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2001
18th November (am) - People who don't seem to be God's people matter to Him - Do they matter to us?
LUKE 5:27-32

It seems that very little changes in our world. In our day when we hear the job title 'tax collector' a shiver goes down our spine, for all sorts of negative images and perceptions are conjured up in our minds eye. It seems, no matter how hard the Inland Revenue tries, it will never shake off its negative image, even if it employs Mrs. Doyle from the TV sitcom 'Father Ted' to encourage us to send in our tax returns, 'go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on'. Or 'go online, go online, go online, go online', if you wish to do your tax return electronically.

It was worse in ancient Israel. Rather than send you out a form to return, tax collectors sat in stations, or toll booths and extracted your tax bill as you arrived at a city or as you left, probably both. To make matters worse, they did not just calculate how much you were to pay the Roman government in tax, they also added a substantial surcharge so that they could line their own pockets. Is it really any wonder that they were hated and considered traitors to the people of Israel, conspirators with the Roman overlords? And any self-respecting Jew would have as little to do with them as possible. Tax collectors seemed to be regarded as a most heinous example of sinfulness, because nearly every time tax collectors are mentioned in the Bible, it is in these terms, 'Now the tax collectors and other sinners...' If you were a tax collector in ancient Israel, you could not go much lower. In fact you were probably only one notch up from lepers.

Yet what do we read in this passage of Scripture - verses 27-28:

Jesus called a tax collector to be one of his followers, one of his disciples. He called a person, who was considered an outcast in society. And Levi followed. He left his old life and started a new one. For that is what the invitation of Jesus implied; 'Start a whole new life with me, Matthew! We have talked before, you know where I am coming from. Leave all this, leave this life of extortion and fear of reprisal and follow me, and you will not regret it'. And Matthew did. He left his old life for a new one. But I also believe that for Matthew to get up and leave his booth, he had to be ready, he had to have met Jesus before, encountered his love, his compassion.

And just maybe, there is someone here today who is ready, ready to answer the call of Jesus to follow him. Maybe you have been watching other Christians, maybe you have been doing some reading, maybe a Christian friend has been witnessing to you, and today you are ready. Maybe, these words of Jesus to Matthew, 'follow me' are Jesus' words to you today, and you are ready to leave your old life and embark on a new life, as a Christ follower. Maybe you're ready. If that is you talk to someone about it after the service.

So Matthew embarks on a new life, by following Jesus, by becoming a disciple of Jesus and he joins with the rest of the disciples and starts learning about what it means to be a Christ follower, and how to relate to people as Jesus would, and to love as Jesus would and so on.
But you know, one day, something troubles Matthew. I am saying 'one day', the text doesn't. The text implies sometime later. But one day, something troubles Matthew. Perhaps he thinks to himself; 'You know I did something wrong'... 'I disappeared and left all my old friends and did not give one word of explanation about why I left a career in tax collection'...

And perhaps Matthew thinks to himself; 'I wonder what my old friends are up to'... 'Are they still hanging out in the same old places?'...

Then he thinks further; 'You know, this life of following Jesus is the best life there is ... how can I tell my old friends about my new life?'

So Matthew throws a party, a great big banquet. Maybe he did these sort of things in the days when before he started following Christ, and all his tax collecting friends and other friends who would not get invited to respectable parties would come and they would have a great time together. Maybe Matthew had a reputation for throwing the best parties in Galilee. Maybe they were the sort of parties that would give somewhere like Ibiza the reputation it has in the package holiday industry.

Matthew throws a party. He invites Jesus and the disciples. They obviously liked a party, and Matthew invited all his old friends, for we are told that a large crowd of tax collectors and others were there. Matthew throws a party and gets his old friends mixing with his new friends.
You know Matthew probably figured that his old friends would not go to the Temple, they would certainly not go to a mission, but they would come to a party, and if the right sort of Christ followers were there, well, you just never know what might happen.

Matthew's new friends, who are getting their lives together, finding purpose and hope in Christ, mixing with his old friends, who are still messed up, living in sin. The possibilities are endless for spiritual seeds to be sown in the lives of his old friends. Matthew had a deep concern for his old friends and so threw a party with a purpose.

But, there was a spanner in the works. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law gate-crashed the party, and complained to the disciples about this party. Maybe someone in the town complained about the noise levels and the Pharisees went to check it out. And you can imagine to their surprise and shock, to see Jesus and the disciples at the heart of this party. I am sure that when the Pharisees showed up the party died a death. And they complained to the disciples:

verse 30:

What they were really saying was something like the following about Jesus: 'If he was really the Son of God, then he would have nothing to do with this riffraff and this scum of our society'. The Pharisees acted as judge, jury and executioner for these people who had lost there way in life, who had made some bad choices, who were far from God and who needed direction in their lives.
And Jesus, he approaches these Pharisees and religious leaders and says to them in verse 31:

Jesus in effect said to these religious people: You have a lot to learn about the ways of my Father. His heart yearns for these people who have lost their way in life, who have made wrong choices, who have engaged in a life of sin. He yearns to bring these people back, to forgive their sins and to restore their lives, and He has sent me to get close to these sick and lost people, so that I can heal them, restore them and give them a new start. Their lives now do not have to be end of the story.

You can then picture the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, turning on their heals and leaving the scene, once again utterly humiliated. And you can picture the party revving up again and lasting long into the night.

There is one final scene I wish you to imagine in this story. It is not in the text, but I think it is legitimate. I wonder can you imagine when the party finally ended, Jesus taking Matthew to one side and saying two things too him.

'Matthew, you are a good friend to your old friends. You did not forget them and you have compassion for them, that they too would find the life you have found through following me.'

