Sermon for September 21, 2025, St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

Matthew 9:9-13 (St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist)

“How’s the Food?”

Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Enfield, CT

September 21, 2025

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our text is the Gospel lesson recorded in Matthew 9:

⁹And as Jesus went on from there, He saw a man sitting at the tax booth called Matthew, and He said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed Him. ¹⁰And it happened that as He was reclining at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining at table with Jesus and His disciples. ¹¹And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, “Why is your teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?” ¹²But when Jesus heard this, He said, “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but rather those who are sick. ¹³But go and learn what this means: I desire mercy and not sacrifice, for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

          When you visit someone in the hospital or nursing home, it can be a little uncomfortable for them. Their hair might not be recently washed or combed. The person is often wearing one of those very fashionable hospital gowns. A great conversation starter to put them more at ease is to ask, “So, how’s the food?” Usually, the patient is very willing to say how awful it is. “It’s hospital food; what can I say? I don’t know how you can mess up scrambled eggs so bad.”

          Have you ever noticed that Jesus does a lot of eating in the Gospels? He attended the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee where He performed His first sign. Peter’s mother-in-law served Jesus and His disciples after the Lord healed her. Jesus ate at Mary and Martha’s house—remember Martha busy with her serving? Jesus shared a meal at the home of a ruler of the Pharisees and at the home of Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector. So, to find Jesus reclining at table is certainly not unusual. But the company with which Jesus dined often caused a scandal among the Pharisees.

          When Jesus got Zacchaeus down from the sycamore tree and went to his house, Jesus’ opponents “grumbled, ‘He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner’” (Luke 19:7). On another occasion, Jesus was eating with one of the Pharisees and a woman of the city, who was a sinner, anointed Jesus’ feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. The Pharisee said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, He would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner” (Luke 7:40). It was no different in the home of Matthew the tax collector, “And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with the tax collectors and sinners?’”

          I think we can admit that it is a good question. Why would someone who says that they are religious, a religious teacher even, want to associate with “tax collectors and sinners”? Isn’t it true that ‘birds of a feather flock together’? Jesus isn’t like them, so why is Jesus eating with them?

          To understand this, we have to know something about table fellowship in the ancient world. At that time, a shared meal was often a clear sign of identification. It reinforced the stability of society and the interrelationships that existed between the members of a given group. Joining together in festive meals could signal the strongest possible bonds of intimacy and mutual affection. With this background, it is easier to understand that, for a Jewish religious teacher to share a meal with those who most blatantly and publicly violate the Law of God, like dishonest and extorting tax collectors, was scandalous. It is no wonder that “the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them’” (Luke 15:2 ESV).

          What the Pharisees did not understand was that, by simply eating with “tax collectors and sinners,” Jesus was not signaling His acceptance of their behaviors and full fellowship with them. Obvious sinners, like Matthew, had already begun to be transformed by Jesus’ authoritative call to faith and discipleship. “And as Jesus went on from there, He saw a man sitting at the tax booth called Matthew, and He said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed Him.” The Holy Spirit was already at work through the Word Made Flesh, Jesus, creating saving faith and the new life of discipleship within Matthew. To people like Matthew, Jesus offered instantaneous and full acceptance through His own forgiveness. There was no trial period where Matthew had to prove himself by doing this or that to show himself worthy. Matthew, in need of a spiritual physician, graciously accepted the remedy for his sin and the great gift that Jesus bestowed upon him by grace through faith.

          In dining with Matthew and other tax collectors and sinners, Jesus was there as the Great Physician who had come to call, not those who are healthy, but those who are sick with sin. He included all sinners and wanted to be present with them so that by the preaching of His Word, they might be transformed—brought to repentance and faith. Through the Gospel Word, they received from Jesus the healing medicine of His divine forgiveness. To eat at the table with Jesus was always an invitation to receive from Him forgiveness, acceptance, and restoration into full fellowship with God and with those around Jesus’ table. You see, the point of calling sinners to repentance and faith is not that they should remain sinners, but that they might be made righteous by grace through faith through the gift of the forgiveness of sins. A transformation is involved by the power of the Holy Spirit.

