Jesus reserves his harshest words for religious people. As a recovering religiouholic, those stern warning continue to stand out to me. I get them.
In Matthew 9, we see Jesus calling one of the tax collectors, Matthew (the author of the Gospel), to follow him. Matthew probably remembers the scene vividly. He may have had some interest in Jesus, he may have known who he was, and in his soul, he may have longed to follow him and become one of his disciples. Unfortunately, Rabbis, and religious people in general, didn’t associate with him because of his profession, and maybe because of his attitude. He may have wanted Jesus, but Jesus didn’t want him. Matthew had been conditioned by the religion of his day. Religious people don’t hang out with sinners.
Imagine Matthew’s shock when Jesus walks by, takes one look, and says, “follow me.” Whatever emotion he experienced in the moment is unrecorded. All we know is that Matthew got up, left his stuff behind, and followed Jesus.
As surprising as it was that Jesus called Matthew, what is unsurprising is that after he does it, word spreads quickly that Jesus, the great miracle worker, the great teacher, is a friend of the riffraff. Pretty soon they’re all joining him for lunch at his house. If Jesus hadn’t already stirred up the anger of the religious people, he was about to.
Pulling aside a couple of Jesus disciples, they ask them in hushed voices why Jesus, the teacher, would eat with such lowly sinners. Jesus hears the question. And then, in a stunning display of authority over those who claimed to know the Scripture and have the greatest grasp of the Word of God, Jesus tells them to “Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
That stings.
It stings because I think I’m a pretty good person. It stings because there is a part of me that still wants to believe that I can be at least somewhat righteous on my own efforts. It stings because I think, surely, Jesus saved me because he thinks I’d be an asset to the kingdom of heaven.
But what he really wants is my repentance. And that’s it.
King David understood that he had nothing to offer God. In his great Psalm of repentance, Psalm 51, after being caught in adultery, conspiracy, and murder, David knows that he’s a mess. If he didn’t know it before, now he’s got proof. He could have gone the religious route and started making sacrifices; doing penance for his sins. But he doesn’t. It won’t work. The only sacrifice that matters is a “broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for sinners is a gift for broken, messed up people, who have turned to him in faith. It’s not because of our good deeds. In fact, if you think you have any righteousness in you, you’ll need to repent of that first! Only Jesus can stand before God and gets his approval. The rest of us get in because we stand behind him.
The crazy work of the Gospel is that once that reality has grasped our hearts, God suddenly enjoys and delights in our “good works”. Paul tells us that we have been saved to do these good works; that these good works were prepared beforehand for us to do (Eph. 2:10). David understands in Psalm 51 that eventually God will enjoy his sacrifices; it’s just that it can only come following God’s grace, and David’s repentance.
Religious people put the cart before the horse. They think their good deeds trump the Gospel–or at least, that their good deeds work in unison with the Gospel for their salvation (putting the cart on the horse?). Jesus says, I’ve come to call sinners, not those who do good deeds.
The Gospel message is that there is nothing you’ve done, can do, or will do, that will restore or maintain your relationship with God. Only Jesus can restore your relationship with God, and only Jesus can keep you in relationship with God. His benefits are applied to us through faith–and even that is a gift!
To say it another way, it is only through Jesus that sinners are free to live in the presence of God once again. And it is only because we are free to live in the presence of God, that we are free to love in the presence of our neighbors.