Contagious Grace or Quarantines?

Scripture: Matthew 9:9-13

We’re spending a few weeks in Matthew, looking at more of what it means to follow Jesus and to be sent out into the world by Him. To be gathered and going. Last week we looked at Jesus’ baptism and how believing in Him, we are also children of God, who participate in God’s mission in the world. Following the passage from last week, Jesus was tested in the desert and begins His public ministry, calls the first disciples, heals many, and then teaches his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount about what it means to follow Him—how we are called to live, having been called by God. A chapter after the Sermon on the Mount, and right before our passage this morning, Jesus heals a paralyzed man—and even forgives his sins. We find that He even has the authority to forgive. 

And then this passage. This reminds us of who Jesus calls—He calls Matthew, the sick and the sinners, because He is the Great Physician. We saw just before this that Jesus has the authority to forgive sin, and here He shows the authority to call the sick, the sinners to follow Him. He forgives, heals, calls. 

Contagious Grace or Quarantines?

Normally we take care to stay away from sick people. We worry we’ll catch something and spread it along. But here we see that Jesus’ grace reverses this—His grace in calling Matthew is more contagious than any of Matthew’s sin. So Jesus is someone who is uncompromisingly against sin, but for all who see their need of Him. Unfortunately, we don’t always practice that same contagious grace. 

One of my professors asked whether our churches today are clubs or hospitals. Are people afraid to come to church because they feel they are too messed up? Do we inadvertently “quarantine” anyone who we might label as a “sinner”—and end up all too much like the Pharisees? If so, then we may be giving the sense of the church as a club for good people. Even if we don’t believe this, what impression are we giving day-to-day, in our conversations and what we’re willing to mention of our own lives and failings? 

The Passage

With this in mind, let’s look at our passage a little more closely.

This passage is especially interesting because it seems to be Matthew’s autobiography. His testimony. A short passage, but showing where he came from and what changed.

We might imagine a bit of what this scene might have looked like. Jesus seems to be walking with His disciples, at least Peter, Andrew, James and John. Hardworking fishermen. Rough around the edges, but they may have considered themselves good citizens. We can imagine how the Pharisees—religious leaders at this time—may have wondered why Jesus chose these men, but he could have done worse. Then Jesus and His disciples come by that area where that man Matthew sits ripping people off, the customs official in the area. Right there, in bright daylight, sitting as a traitor to Rome. Collecting taxes on trading goods that came through the area. And where did the money go? To Rome. As if this weren’t enough, he was probably padding his own pockets with the extra he had added on! It might be a bit of how we feel about bankers in the US receiving big bonuses while their companies are declaring bankruptcy. They are in the wrong. Not the best companion for hanging out on the weekend.
 

But now, in our passage, Jesus has turned towards that hated spot on the road where Matthew sits. Maybe he just was confused. He doesn’t have anything to be taxed. Maybe the disciples tried to keep on walking.

And then Jesus does the unthinkable. He calls Matthew to follow Him! The disciples are probably shocked, but they are following Jesus and so perhaps they are learning something of what this means. Jesus calls even the rejects of society to follow Him. 

And then we see Jesus eating at Matthew’s house. In Luke, we read that Matthew threw a huge banquet at his house for Jesus. He who was rejected by all except the rejects, who is a sinner, invites all his friends and co-workers to meet this Jesus who has called him...even him! 

But now the Pharisees are really upset. They are part of a group that spends tons of energy on maintaining their purity before God. They do it right. They follow all the rules—from the speed limit to the Sabbath laws. Their name “Pharisee” actually comes from a word that means “separated ones.” There are sinners and tax collectors, and they don’t want to be seen anywhere near them. These other people needed to be quarantined, kept at arm’s length until they cleaned up their act.

But now Jesus, who claims to be obeying God, is lowering himself and tainting his reputation, not to speak of his purity before God. He’s eating, talking, coming to know tax collectors and sinners! He’s making this man’s house his fellowship hall.

He and His disciples should be ashamed. So the Pharisees level the question that must have been closer to an accusation: Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? Maybe the disciples would consider finding a better teacher. This one had some problems.

Jesus answers: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” Makes sense. And then He tells them to study a verse from the Old Testament, from the book of Hosea. “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Israel had turned away from God, but seems to still have been bringing some sacrifices to Him—like a child who gives a token hello to a classmate at church, but then bullies them all week at school. Empty, meaningless. The Pharisees were going to worship every Sabbath and staying within the speed limit, but they pridefully looked down on others. They weren’t showing mercy, or love. 

