Sermon for Wednesday Lenten Service Lent 4: Matthew the Tax Collector "From My Contrite Heart, With Tears"

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our theme line this evening is From My contrite heart, with tears.

            It has been many weeks, but in our vigil after the death of our Lord, it has been just an hour since his death. We still stand beneath his cross, the sky has begun to darken as night approaches. We stand considering all that has happened these last hours, the last meal, the washing of feet, the time in the Garden of Gethsemane, the trial before the Chief Priests and then Pilate, and finally Jesus’ walk to Golgotha and his death.

            Matthew, the tax collector, always felt a little different than some of the others of the disciples, they tended to be manual workers, fishermen and laborers, but he was a man of money. He lived his life as a devout Jew, just like the rest, but when the Romans asked if anyone would become collectors of the Roman tax, he went through with it, earning a vast amount of distrust from his neighbors and family. He tried to work correctly, just increasing the amount of tax owed by a small percentage so that he could live off his collecting, as was understood, but the temptation grew and grew, and he saw how his fellow tax collectors abused those around him to great profit, it became too much for him and he too began to enlarge that percentage of overage, and he too became wealthy at the benefit of his neighbors. And in this way he lived for many years.

            As Matthew stood beneath the cross he remembered back to that day, when as he sat at his booth on the street, a man with a few other men following him approached and simply said, “Follow me.” And he did. Matthew was not quite sure why he did, he didn’t think about it, didn’t consider at all what he was doing, he just got up, and started walking after the man.

            Jesus had then asked him, I need to find a place for you, me, and my disciples to eat. Matthew recalled it very distinctly, the only place he knew to eat was at his own house, since he was so rich he often hosted his fellow tax-collectors and some other unsavory personal for dinners. They had all been removed or kicked out of their neighborhood and family dinners, so this group of sinners in the eyes of the temple only had themselves to lean on. They knew they were sinners, that they took advantage of others, that they stole, lied, and sold themselves, but they also saw no way to get out of their situation, nor be accepted back into society. To the temple and the priests, and therefore to everyone else, they were to be cast out and never allowed back in.

            But, here this Jesus not only talked to him, but called him, and now wanted to eat with them, despite being sinners.

            Matthew recalled the moment when a Pharisee entered the house, they seemed to follow Jesus around, and asked, what are you doing here with these tax-collectors and sinners. To Matthew it sounded like he spat when he said those words.

            Matthew recalled the dread and pain he felt at those words, he had been called to something, been accepted, and here he was going to be removed from it too, kicked out again. But, then Jesus responded, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

            Matthew rejoiced, finally he could be forgiven. He could be accepted. Jesus was looking past his sins, and hearing his cry for forgiveness and accepting it. He was welcome again.

            As Matthew stood there beneath the cross another meal came to him. This time they had been eating in the house of a Pharisee, and a woman came in off the street, she took a jar of expensive ointment and poured it on Jesus' feet and began to wipe them with her hair. The Pharisee of course interrupted, “If you knew better you would know that this woman touching you was a sinner.” Jesus responded, “There were two men, one owed 50 denarii to a creditor, the other owed 500. The creditor cancelled both debts. Which would be more moved and love the creditor more?” The Pharisee responded, “Well, the one who had owed more.” “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. 45 You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.47 Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love.”

            Matthew recalled that as Jesus then lifted the woman to her feet, it felt like Jesus was lifting him to his own feet. Jesus then said, and it felt to Matthew like he was also speaking directly into his own heart. “Your sins are forgiven, your faith has saved you, go in peace.”

            He looked up to Jesus on the cross, and some of Jesus’ last words flowed through him, and he knew that he would never forget them, “Father, forgive them.” They had been directed at the soldiers below, but to Matthew they also pierced his heart, and freed him. He knew that he was so great a sinner, that he deserved nothing, but Christ had welcomed him in, had in fact called him specifically, and Christ had forgiven him.

            As he stood there, Matthew knew, he would go anywhere he could, tell everyone he knew, write it everywhere he could, that Jesus had forgiven him, and then in this moment done something even greater, had died for him. Those words, Father forgive them, would always echo in his ears, and they would allow him, who had felt like nothing, to live.

Let us pray,

God of forgiveness, we do not deserve your forgiveness, we do not deserve your love, your grace, your mercy, and yet you give us that forgiveness, that love, that grace, that mercy. And we see that most fully in the death and resurrection of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Next week we finish our Lenten series, Beneath the Cross of Jesus with the theme, “I take, O cross, your shadow for my abiding place.”