I want to make a modern-day Matthew (Levi). But we aren’t as united as they were in first century Jerusalem. If you wanted to provide a stock image of a hated member of society a tax collector was an obvious one. Pharisees and Sadducees and Essenes had bitter debates about things like the resurrection of the dead, which books should be considered Scripture, etc. But one thing they didn’t seem to debate was that tax collectors were goons.
There were two types of tax collectors. The first type was the general tax collectors—they collected things like property tax, income tax, and poll tax. These were a fixed rate and usually collected by Romans.
The second type of tax collector was the one who would tax everything. (This was somewhat similar to our sales tax today but it wasn’t a fixed rate). The way these tax collectors made their money was in whatever they could squeeze out of the people. They’d give what was due to Rome and then pocket the rest. The more corrupt they were the more money they could make. Rome didn’t care what kind of tax these locals charged so long as they got their cut.
Matthew was the second type of tax collector. Now some of these types of tax collectors would be like a chief tax collector they’d hire others to do their dirty biding. If you remember Zaccheus he was one of these. But not Matthew. Matthew was one of the little guys who did his own thing—who set up his own lemonade stand and milked his own people out of their hard earned dollars.
Needless to say tax collectors were hated and despised. Not only were they daily reminders of Roman domination they were just crooked and dirty. Many Jews considered submission to Rome to be treason against God. And so to sell out like Matthew had done—this is just unthinkable. How could someone do such a thing? What kind of person is this? The Mishnah and the Talmud (Jewish writings) had whole sections dogging on tax collectors—and lumping them in with thieves and murderers. It was actually ruled by Jewish rabbis that it was okay—lawful even—to lie to tax collectors.
Making a Modern Day Matthew
So how do I make a modern-day Matthew. Do I make him a liberal and pull out all the characteristics that would make my right-wing audience easily identify him as a goon? What position do I have our Modern Day Matthew take on sexuality? What about immigration reform? Offshore-drilling? This Matthew is sold out to the “leftist” culture. Maybe I can call him a cultural Marxist or throw out a couple terms like “woke”.
Or do I go the other path? Do I have him sitting at a table selling MAGA material and being a fully convinced Christian Nationalist? What is his position on gun control, women’s rights, etc? Do I make him abusive and controlling? This Matthew is sold out on the right-wing of things. Maybe I can call him a misogynist or a white supremacist or something.
Does everyone sufficiently hate our Matthew now? If I haven’t done a good enough job of painting a picture then here is a box of crayons—do the work yourself and come back in a moment.
Here is a question for us. How would you encourage change for Matthew? Picture the meme of the guy with a cup of coffee and a sign that tells you that you’ve got five minutes to convince him. What do you do?
The World of the Real Matthew
The world in which the real Matthew lived had an answer for this:
Repent.
Change your life, stop being such a lying, thieving, cheat. And then maybe God will have something to do with you. Study Torah (start reading your Bible) and get your life cleaned up so that maybe you won’t be such a piece of scum.
That was Matthew’s world. Even if wanted to repent—there wasn’t much of a way for him to do this. It was engrained in him that this was who he was. He’d always be a bum. Folks like Matthew tend to just buckle and fully embrace their identity, maybe trying to justify it or sanctify it a little.
You pass by Matthew’s tax collector booth as a good and righteous person who has all of the greatest opinions on all of the things and you spend your five minutes telling him he needs to turn his life around. If our social media accounts are any indication this isn’t a stretch. How many times is “do better” our mantra?
But there’s a different way…
The Jesus Way
My guess is that Matthew was just as much a “do-good” legalist as the rest of the bunch. He’d just given up on the game. He just accepted his identity as a sinner. That’s how the world was divided.
The righteous were the ones who worked hard to follow God. The sinners are the ones who didn’t. We see this in Mark 3:16. The word for “sinners” is one that really just means common folk—those people who don’t give themselves to studying the Torah 24/7. The less-thans. The outcasts. The ones that don’t pass the muster. The ones who fail every religious test.
But Jesus blows that system up. Yes, there are still categories of righteous and sinners—but what did Jesus say, “Only God is righteous”. And so Jesus—being God—is the only one in the righteous category and everyone else is in the other category. In order to be made righteous it doesn’t happen through effort it happens through our relationship to Jesus.
You see this in Jesus’ call of Levi/Matthew. Follow me!
That’s the Jesus way. It’s radically different. It’s not “change your stinking ways so you can become righteous”. It’s, “follow me, and I’ll make you righteous.” Righteousness happens through connection and relationship to Jesus.
He does leave his tax collector booth. You can’t really follow Jesus and cling to your table. But there is something else going on here in that Jesus is now willing to be identified with this tax collector.
And once Matthew leaves his own table he’s immediately invited to another table—this one filled with Jesus and a bunch of other outcasts and “sinners”. Legalism will always dismiss the Lord’s table and try to turn it into something they can control.
Legalism looks at transformation and the gospel doing work in someone, it looks at Jesus reaching sinners and says, “What kind of man identifies with sinners like this?” What kind of religious leader is this? Sinners and tax collectors like Matthew have no hope of ever becoming righteous. But the problem is, neither do the Pharisees and scribes. They too are sinners but they don’t have the capacity to see it.
Here is the conclusion:
You want to see transformation happen with the guy sitting at the table with an opinion that ticks you off? Maybe try inviting him/her to another table. And you might just find that he’s not the only one who changes sitting at the Jesus table.
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Photo source: here