The Pharisees thought they were the clean, the good ones, and these others were the unclean sinners. But if they study the passage Jesus quotes, they will realize that they are also sinners, sick, and needing healing. 

Instead of catching the impurity of these people, Jesus reverses it all. Those who obey His call to follow find that His grace and life is more contagious than their sin. Jesus is wholly against sin, but not against people who see their sickness and need of Him.

The Pharisees are basically saying that healthy people should stay away from sick people. But whenever Jesus touches people, good things happen—healing comes from Him. It’s the opposite of the Pharisees’ concern—that they would be contaminated by these people.

We All Need a Doctor

We see from Matthew’s story that Jesus is in the business of calling the sinners, the sick. All His followers need a doctor.

There’s a song by a group called “Switchfoot.” The song is entitled “The Beautiful Letdown,” and one verse begins “We are a beautiful let down, / Painfully uncool, / The church of the dropouts / The losers, the sinners, the failures and the fools...”[1]

Jesus called Matthew, a tax collector. And Jesus calls us. Anyone who has obeyed Jesus’ call has to recognize that they don’t have it all together. We were there sitting in the tax collector’s booth too. Jesus didn’t pick us because we had straight A’s. He calls for us to give all in following Him, and He makes us new. And in Him we are all saints, we are loved by the Father as we talked about last week, and God gives us everything we need! But we have to recognize our sickness first, or we’d have no use for him as a doctor. 

In reality, Jesus is the only healthy one, and we are all sick apart from Him. A Russian author, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, writes about this:

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”[2]

This gets at the problem, but could go even further. Scripture shows us that everything we do is contaminated, sick, sinful apart from God. The only One who can cut out the heart that is sick and give a heart transplant is God. In Ezekiel 36, we read “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.” (NIV 1984)

We might not always feel sick, feel that we need Christ in the same ways. But it’s one thing to feel our need, and another—more important thing—to believe God when He says that we are sick. Dietrich Bonheoffer says something really relevant here: 

First, the Christian is the man who no longer seeks his salvation, his deliverance, his justification in himself, but in Jesus Christ alone. He knows that God’s Word in Jesus Christ pronounces him guilty, even when he does not feel his guilt, and God’s Word in Jesus Christ pronounces him not guilty and righteous, even when he does not feel that he is righteous at all...[3]

Thinking we have it all together can easily turn us away from Jesus. Recognizing our sins and failures—if we don’t like them—should just drive us closer to Him.[4]  

The Church must be a place for those who are sick...including those we all to easily quarantine 

 Remember that Jesus is not, by calling Matthew, excusing his sin. This is not tolerance; this is grace. To extend grace to someone, we don’t need to convince ourselves that they are just victims and not to blame. It may be like tax collectors—there was probably plenty of corruption through their own fault, and then on top of this they were wrongly looked down on by the religious leaders who thought they had it all together. Grace involves honestly seeing the sin of ourselves and others (though only God can see their heart), and then fully, honestly looking at the cross, where Christ gave Himself for the worst of sinners. Jesus came to call the sick and make them well. His grace is more contagious than our sin.  

Do we follow Jesus in offering grace like this? We can’t do this on our own strength; only going in the innocence and strength of Christ can we spread this contagious grace. We all too easily marginalize others who are perhaps not too different from Matthew. They may have wronged us or others, or the general social order. I find it all too easy to marginalize, quarantine those I just don’t like or who don’t like me. Who do we, in our own lives, tend to push far away from God’s grace? What about prisoners, families immigrating to the U.S., or just people who live a very different lifestyle? In a way, it is easier and more comfortable for us to quarantine them than to go along with them to the only doctor we know—Jesus Christ. His grace is more contagious than any sin.

Jesus bore our sickness so we would be healed

We mentioned earlier how Jesus’ grace is more contagious than the colorful lives of those He called. But it’s even more than this. He didn’t just come as a doctor who miraculously healed us at no risk to Himself. He took upon Himself our sickness, and the consequences for our sin. 

Some of you may be familiar with a movie entitle “The Green Mile” based on a book by Stephen King. In it, an innocent man is on death row for apparently killing two girls. As the movie progresses, we find that he had been with them at their death only because he had a special ability to heal others by taking the illness and hurt into himself instead. He pays a price for his love. This may help us see a tiny glimpse of what Jesus did—something so much greater. Read Isaiah 53. The only way the sickness of sin would leave us was if God’s Son took the judgment on Himself. Jesus healed us at the price of His own life. When we look at the cross, we see both the enormity of our sin—like Matthew’s as a tax collector—but also the enormity of God’s love for us. 

