This Doctor Makes House Calls
Matthew 9:9-13
June 5, 2005
First Baptist Church, Wilson, NC

            Once upon a time a new doctor came to Wilson and opened up his new office.  He put an ad in the paper saying Dr. so and so is pleased to announce the opening of his new practice in Wilson and is accepting new patients.  So people began making appointments and coming to the new office.  But once they arrived, strange things happened.  The office staff accepted those who were basically healthy, who needed only a checkup.  But whenever someone truly sick came into the office, the doctor turned him away.  Why, sick people might infect the whole office staff and make them all sick.  No, they could not afford to see sick people. 

            In fact the new doctor did not spend much time in his office, preferring to go to the exercise club and spend time with healthy, strong people.  This physician was into health, not illness.  He liked being around healthy people, not suffering people.  Those kinds of people were repulsive, what with all their wheezing and sneezing and worse.  And as for house calls to the sick, that was out of the question.  This new doctor had not come to Wilson for the sick people, but for the well.

            Once upon a time a new church began in town.  People became curious and started visiting.  But soon they learned that this church accepted only those people who were doing well in life.  During the announcements in the service, they would pass not a friendship pad but an assessment pad.  When you signed you had to fill out a checklist of conduct.  If you had committed any infraction that week, you had to excuse yourself and leave the service.  Why?  Because, explained the pastor, if we let bad people in here, they might infect us, they might corrupt us with their bad ways.  So the mission of that church was to focus on the blameless.  That church had come to call not the sinners but the righteous.

            What weird stories I torment you with.  Of course that doctor story is ridiculous.  No doctor would be in practice long if he or she ignored sick people.  In fact, the practice of making house calls is actually making a comeback, especially in the practice of gerontology.

            But that church story, now that could happen.  We may not pass around an assessment pad at the beginning of the service, but it is very easy to fall into the attitude that we’re not here for people who are messed up and need help; we’re here for the well-off and righteous.  Let’s say we come in here one Sunday and on that pew is a fine looking family: husband and wife and two beautiful children.  They have their Bibles, they know how to look up the sermon text, they know the hymns, they know Jesus.  On the same Sunday over there in that pew is a single man who looks like he got up from the bed and walked right over here without so much as using a comb.  It’s obvious his life is not going well.  During the hymns he just stands silently.  During the sermon he snores a little bit.  Now, after the service, who are you going to make sure I get introduced to?  “Pastor, you’ve just got to meet this real asset for our churchÉ”  It is understandable, it is human.  But is it not church.  Jesus said, “I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

            One of the biggest problems people had with Jesus was his poor choice of company.  Surely his momma had told him what all mothers tell their children: you are known by the company you keep.  Or did Mary teach little Jesus something different?  Remember what Mary sang when she was pregnant?

            My soul magnifies the Lord

And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior

...He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

and lifted up the lowly;  (Luke 1:46-47, 52)

Maybe it was Mary who gave Jesus got that soft spot in his heart for the lowly.  In any case, Jesus kept scandalous company: sinners, and tax collectors.  Which brings me to the story of Jesus and Matthew.              (Read Matthew 9:9-13)

            To this day tax collectors are not popular.  But the jokes we make about the IRS are nothing compared to the hatred that people had for Roman tax collectors.  Rome was the enemy occupier of Palestine.  Roman taxes impoverished the poor and financed the armies that forced the people into submission.  Tax collectors therefore were dirty traitors -- collaborators with state-sponsored terror. 

            But Jesus on his way through town saw Matthew the traitor-tax collector working at his desk.  Of all people to stop for, Jesus stopped and talked to him.  And of all people, Jesus invited Matthew to follow him. 

            And Matthew simply stood up, left his ledgers and his cash box and his career, and went after Jesus.  It is one of the most amazing moments in the gospels.  How could Jesus move one man so with a simple “Follow me?”  We could speculate that Jesus and Matthew had met before, but that would be just speculation.  All we know is this one brief encounter.  How did Jesus do it?

            It is telling what Jesus did and what Jesus did not do in that moment.  He did not shout or berate Matthew for his guilt.  Neither did he excuse Matthew’s sin.  All Jesus did was make one house call.   But what power there was in that call.  The presence of Jesus with this traitor meant mercy for this man whom all that thought was beyond mercy.  So when Jesus said “Follow me,” Matthew did.  Frederick Buechner once said, “Faith is the word that describes the direction our feet start moving when we find that we are loved.”  

            Matthew’s feet started moving.  And then his mind started moving, and he had an idea.  “Rabbi, why don’t you come to my house tonight and meet my colleagues?”  And of all people, Jesus accepted Matthew’s invitation to come to a party of traitor- Roman collaborating tax collectors.  Jesus might as well have gone to a gathering of al Qaeda.

            One of my favorite Jesus films tells this story with a creative twist.  Franco Zeffirelli’s “Jesus of Nazareth” combines the story of Matthew with the parable of the Prodigal Son.  In the movie, when Jesus goes to Matthew’s party, Peter gets angry and goes off to his boat.   Peter had his fishing business in Matthew’s town, so Matthew had cheated him more than once, and now Peter’s rabbi is partying with Matthew.  So Peter sulks.  Meanwhile, Jesus enters Matthew’s house.  The party is wild, but the people are genuinely touched that Jesus has come, and they ask him to tell one of his famous parables.  So Jesus sits down among them and begins: “There was a man who had two sonsÉ”  It’s the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32), who left his father and took his inheritance away to a far country, where he wasted it all in wild living.  The more Jesus tells about the prodigal son, the more Matthew hangs on Jesus’ every word, as if Jesus were telling Matthew’s own story, which Jesus is. 

            Jesus tells how the son, having wasted everything, is starving, but comes to his senses and returns to his father, who receives him with joy and kills the fatted calf for a great celebration.  But the elder son, when he hears this, is angry.  He sneers at the father, “For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends...”

            While Jesus is telling this, the camera moves to a corner of Matthew’s house, and we see in the shadows there Peter, who has slipped in.  He is listening just as intensely as Matthew, as if this were his story too:

Then the father said to him, ÔSon, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.  But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life, he was lost and has been found.’

Jesus stops.  Peter walks into the room and Matthew sees him and rises.  And then they reconcile with each other, elder with prodigal, righteous with sinner, and Peter confesses to Jesus what a stupid man he has been.

            What amazes me about Jesus is his ability to speak so powerfully to two very different people at the same time, as he did with his parable, and as he did with these words:

Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  Go and learn what this means, ÔI desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.

In the same words are comfort for the sick and challenge for the well.  At the same time that Jesus offers mercy to sinners, he calls the righteous to have mercy.   And as Jesus speaks, some of us sulk in the shadows, and some of us hang on every word as if Jesus were telling our story, which he is.

            That is the power of Jesus’ call.  Jesus said simply, “Follow me,” and Matthew got up and followed Jesus into a new life.  Today he says the same simple command, “Follow me.”  He knows your story by heart.  He loves you completely and unconditionally.  He comes to your house, to wherever you are, accepts you as you are, and calls you to leave that life and follow him.  I believe in the power of that call.  I wonder who here will answer it today?

            As you ponder that call, we will share the Lord’s Supper.  The Supper reminds us how Jesus called the sick and the sinner to join him at the table.  Let us share the supper together.  And then, if you are ready like Matthew to leave your office in life and follow him, then you can answer the call of Jesus, “Follow me.”

            -- Douglas E. Murray