Hey everybody, I'm Matt. This is the 10-Minute Bible Hour Podcast. We're working our way through the book of Matthew, one little bit at a time. Last week we were in Matthew chapter 9, verses 9 through 13, looking at the story about the time that Jesus went and invited Matthew, the tax collector, to follow him. He said, Follow me. And then Matthew was like, okay, I'll do that. And then Matthew threw him a big party, but all of Matthew's friends were kind of societal screw-ups and outcasts and undesirables and people who did naughty things. And the other audience, the other invitees who came to this meal at Matthew's house were the fanciest, most conservative religious people, and obviously it was a mess. And in the process of it, the religiously conservative types are like, why does Jesus hang out with tax collectors and sinners? And then Jesus gives them a response that we're going to talk about here in just a minute. So there was a time when I went to this event, and it was an event where the people there did not think the stuff that I think. They had a very different set of beliefs, a very different orthodoxy from what I'm a part of. But, you know, it was a good group. It was a nice visit and everything. And while I was there, there was a panel, and there was a young man on that panel who badly wanted to be accepted into this group. And as he talked, people figured out quickly, oh, you're an outsider to the group, and you're the kind of outsider that we find to be the repugnant cultural other. Gross. And so they start piling on and criticizing the kid and pushing back on him. And everything that he got criticized for, he just owned, yep, I am that. Yep, I did think that. Yep, I am problematic in that way. And he apologized and he said whatever words that he was told he needed to say, but he never did receive acceptance. Because what was going on in that room was that the people who represented orthodoxy there didn't want this person to be enfolded into orthodoxy. They needed this person to stay on the outside of the orthodox group so that he could represent a moral cautionary tale about getting it wrong, and I think a moral cautionary tale about what will happen to you if you reject the group orthodoxy. That is to say, that if you deviate from our orthodoxy, you will be treated as anathema and it's gonna hurt. I think the same thing is going on here in Matthew chapter 9. Who would Matthew's friends have been as a repugnant cultural other, as a tax collector, an outsider, a sellout? They would have been other people that nobody liked. But the thing is, those people who nobody likes, they do serve a purpose in society, just like they did in that group where I went to that meeting. They are that cautionary tale, and if they go away, then who's the cautionary tale? Everybody wants to feel better than somebody. I think a huge part of the reason that racism exists is just that people want to feel better than somebody else, and so they pick a group and decide I don't like that group. And if that group is bad, then I don't have to feel like I'm clinging from the bottom rung because there's somebody who's a couple rungs down from me, but I'm not gonna kick their hands off that rung. I want them hanging on that bottom rung, because as long as that bottom rung in my mind is occupied, I can't go there myself. There's a darkness to humanity that we see manifest in a lot of different ways. It's particularly ugly when it manifests in religion like this. So Jesus has just shown mercy and forgiveness in back-to-back anecdotes in the book of Matthew. You'll recall, Matthew chapters 5 through 7 is a Sermon on the Mount. It's a description of this beautiful kingdom with beautiful upside-down values, loving your enemies, something completely different than the world kingdom. It sounds beautiful, but does Jesus have the authority to back that up? I mean, who gets to just come along and declare that things are different than how all the things are? And then in Matthew chapter 8, just one at a time, we see incident after incident where something to demonstrate authority over gets put in front of Jesus and he demonstrates authority over it, to the point where people are like, who is this guy? And ultimately, a couple of different critical sources, one overtly and one more subtly, identify him as God, God in the flesh. And so then in these last two anecdotes, Jesus is demonstrating his authority over guilt. And he forgives a guy who is lower down in front of him as a paralytic, and a whole bunch of people get really mad about that. In fact, it's the same people, the Pharisees, who get really mad about that. They're like, You can't just go around dishing out forgiveness like that. That's blasphemy. And instead of celebrating the beauty of what just happened in this guy's life, they're mad that this individual who was hanging from the bottom rung previously, if he's forgiven and absolved, maybe he's not hanging from the bottom rung anymore. And maybe that frees up a bottom rung that I could get kicked down to. There's probably a lot of other reasons that they behaved the way they did as well. But there's one possibility. So we see the Pharisees, the religious, very conservative types, reject forgiveness for this undesirable, injured, crippled guy in one passage. And then we see them double down on their rejection of forgiveness for Matthew and his other undesirable, repugnant cultural other friends. But Jesus ain't having any of that because he's the king of the kingdom that he described in the Sermon on the Mount. And in the Sermon on the Mount, in the Beatitudes, the values that he said are the values of the king in the kingdom sound like they're really, frankly, pretty compatible with the repugnant cultural other. Like the repugnant cultural other might have a place, even a place of use, even a place of honor in this kingdom. