Monday 21 September 2015

Psalm: Psalm 119:65-72

  Background

It may seem an obvious question, 'What have the Pharisees gotagainst tax collectors?', but the people's problem is deeper thansimply a dislike of handing over money to the state. To be a Jewishtax collector in the time of Matthew was to be both a traitor andan idolater: a traitor because you were collecting money for theenemy; an idolater because the coins used bore the image of Caesarwho claimed to be God. In some ways the second of these was themore serious. For Matthew and his fellow tax collectors were, as aresult, excluded from the religious and social life of their ownfaith community. By accepting their hospitality Jesus was breakingthe fundamental rules of religious purity and risking exclusionhimself.

Jesus' mission to the lost sheep of Israel (Matthew 15:24), is a repeating theme. Jesus'approach to that mission represents a radical shift from an olderunderstanding of purity in which the impure corrupted the pure (cfLeviticus!) to the new order in which contact with Jesus is healingand purifying (eg Matthew 8:1-4). In Matthew 18:15-20 we are given a set of rulesfor how we should treat people who get it wrong. The levels ofrebuke rise as the person remains stubborn until finally you read,"Let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector". Youwonder if Matthew sees the words of Jesus as simply ironic -Matthew does have a complicated CV. Either way, the point is mademore clearly in Matthew 18:22, "Not seven times, but, I tellyou, seventy-seven times".

To Ponder

• How might Jesus approach the complicated and messy parts ofyour life that make your relationship with God and others moredifficult?

• How might we view "sinners and tax collectors" (v. 10), in oursociety - and thus behave towards them?