Last Picked: the most hated person in town
Thursday, February 17th, 2011In my elementary school, we had two sisters, the Forsyth sisters. Someone started the rumour that they had fleas. I can still hear the chant. We even made a game of it, an adaptation of tag, but instead of saying “you’re it,” we would say, “Forsyth’s fleas!” Because of this rumour you can be sure that the Forsyth girls were picked last – if at all.
It is one thing to be discriminated against because of a rumour, but what if they say about you is true? What if your choices or lifestyle or behaviour have ostracized you and set you up to be picked last, if at all?
“Jesus was going down the road, he saw Matthew sitting at his tax-collection booth. “Come, be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Matthew got up and followed him.10That night Matthew invited Jesus and his disciples to be his dinner guests, along with his fellow tax collectors and many other notorious sinners. 11The Pharisees were indignant. “Why does your teacher eat with such scum?” they asked his disciples. 12When he heard this, Jesus replied, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do.” 13Then he added, “Now go and learn the meaning of this Scripture:’ I want you to be merciful; I don’t want your sacrifices.’ For I have come to call sinners, not those who think they are already good enough.” Matthew 9:9-13 NLT
Matthew was a publican or tax collector. He collected taxes on behalf of the Roman Government. He was the scum these church leaders were referring to. There were two orders or levels of tax collector. Rome recruited Administrative or Executive level collectors from the best of society. Zacchaeus, the short guy who called down to Jesus from up in the sycamore tree was this kind of collector. Disliked for sure, even hated, but respected because of his place in society. Beneath men like Zacchaeus were the street level guys. Matthew was a street level guy, unethical and not trusted, comparable to a thug or a loan shark. FWP Greenwood writes “considered Ignoble and contemptible even by the gentiles, they were as a group vulgar, rapacious (read greedy, predatory) and unmerciful.’ Of the Twelve Apostles, FWP Greenwood.
The Greek poet Theocritus, when asked which was the cruelest of all beasts, responded:
“Among the beasts of the wilderness the bear and the lion,
Among the beasts of the city the parasite and the publican.”
Matthew the tax collector was barred from entering the temple. He could not give testimony in court. His tithes and offerings to the temple were rejected. When someone was considered “beyond salvage” – I borrowed that from Robert Ludlum – the people of the day would say, “Let him be to you as a heathen and a publican.” That was Matthew.
Jesus was going down the road, he saw Matthew sitting at his tax-collection booth. “Come, be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Matthew got up and followed him.
Imagine the tension at that dinner, but even before the dinner, before his decision goes viral. Consider the strain about 30 feet down the path from Matthew’s booth. The disciples to that point are mostly fisherman, some of them are Zealots, dedicated to overthrowing Roman rule and even if the disciples aren’t card-carrying Zealots, they are sympathetic to the cause. All of them including Jesus have been taken advantage of by men like Matthew, maybe even by Matthew himself. The man Jesus invited to share in their lives works for the Romans. To many, he is a traitor.
I would love to have heard that first conversation Christ has with his other disciples.
How does Christ get buy-in?
He challenges to their outrage and indignation by exposing their hypocrisy. “Do you actually think you’re better than him?”
Perhaps some them did think they were better than him. I wonder if Matthew’s presence – his acceptance – helped tip Judas, who managed the money for Christ and the disciples, to betray Christ.
Christ also gets buy-in by pulling this offensive person in close, so close that the social stench of Matthew rubs off on him. Christ makes it clear by his actions that it is a two for one deal. You can’t have Christ without Matthew. Of all the people that Jesus asked and of the many who declined Christ’s offer, Matthew responded with a yes. There is no one that is “unreachable.”
You and I often cross paths with those whose lifestyles and beliefs rub against every value we hold to. By what measure are we better? This is closer. Some of us engage in behaviour and choices that we believe make us unredeemable. Ponder this: do you think Christ used Matthew to encourage others?
“Do you think you’re worse than him?” Do you really think you are beyond salvage? Really?
Imagine what Matthew felt as he recorded these words of Christ:
“Anyone who sacrifices home, family, fields—whatever—because of me will get it all back a hundred times over, not to mention the considerable bonus of eternal life. 30This is the Great Reversal: many of the first ending up last, and the last first.” Matthew 19: 29, 30 The Message
When we read the book he authored it is obvious that Matthew bowed out of the life of the tax collector.
In Oswald Chamber’s devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, he says:
“No one is ever united with Jesus Christ until he is willing to relinquish not sin only, but his whole way of looking at things. To be born from above of the Spirit of God means that we must let go before we lay hold, and in the first stages it is the relinquishing of all pretense. What our Lord wants us to present to him is not goodness, nor honesty, nor endeavor, but real, solid sin; that is all he can take from us. And what does he give in exchange for our sin? Real, solid righteousness. But we must relinquish all pretense of being anything, all claim of being worthy of God’s consideration. Then the Spirit of God will show us what further there is to relinquish. There will have to be the relinquishing of my claim to my right to myself in every phase. Am I willing to relinquish my hold on all I possess, my hold on my affections, and on everything, and to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ?”
Matthew becomes the living metaphor of grace offered and accepted. Matthew, one most hated, is a writer of one of the gospels. He traveled as far as Ethiopia sharing Christ’s redemptive story – where he relinquished his life and was martyred.
Matthew, the most hated man in town, is on my list as the one who would be last picked…or is that first?
