We all have a filter we use to categorize the world. It’s a subconscious mechanism that helps us sort people into two columns: Our People and Those People.
“Our People” are the ones we understand, the ones we trust, the ones we respect. They look like us, think like us, or vote like us. “Those People” are the ones we look down on, the ones we distrust, or the ones we simply find it easy to dismiss. We construct these neat boundaries because they make us feel safe, and quite frankly, they make us feel superior. We like to think we know exactly who is in God’s good graces, and who is definitely sitting on the sidelines.
But the moment we think we have mapped out the borders of God’s kingdom, Jesus walks right across our lines, pulls up a chair at “Their” table, and completely ruins our system.
The Scandal of the Tax Collector (Matthew): In Matthew’s Gospel, we see Jesus doing exactly this. He is walking along when He spots a man named Matthew sitting at a tax booth.
Now, to understand the weight of this moment, we have to understand what a tax collector was in first-century Judea. Matthew wasn’t just a regular civil servant. To his fellow Jews, he was a traitor. He was an extortionist working for the oppressive Roman Empire, getting rich by squeezing money out of his own suffering neighbors. If there was a list of “Those People” in Israel—people who were morally bankrupt, politically corrupt, and spiritually dead—tax collectors were at the very top. They were the ultimate outsiders.
If Jesus wanted to build a respectable religious movement, the smart move would be to ignore Matthew, or maybe give him a stern lecture on repentance. Instead, Jesus looks at this traitor and says two words: “Follow me.”
And it gets worse for the religious elite. Jesus doesn’t just invite Matthew into His circle; He goes to Matthew’s house for dinner. The text tells us that “many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him.”
The Pharisees—the religious gatekeepers who prided themselves on keeping their distance from bad influences—are horrified. They ask the disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
Notice what the Pharisees are doing. They are counting people out. They are protecting the border. But Jesus overhears them and drops a line that should shake every religious person to their core: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”
Mercy Over Sacrifice (Hosea) When Jesus says, “Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” He is quoting the prophet Hosea.
In the Old Testament lesson, God is speaking to a people who thought they could please God just by going through the motions of religion. They brought their sacrifices, they sang their hymns, and they did their rituals, but their hearts were completely devoid of steadfast love. They were busy trying to look righteous while ignoring the brokenness around them.
Jesus throws Hosea back in the faces of the religious leaders because they had turned faith into a weapon of exclusion. They thought “sacrifice” and religious purity were what made them special. But Jesus reveals the true heart of the Father: God is not looking for a spotless, exclusive club. God is looking for a field hospital.
Jesus is saying: If your religion teaches you to look down on the broken, to distrust the outsider, or to disrespect the sinner, you have missed the entire point of God.
The God Who Calls Reality Into Being (Romans) This is where the Apostle Paul’s words to the Romans echo so beautifully. Paul reminds us of Abraham, who trusted in a God who “gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.”
When Jesus looked at Matthew the tax collector, or when He looked at the woman who had been bleeding and cast out of society for twelve years, or when He looked at the dead daughter of the synagogue official, Jesus didn’t see hopeless cases. He didn’t see people who were too far gone or too unclean to bother with.
Jesus saw citizens of the Kingdom. He looked at a traitor and called a disciple into existence. He looked at a spiritually dead situation and breathed life into it.
The Pharisees saw a tax collector and counted him out. Jesus saw a child of God and invited him in.
For Christians today, this text is a beautiful comfort, but it is also a devastating mirror.
It is a comfort because it means that no matter how much we have messed up, no matter how much of a “sinner” we feel like, Jesus is pulling up a chair at our table. He came for the sick, which means He came for us.
But it is a mirror because it forces us to ask the hard question: Who are the modern-day tax collectors in our lives?
Who are the people you look down on? Who are the people you distrust, disrespect, or write off as too far gone, too wrong, or too different? Maybe it’s people on the opposite side of the political aisle. Maybe it’s the person struggling with addiction on the street corner. Maybe it’s someone who has deeply hurt you, or a group of people whose lifestyle you don’t understand.
While we are busy building walls, counting them out, and explaining why they don’t belong, Jesus is already at their tax booth, saying, “Follow me.” While we are busy keeping our distance to protect our own sense of righteousness, Jesus is already walking into their living room to have dinner.
The church of Jesus Christ cannot be a fortress built to keep the “sinners” out. It must be a community that mirrors the scandalous, boundary-breaking mercy of our Savior.
Let us drop our clipboards. Let us stop counting people out. And let us join Jesus at the table, celebrating a grace that is big enough, wide enough, and radical enough to invite absolutely everyone in.