And He does love us.

Is this good news to us, to others? 

If we see ourselves as healthy apart from Jesus, as pretty much put-together, then this is not good news to us. Or for anyone who recognizes the sin in their life, but doesn’t care about it—this is also bad news. It is only good news if we take to heart what Jesus shows the Pharisees: That they also are sick and need a doctor. Even if we don’t feel our need, believe God’s Word!

But if we sometimes wonder if we are beyond hope, this is good news for us! God has provided us a Doctor. Jesus’ grace is more contagious than our sin.

And is this good news to others around us, in our own communities and region?

If we see others as beyond hope, this is a challenge to us! And we must not just wait for these people to come into our doors, or wait until they become like us. We are called to go out and seek the lost, seek to show others something of Christ’s contagious grace! 

In our conversations with one another, with our children, with our siblings, with those right here in the church and those outside the church, do we subtly find ourselves trying to present the picture of perfect health in our lives—as if we didn’t need a doctor? This will drive people away from the Jesus who welcomes sinners. Or are we beginning to be more honest with one another about our needs and weaknesses and sins, giving and receiving God’s grace, so that we can seek healing? 

And when we go to those who are lost and sick and need a Savior, we have to remember that we can’t go in our own strength, thinking we will never be influenced by sin. Jesus wasn’t just “hanging out” with these people and going along with them; He gave them hope and a new life. We must always rely on God for the strength and health of Christ to guard us. And as we talked about last week, in Christ we have the power of the Holy Spirit as we go out. Then it will be Christ’s grace that is contagious, not the sin of others. 

Jesus calls sinners from sin, to follow Him

Jesus calls each of us away from our sin and to follow Him, to be His disciples, to be gathered to Him and find this contagious grace.

But he does not save those who refuse to acknowledge their need of Him. Jesus does not save those who don’t have anything to repent from. Jesus is for the needy. 

Jesse Ventura once said, “Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers.”[5] But in a sense this doesn't go far enough: Christianity is not just for weak people, but for people who recognize that apart from God, they are dead! So we are on a perpetual life-support system, finding no life outside of God. Do we feel our need for the Lord? Do we truly? If not, we must ask for a thirst, a recognition of this need, that we may not just be dulled to Jesus and complacently self-righteous! We must thirst for mercy and then bask in His forgiveness, and extend it to others.

Is our church a place of contagious grace, or quarantines?

So along with every church, we need to ask ourselves: Is our church a place where someone like Matthew the tax collector is quarantines, held at arm’s length as soon as he walks through the door? Or is it a place of contagious grace? Jesus knew and acknowledged the full extent of Matthew’s sin, but still called him. Called him from his sin and to follow Jesus, the Great Physician.

Again, like my professor asked, are our churches social clubs, or hospitals, where we are all in treatment? Where all of us who have come to know and begun to live for the Great Physician also invite in all others who need this healing?

What if we think of any empty seats around us as, by God’s grace, providing room for each of us who so desperately needs grace and healing, and for all those other “tax collectors and sinners” who need Him just as much as we do? Do we desire this enough to seek out the lost? We once were lost, but now are found. This may be hard in New England, but it is by God’s power. We are called to be faithful in extending the contagious grace of the gospel and Jesus’ call. 

So when people from any walk of life come to the doors of Christ’s church here or anywhere, when we come into contact with anyone who sees their need for Jesus, when we have the chance to invite anyone to dinner or to worship with us, does anyone who would come to Christ feel quarantined? Or do they find a contagious grace that overcomes all the diseases of anyone who will come to Jesus for healing and a new life lived in and for Him?

And we again hear Jesus’ words for us and others: “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” This is good news—Jesus Christ is the only doctor, the only Savior, the only one who has made and is making us healthy again.  And we have the privilege of bringing others to Him to that they also can find healing.  Now in Christ we are catching this contagious grace, as God’s children whom He loves enough to have died for!

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[1] http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/switchfoot/beautifulletdown.html

[2] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Part I The Prison Industry, Ch. 4 "The Bluecaps" (p168, The Gulag Archipelago, Collins 1974, http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago)

[3] Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 22-23

[4] See <http://cruciformlife.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/the-last-idol-of-the-heart/>

[5] Wikipedia, “Jesse Ventura”