Here’s an excerpt from my chapel reflection from June 11, 2023. It’s outliny, but you may find it helpful. The text is Matthew 9:9-26.

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The reading today began with Matthew.  And what we read is that he was sitting at the table of a tax collector. The implication is that he was the tax collector. And Jesus says, “Follow me.”

As was true for Matthew and for Abram, Jesus invites us.

Tax collectors were not respected as being religiously respectable. They cooperated with the Roman invaders. Which means that the rest of the disciples may have been uncomfortable with Matthew joining their group around Jesus.

But Jesus didn’t check with them. He invited Matthew the same way he had invited them.

Unexpected people are with us around Jesus.

Though Matthew was now following, Jesus didn’t have a home. So Matthew organized a meal and invited his current friends. Who were, we read, tax collectors and sinners. Or, perhaps more accurately, tax collectors and Jews who were spiritual but not religious.

And Jesus ate with them and talked with them.

Jesus is present with (not preaching at).

Which offended the sensibilities of the religious leaders. Some of whom may have been religious without being spiritual.

They ask Jesus’s disciples why he was spending time with the irreligious. And Jesus heard and spoke to them directly. “I’m with the people who know they need me.”

It’s not that Jesus ignored brokenness.

But it wasn’t just the religious leaders. It was John’s disciples, too. It wasn’t who Jesus was eating with, it was that he was eating at all. They fasted, with regularly scheduled fasts. And the disciples … and Jesus by implication, weren’t following that.

Intriguingly, John’s disciples put themselves in the same group as the Pharisees. (We fast, they fast, why don’t you fast?)

Which often happens. Resistance to Jesus unites people.

Jesus has an explanation. But I’m not sure they cared.