And as Jesus
passed on from there; He saw a man, called Matthew, sitting in the tax office;
and He said to him, “Follow Me!” And he
rose, and followed Him. (Mat.9:9)
As recorded in the book of Matthew four
fishermen have been called by Jesus to follow Him up to this point. Now He asks Matthew, a tax collector, to
follow Him. In the very next verse we
see Jesus and His disciples over for dinner at Matthew’s house. It is a joyous, even raucous occasion. Matthew celebrates his decision to follow
Jesus, by inviting all his friends over for an evening with Jesus. And his friends are an interesting lot –
other tax collectors and “sinners”. The
Pharisees, the religious crowd, are not happy.
How can Jesus possibly associate with people like that. But Jesus tells them,
“I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mat.9:13) The message is clear. It does not matter where we start, who we
are, or what we’ve done. What matters is
that we make a clean break from the past, and that we give ourselves completely
to a new beginning as a Jesus' disciple.
The Pharisees were not the only ones
bothered by the celebration following Mathew’s decision to become Jesus’
disciple. John the Baptist’s disciples come to Jesus
and ask why His disciples don’t fast. It
is a bit more subtle, but this is another spiritual push back. Jesus’ brand of religion just doesn’t fit the
norm. It seems that John’s disciples
thought that Jesus and His followers should be fasting (like them) and not
feasting and enjoying themselves. Jesus,
however, does not give in. Instead, He
puts things in perspective with two parables.
Verse sixteen contains the first, and it is a negative one, an example of
what not to do. Don’t put a patch of new
cloth on an old garment, because when it is washed, it will shrink and make a
bigger tear. The point is clear in this
context. To be Jesus disciple we have to
start fresh, completely fresh, and throw out all our old religious ideas and
practices. The second parable in verse
seventeen makes the same point from the positive side. When making wine use a fresh, new wineskin,
because an old one will lack the elasticity to withstand the fermentation
process. It will break, the wine will be
spilled, and the skin will be ruined. It
is the same message. Following Jesus,
truly becoming His disciple, is not a matter of patching up our lives a bit
here and there to make them look better, it is a matter of making a completely
new beginning. The price is high, but
like Matthew, it is a decision worth celebrating.
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