Matthew 9:9-13

 TENTH SUNDAY ORDINARY TIME – YEAR A

Commentary of Fr. Fernando Armellini

The call of Levi (v. 27) is not told to inform us how it occurred but to convey a message that applies to every disciple. The scene clearly follows the calling of the first four disciples (Mt 4:18-22): Jesus is on his way and sees someone attempting to do his job. He offers him an invitation to follow him; he abandons everything and follows him.

The call of Levi differs from that of Peter, Andrew, James, and John in one important detail: the profession is not simple; for a fisherman, it is honorable, but not for a tax collector. It is a job unpopular with the people, not only because nobody likes to pay taxes, but because the tax collector is considered an unclean person, a collaborator in the oppressive state structure, and also a thief. His salvation is considered virtually impossible. The law states that those who stole must return the stolen goods plus 20 percent. How could a tax collector fulfill this condition even if he knows how and from whom he stole?

The first message of the passage is captured in this recall of the infamous profession. The evangelist will show who the people that Jesus invites to follow him are. The rabbis did not admit, among their disciples, notorious people, sinners, the poor of the earth, the shepherds, the lepers, those with whom they did not have any relationship. It is to these ‘infamous people’ that Jesus addresses his invitation. He does not call those who deserve it, who are well disposed or spiritually prepared, but those in need of salvation.

The calling of Levi curiously resembles the healing of the paralytic that the evangelist has just told. Levi is not motionless on a bed but is “sitting at the tax collector’s chair” (v. 2). His eyes are fixed on the money and his records, and no force seems able to move him; no human words can make him stand. However, the look and the word of Jesus get what no one would have dared to imagine. As soon as he hears the call of the Master, Matthew jumps up and follows him—just like the paralytic—and walks “toward his home” (Mt 9:7), where he finds a big dinner is ready. A miracle occurred: the camel passed through the eye of a needle, and the rich entered the kingdom of heaven; what was “impossible for people” was realized by God (Mt 19:23-26). Why did Jesus call Levi? Where is he leading him?

The second part of the passage answers this question (v. 10). He invited him to a feast. ‘To call sinners’ does not mean to rebuke, reproach the moral misery into which they had fallen, humiliate them, remind them to observe their duties and precepts, but first of all, to announce to them that they are awaited in the room where the feast is laden. They might have experienced every form of pleasure but have never tasted joy. It is now in the joy of the Kingdom of God that Jesus wants to introduce them because “the Kingdom of God is joy” (Rom 14:17).

In which house did the feast take place? Luke expressly states that it was organized in the house of Levi where, for the occasion, he gathered a crowd of his colleagues (Lk 5:29). A different version of Matthew says: “While he was at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners joined Jesus and his disciples.” Mark is more explicit: “While he was at table in his house” (Mk 2:15).

It is, therefore, not in the house of the neo-apostle that ‘many tax collectors and sinners’ come to take their place, but in that of Jesus. This explains better the indignation of the Pharisees who blame the Master who “receives sinners and eats with them” (Lk 15:1). They blame him because he acts as a “friend of publicans and sinners” (Mt 11:19). The reference here is not so much the material house but the community. This is the house where Jesus receives all sinners.

Gestures—we know—are often more expressive than words. Eating and drinking satisfy biological needs, but sitting at a table with someone is to appease hunger and thirst and signify intimacy and communion. Therefore, in the early Christian communities, the observant Jews refused to sit at table with their other believers who left their paganism behind. Peter also, for a time, was hesitant: first ‘he ate with the Gentiles,’ then “he withdrew and did not mingle anymore with them, for fear of the Jewish group” (Gal 2:12).

The provocative behavior of Jesus, eating with tax collectors, could not be immediately understood and accepted. It was a surprise for every pious Israelite brought up to the expectation of the feast of the kingdom of God reserved for the righteous and the pious. This observation leads us to the third part of the passage (vv. 11-13), which describes the inevitable dispute with the Pharisees. Before, whenever Jesus breaks a rule, the ‘just ones’ react. What irritates them in his behavior? Certainly not his attempt to lead the sinners to repentance and conversion. If it were only this, the Pharisees—who “traveled the land and sea to make one proselyte” (Mt 23:15)—would appreciate his zeal and congratulate him.

Jesus’s gesture contains an explosive message for the Jewish mentality: he offers salvation to all, not only to the righteous. His answer to criticism is articulated in three adamant sentences that do not allow for replication. He primarily quotes an ancient proverb with a subtle irony: “Healthy people do not need a doctor, but sick people do” (v. 31). He introduces a biblical quote that is perhaps the most revolutionary of all the Gospel: “What I want is mercy, not sacrifice” (Mt 9:13). Finally, he summarizes his choice with the phrase: “I have not come to call the just, but the sinner to a change of heart” (v. 13).

The error of the Pharisees (which means ‘separated,’ ‘holy’) is to imagine that the ‘holy’ God does not want to have anything to do with sinners. They think they imitate him by holding themselves distant from those who neglect God’s law or, even worse, deny the Lord. With his attitude, Jesus says that God does not accept such discrimination.

Undoubtedly, the Christian community must integrally present the Gospel and cannot give ‘discounts’ on what Jesus taught. It is the right of the Christian community to also point out to those who cannot bring themselves to follow Christ that certain choices put them outside the community and the Kingdom of God. However, we must ask whether it is appropriate for someone to be legally ousted. The danger of ‘extinguishing the smoldering wick’ is always serious, and it is a risk better not taken.