guys in every conventional sense. They stand up for morality over corruption, for religion over assimilation, for freedom and for patriotism against the foreign horde, and for the oppressed lower classes over a royal and priestly establishment that bends the knee to Rome.

The Pharisees are the grassroots champions of Israel. And they see Jesus switching sides, crossing the line, selling out to Rome. What is He thinking? How could He do this? How dare He consider Himself a rabbi when He eats with wicked men? Because table fellowship, take note, isn’t just polite. It’s not simply some business meeting. Table fellowship means acceptance, kinship, alliance. And Jesus here is eating not only with Matthew, but with all of Matthew’s tax collecting buddies.

The Pharisees think, not unreasonably, that Jesus has betrayed Israel, betrayed His people. And we would too, all we patriotic freedom-loving mainline Protestants.

Such is the radicalism of Jesus Christ. Such is the ferociousness of His love. Jesus calling Matthew is almost suicidally bold. This would get Him on a hitlist. Yet obviously He’s not doing it to sell Himself to Rome. He’s doing it to demonstrate, in the most explosive way that He can, the obliteration of all boundaries in the Kingdom of our God. Nothing and no-one is beyond the pale of His redemption. If Jesus has come for the tax collectors, then by God He’s come for us all.

Here the Pharisees are afraid that at best Jesus is dragging holiness through the mud—I mean, the fishermen were bad enough—but in fact He is fulfilling, He is demonstrating, He is incarnating His mission as the great Physician, to reclaim the lost, to heal the sick, and to raise up to life all the dead. Are those not the three very wonders He works in our Gospel this morning? He redeems a tax collector, He heals a wounded woman, and He resurrects a little girl. That’s who Jesus is. That’s what He has come to do.

And nothing is going to stop Him. No-one will stand in His way, not even the Cross, not even the tomb, not even the pits of hell. You think He’s scared of Rome? Satan’s scared of Him!

And Matthew, mind you, for his part, does not abandon his friends. He does not walk away from the people with whom he works. He brings them along. He invites them to share in the grace, in the wonder, that Christ has shown to Him. He is liberated from his sin, from his status, from his shame, and all he wants to do in return is to share his salvation with others, to bring everyone to his Christ. That’s how grace works. That’s how love will burn down all this world.

Jesus has a habit of giving us new names. Simon became Peter, “the Rock.” Mary became Magdalene, “the Tower.” This represents rebirth, our death and resurrection. In the Gospels according to Luke and to Mark, the name of the tax collector in this story is Levi, presumably from the tribe of the same name. Yet in the Gospel of Matthew—the Gospel traditionally written by Matthew—Levi has a different name. “Matthew” means “the Gift of God,” “the Gift of Yahweh.”

That’s who Levi is now. He is Matthew, so transformed by the gift of grace, the gift of God in Jesus Christ, that it is his identity, his salvation, his redemption. Christ risked all to call him home. And eventually, the payment came due. Eventually our Jesus died upon a Roman cross. But even that couldn’t stop Him. It was just one more boundary for Him to tread beneath His conquering feet.

Jesus Christ has come for you, and nothing and no-one can stop Him. Put up whatever barriers you want, hide wherever you think you can, throw at Him all the shame you’ve ever known, and He will trample every wall as though it were not there. Grace has come for you. Forgiveness has come for you. Life has come for you. And the ferociousness of the love of God will claim us all at the last.

Rejoice, O sinner, for sin is conquered and you are the gift of God.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

 

 

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