'You know Matthew, a lot of people when they start following me, forget about their old friends, they don't care about how they live their lives, they don't care about their eternity's. But not you Matthew, you have been a good friend to your old friends.

Matthew was a good friend to his old friends, to his friends who were not Christ followers. And perhaps Jesus commended Matthew in another way:

Matthew, you have also got courage. It took courage and creativity to bring your old friends and your new friends under the same roof.

What a great story this is. It is short, but it is instantly memorable, and deeply challenging, and I wish to tease out some of the challenges of this story in our remaining time together today. The challenges come as a series of questions, and this series of questions challenges us to identify with either the Pharisees or with Matthew.

Do we have friends who are not Christians? A friend of mine, when he was at college, chose to share a house or a flat with people who were not Christians. He chose to build friendships with people who were not Christians. Matthew had plenty of friends who were not Christians, but he did not turn his back on them. He chose to be a good friend to his friends who were not Christians. We can too easily get sucked into a Christian ghetto, whereby we lose contact with the very people we are called to proclaim Christ to.

If you do have friends who are not Christians, are you a good friend to them? They may be old friends, they may be neighbors you count as friends, they may be work colleagues you count as friends, they may be family members. Do you have that Godly concern for the well-being of their lives, both for now and for eternity? I believe that we believe in the reality of hell, and people who reject Christ will go to hell. We believe that in our heads. But I do not think it has really touched our hearts, and moved us in the depth of our being. Matthew wanted his friends to have what he had, friendship with Jesus Christ. Is that what we want?

How can we rekindle a passion for lost people? Well do you pray for people you know who are not Christ followers? If you do not pray for such folk, start praying for them - pray for opportunities to build or deepen your relationship with them, pray for opportunities to talk about spiritual matters, pray that they would come to faith in Jesus Christ.

If you are a Christian here today and have been wringing your hands of this responsibility of reaching out to people with the good news of Christ what can you do? Well if there are other Christians living on your street, why not brainstorm some ideas, pray together for your street, dream a little, take a risk and see what God can do. Matthew's party could have been a total disaster, but it wasn't. He took a risk, and introduced his old friends to his new friends and especially to Jesus himself.

Are you prepared to take risks in reaching out to people who are not Christ followers, who are un-churched in our neighborhoods in our community? It is always interesting, that very often a younger generation leads the way in this - I know of a ten year old lad in this church who is a Christian, who asked his friend to come to BB, to Youth Club, to Sunday School, to Church. And he is coming. His friend is now in the place where he will hear about the love of God for him, all because a Christian took a risk.

Are we like the Pharisees, turning our back on the world? Let me illustrate this by asking three conscripted volunteers to come up here for a minute: Do you see the point of this? Christians are the couriers of the only message that transforms lives and communities. As Christ followers, the best gift we can give a friend is to introduce them to a friendship with the Father. The mentality of the Pharisees destroys the spirit of Evangelism in the life of the Church.

A Christ follower, called Matthew, who in his previous life was written off by the religious leaders as one who was beyond the grace of God, but who is teaching the Pharisees a thing or two about what it means to be part of the family of God, to be a Christ follower. I believe that Matthew is teaching us a thing or two about what it means to be a Christ follower.

For one implication of being a Christ follower is a heart-filled passion for lost people, people who are written off, whose lives are in a mess, who have made bad choices in life, who are designated as 'sinner' or worse 'tax collector'. The heart of God is a heart that reaches out to people. We believe and sing about Emmanuel, God with us. Yet I fear that it hardly makes an impact on our lives anymore, that the God of all the universe would want to be a part of our lives.

Matthew, a new Christian, immature in the ways of Christ, yet filled with a burden for his old friends, was prepared to create a non-threatening, safe environment for his old friends, that they could be introduced to Jesus Christ. The Pharisees did nothing, absolutely nothing, to encourage people to seek God. Who are we more like?

The Church of Jesus Christ is the only redeeming organism in the world. Politics, education, social programs only rearrange the surface. The message the Church ought to bring to the world, is the only message that can transform individuals and communities. The Word of God and the power of the Spirit are not matched by anything in the world for changing people's lives and transforming communities. I wonder, do we get this, or are we going to mutter like the Pharisees when our brothers and sisters in Christ go into pubs to witness, reach out to people who are living with HIV/AIDS, show grace to and pray for the former terrorist?

I want to challenge you who are Christians here today to avoid the Pharisee mentality, the self-righteous, 'this is our church for our needs' mentality which destroys the spirit of evangelism and a heart that reaches out. Church is not about taste, preferences, pews, how we dress - it is all about God, who he is, what he is like, what he commands us to do, and I think we need to grow up about this sometimes. The local church is not just important, it is the hope of the world, Christ's instrument for world transformation, for community transformation, because the church, us, is the courier of the only message that transforms lives.

But I want to also challenge you who are Christians here today to rekindle the fires, to reignite a passion for lost people, for people who are far from God. I want to challenge you to build authentic relationships with people who are not Christians. Matthew was prepared to invest some time, energy and money into his old friends that they may have the opportunity to know Christ. I believe we are called to do the same.

To not engage in the great evangelism adventure, is to dishonor God. This is such good news, we can neither afford, nor are we permitted to keep it to ourselves. We are commanded to do evangelism. Matthew realized that life was so good with Jesus, he had to tell his old friends. As his heart grew, he moved toward his old friends. Is your heart growing? Is life in Christ so good, that you are being increasingly burdened by the plight of people outside the family of God, and desire to do something about it?

Jesus understood that the best gift you can give an earthly friend is to help them become friends with the Father, through introducing them to Jesus. I wonder, do we understand this?