Controversy Grows
CONTROVERSY GROWS
MATTHEW 9:9-17
Jesus loves to show mercy to those who know they aren’t good.
The story of the call of the tax collector raises some interesting questions. Why, for example, is it only in the Gospel traditionally associated with Matthew that this tax collector (referred to as Levi by Mark and Luke) is called Matthew? And why is it in the apostolic list of this Gospel only that Matthew (mentioned by his bare name in the parallel lists of Mark and Luke) is distinguished as “Matthew the tax collector” (Matthew 10:3)? It is only from this evangelist that we learn that the Twelve included a former tax collector. That he should have become a colleague of the fishermen is noteworthy enough—“if ever cursing was justifiable, it was when such as Peter the fisherman cursed Matthew the publican” (W.M. Christie)—but that he should have been a member of the same group as Simon the Zealot is a near-miracle. For, while it was not for the Romans, but for the administration of Herod the tetrarch, that Matthew collected taxes in his toll-booth on the Capernaum quayside, tax-farmers as a class were regarded as unpatriotic characters, no better than robbers, and tax evasion carried no moral stigma with it.
The appended incident (9:10-13) is a pronouncement story, told for the sake of the concluding utterance, in which Jesus defends his association with such disreputable persons by appealing to a great prophetic declaration (Hosea 6:6; cf. Matthew 12:7) and to the well-known fact that it is sick people, not healthy people, who need the doctor’s care. “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (9:13b) is one of the greatest single-sentence summaries of the gospel.
The fasting incident is another pronouncement story. Regular fasting (apart from the observance of the few fast-days of the Jewish year) was a voluntary act of religious devotion (cf. 6:16-18), undertaken by many religious groups in Israel but not by the disciples of Jesus. Jesus’ defense of their behavior in this regard (9:15a) may have implications for his own understanding of his person and rôle. The additional words (9:15b) point to the later period, when his disciples did fast, and explain this change of practice. But during his ministry their deviation from the fasting procedure of other religious groups underlined the difference made by the proclamation of the kingdom and the incompatibility of this new order with that which preceded it—an incompatibility illustrated by the two short parables of 9:16-17.
Compare the two passages in this Gospel (9:13; 12:7) where Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6 (“I desire mercy, and not sacrifice”) and consider the relevance of the quotation in both places.