          This is where we run up against society as Lutheran Christians. Society is now defining acceptance in subjective terms. There is no longer a moral standard for society. Right and wrong are no longer absolutes. The culture defines right and wrong on the basis of how an individual feels about a certain issue, or what a person thinks about a specific topic. To call sinners to repentance is to say that someone is in the wrong according to God’s Word and that simply doesn’t fly in today’s world. But the calling of sinners who are in the wrong before God and who stand under God’s judgment because of His Word of condemnation is an act of God’s mercy and grace. It is a call to transformation by the power of the Holy Spirit through the forgiveness of sins and the restoration of the individual to God’s gracious favor through Jesus Christ. It is a lavish washing away of sin and sinful actions through which the Holy Spirit creates a new person who lives for God in Christ and strives, with the Spirit’s help, to overcome what God’s Word declares to be wrong.

          When Jesus called Matthew, He called him to follow Him and Him alone. And that involves giving up other “lords” and “masters” in our lives. The call of faith is a call to respond in obedience to the revealed will of God in Scripture, the call to confess sin for what it really is, a falling short of the mark God intends for us, and to gratefully receive the forgiveness of sins and the new life that God in Christ alone won for us with Jesus’ death and resurrection. Christ calls sinners like Matthew, like us, into a saving fellowship with Himself, and through Himself, with God our Father.

          We would do Christ a great injustice if the Church ignored the plight of people. We are all, by nature, “tax collectors and sinners.” We have all fallen short of the glory of God and sin against Him and His Word daily. To ignore sin and pretend it doesn’t exist, to ignore lifestyles that are clearly contrary to God’s Word, despite the linguistic gymnastics that some will go to in order to justify their behavior, would be like a doctor who ignores the man having a heart attack due to a blocked artery. It would be ridiculous and wrong—indeed, criminal!—for a doctor not to treat his patient in need! It would also be ridiculous and wrong for the Church to tell sinners that they are just fine and don’t need repentance and the forgiveness and restoration that is only found in the healing medicine of the cross of Christ.

          Jesus called sinners, not to leave them in their current condition of separation from God and under real condemnation, but to change them in heart and mind through the forgiveness of sins He purchased and won for all people on the cross. Throughout His earthly ministry, in the meals which Jesus ate, Jesus transformed people by the power of the Gospel. He called people, like Matthew, like us, to leave behind our old way of life captive to greed and lust and selfishness, and to follow Him in faith.

          The healing of our sins comes through Jesus’ bloody death on the cross and glorious resurrection from the dead. 1 Peter 2:24, “[Jesus] himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” By the power and grace of the Holy Spirit, we receive the gift of saving faith and trust in Jesus Christ as the Great Physician of body and soul. We approach Him in the confidence of this faith with all our sins and failures to be the people God expects us to be and, according to His mercy, Jesus gives to us the medicine of life—the forgiveness of sins—making us healthy and whole before God the Father through His blood shed for us.

          Our Lutheran Confessions make the beautiful connection between Jesus the Great Physician and what our Lord gives to us in His Supper. Jesus calls us as His disciples through the saving waters of Holy Baptism and comes to meet with us here at the altar and share a meal with us. We read from the Large Catechism, “So you have, from God, both the command and the promise of the Lord Jesus Christ. Besides this, from yourself, you have your own distress, which is around your neck. Because of your distress this command, invitation, and promise are given. This ought to move you. For Christ Himself says, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.’ In other words, He means those who are weary and heavy-laden with their sins, with the fear of death, temptations of the flesh, and of the devil. If, therefore, you are heavy laden and feel your weakness, then go joyfully to this Sacrament and receive refreshment, comfort, and strength [Matthew 11:28].”^[1] In the Lord’s Supper, Jesus comes to you personally in the bread and wine which are His true Body and Blood for the forgiveness of your sins, for your spiritual health and healing from the power of sin, death, and the devil.

          Thanks be to God that Lord Jesus doesn’t ignore our sins! He calls us by the Gospel to repentance and faith and gives to us freely the forgiveness of our sins. By His Spirit He creates a new life in us so that we might live before God in Christ’s righteousness and holiness. The invitation of Jesus is for all of us: come and be fed, and the Physician will make you well. Amen.

     ^[1] Paul Timothy McCain, ed., Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions (St. Louis: Concordia, 2005), 439.