Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Scandalous Company” Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
He was scandalous, that miserable Matthew. All day long, he sat in his roadside tent outside Capernaum along the busy highway, the Way of the Sea, the great Roman road that stretched from Egypt to Damascus. For good reason, Matthew was little loved by his neighbors. He paid a pretty price to the Romans for the right to collect taxes, to charge a toll for the use of the highway. Matthew prospered, not just by collecting the taxes due to the Romans, but also from adding a tidy surcharge for his personal benefit. To his neighbors, Matthew was everything that had gone wrong with Israel: a filthy Roman collaborator, grown rich from fleecing his own people, rendered unclean and undesirable as a result of his unethical business practice and his constant contact with Gentiles.
They were scandalous, not at all the sort of company that any respectable rabbi would keep. You know the sort I’m talking about, sinners and outcasts, folks known far and wide for their moral and ethical failure. It wasn’t just the tax collector. Oh no. It was the merchant who liked to keep his thumb on the scale, the farmer who maximized his profits by oppressing his workers, the older husband who kept a sweet young thing on the side, the son who neglected his aging parents, the drinker who never made it to sabbath services. They weren’t the “right” kind of people. Indeed, sharing a meal with that crowd was a surefire way for any rabbi to be labeled a glutton, a drunkard, and fellow sinner.
She was scandalous. There are no real secrets in a village, and when she first began to suffer from her problem down there, folks shook their heads and clucked their tongues. After all, a malady like that, going on and on and on, month after month, could only be an affliction sent by the Lord. They didn’t know what she had done to bring it on herself, but it must have been pretty salacious. For 12 years she was afflicted, suffering from the pain and debilitation of her illness. Everyone knew that Leviticus 15 told women like her to stay home, avoiding contact with neighbors and even family, but there she was elbowing her way through the crowd, rendering everyone she touched unclean.
We are scandalous. Like Matthew, we have valued a buck more than our neighbors. We have pursued the politics of expedience. We held our noses and forged alliances that feathered our nests or suited our ends, even when we knew it was wrong. We love the almighty dollar. Don’t mess with our 401-k. We want to know what is in it for us.
We are scandalous. Like those sinners and outcasts, we pick and choose the commandments that we wish to keep. We think that our drinking or drugging or infidelity isn’t a problem if we can keep it on the down low. We’ll fulfil those obligations to family next week—or maybe the week after. If our minimum wage workers really wanted to make more money, they’d do something about it—get more school, pull up the old bootstraps, get up the gumption to leave. We justify the ethical corners that we cut.
We are scandalous. Like the hemorrhaging woman, we have allowed ourselves to be blamed for things far beyond our control. We bear the sins of our fathers and mothers like a coat of shame. We allow people to tell us that our cancer can be cured if only we will eat a cleaner diet, or we wouldn’t have diabetes if we hadn’t gotten so darned fat. We have allowed others to define us with mean-spirited gossip and outdated perceptions, to ostracize us and turn us into outsiders. We have refused to stand up for ourselves.
If Jesus were a prudent rabbi, he would have sent one of his disciples into Matthew’s tent and avoided the man entirely. But Jesus didn’t do that. Instead, as Jesus waited his turn to pay his tax and watched Matthew assess fees and count coins, he didn’t see a tax collector, he saw a disciple. So, Jesus extended an invitation, “Matthew, won’t you leave your tax table and follow me?” And for Matthew, it was perhaps as if a shaft of light pierced the veil that shrouded his heart. Matthew knew that God loved him. God longed to be reconciled with him and put him to work. Matthew left the coins on the table, turned his back to the tollbooth, and walked away to a life of discipleship.
If Jesus were a prudent rabbi, he never would have accepted those dinner invitations, but he did. There he was, reclining next to sinners, dipping his hand into the same bowl with them, and you know what they say, “Birds of a feather.” But when Jesus looked at sinners and outsiders, he saw neighbors, who for years had hovered at the margins of Israel, somewhere above Gentile dogs and below observant Jews. He saw sheep in need of a shepherd, in need of second and third chances. And so, he broke the bread, lifted the cup, welcomed the lost, and there was great rejoicing.
If Jesus were a prudent rabbi, he would have ignored the hemorrhaging woman and kept on walking. But as her fingers reached out to touch the fringe of his robe, he stopped. He turned. He knew her affliction. He knew the desperation it had taken to wrap herself in a shawl, leave her home, and walk among her neighbors with the hope of stealing a little healing. Her neighbors said she was unclean, but when Jesus looked at this frightened and suffering woman, he saw a daughter, a sister, a woman of bold faith and brave courage. She returned home with a light and joyous step, healed, whole, and free from suffering.
We are scandalous. We’ve gotten things so wrong, we wonder if they can ever be made right. We long for a God who can look beyond our sin and suffering to see us for who we truly are. We need a savior who believes that that we can be good and honorable and pleasing to God. Jesus knew that God’s love is always surprising and challenging, always greater than we can ever possibly imagine.
Jesus sees us this morning. He calls us disciple, neighbor, daughter, son. We are a scandalous company, my friends, but that is just the sort of company that Jesus chose to keep. Thanks be to God.
Resources:
Cleophus LaRue. “Commentary on Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26” in Preaching This Week, June 11, 2023. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-10/commentary-on-matthew-99-13-18-26-2
Danny Zacharias. “Commentary on Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26” in Preaching This Week, June 7, 2026. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-10/commentary-on-matthew-99-13-18-26-3
Greg Carey. “Commentary on Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26” in Preaching This Week, June 8, 2008. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-10/commentary-on-matthew-99-13-18-26
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
9 As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.
10 And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with Jesus and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 But when he heard this, he said, “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 not come to call the righteous but sinners.”
18 While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” 19 And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples. 20 Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, 21 for she was saying to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” 22 Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And the woman was made well from that moment. 23 When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, 24 he said, “Go away, for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. 25 But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. 26 And the report of this spread through all of that district.
Joann White 