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for those are the kingdom of heaven. Hmm. Blessed are those who mourn, for they'll be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they're gonna inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they're gonna be filled. Blessed are the merciful, they'll be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they'll see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, because they're gonna be called the sons of God. Blessed are those who persecuted, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Maybe they're not everything on that list, but there's a whole bunch of stuff in there that would be exactly representative of the people around this table. And there's not much on that list that would be representative of the Pharisees who are now criticizing Jesus for showing grace and compassion and forgiveness and inclusion to these screwed-up people. Don't misread it. What Jesus says next makes it clear that it is within the boundaries of his authority, his unlimited authority as king to call on these people who are at this table to change, to grow, to more exhibit the values of the kingdom, to more bend the knee to the king. So he isn't just hand-waving whatever their flaws might be, nor is he hand-waving whatever flaws the Pharisees have. Rather, what he's going to do right now is draw a distinction between the person who is in that place of spiritual poverty described in the Beatitudes I just read, versus that person who is not in a place of spiritual poverty. They think all of their spiritual needs are met by their own perfection and flawlessness and exemplary behavior and knowing all the right words to say and being completely woke in whatever version of woke made sense at this moment in history. So the Pharisees gripe to Jesus' disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and quote sinners? On hearing this, verse 12, Jesus said, It's not the healthy you need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice, for I haven't come to call the righteous but sinners. Well, if that's the case, then Jesus was hanging out in exactly the right room. The logic of the statement is impeccable. It's right there in front of our face, right? Who needs a doctor? It's the one who has a problem. Now you could make the case, well, actually, preventative care is very important. It's not the point he's trying to make. He's not saying there's no reason to go to the doctor if you feel good. Obviously, Jesus is for checkups. I think what he's actually saying here is that if you are ill, manifesting symptoms and have a crisis, that is when you need that emergency medical care. And the person who isn't exhibiting any such symptoms is not in that crisis position of needing emergency intervention. But go and learn what this means. And he's quoting here from Hosea chapter 6 and verse 6. And as soon as he starts to say it, I guarantee you that all of those teachers of the law whose job it was to know this content, started to fidget. Because they knew Hosea as a whole, they knew the themes of the book of Hosea, and they especially knew the centerpiece, the high point of the book of Hosea, which is chapter six, around which the entire rest of the document is built. In chapter six, Hosea, a prophet who was working in the northern kingdom in the 8th century BC under kings who were a disaster. I don't know for sure how long Hosea lived, but there's this era like there was in Rome a little bit after the time of Jesus, where you got a whole bunch of different emperors who come and go and everybody gets assassinated and people reign for like nine hours or a month or whatever. That happens in the northern kingdom while Hosea is around. And all of these kings who were assassinating each other and briefly taking power and shelling out money that could have been used for much more redemptive things to the Assyrians to keep them off of their doorstep. They're also flirting kind of with God things a little bit here and there, where it's convenient to them, but mostly they worship pagan gods and things like that. So Hosea's pushing back on all of that. The theme of Hosea is pushing back on the unfaithfulness of Israel by contrast to the faithfulness of God. And so in Hosea 6 and verse 4, he says, What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah? Your love's like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears. Therefore, I cut you into pieces with my prophets. I kill you with the words of my mouth, my judgments flashed like lightning upon you. For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings. So he goes through and he lists all of this stuff that's screwed up. He's calling out these northern tribes that made up the state of Israel. And he's saying, You guys are completely missing the point. But the key verse of the whole book of Isaiah is right there in the middle of what I read. For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offering. Jesus says, it's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means. Oh, they all know the verse. They can all quote it like good Pharisee Iwana kids. They could win a Bible drill on Hosea 6. They know this one already. But go learn what it means. You guys can quote it, but what does it mean? I, God, desire mercy, not sacrifice, for I haven't come to call the righteous but sinners. I would argue this. If your religion requires there to be a repugnant cultural other in order for it to be true, and by your religion, I mean anything. Your stated Christian religion, Christian-ish religion, spin-off Christian religion, the religion from another continent, another part of history, your non-religion religion, your political religion, whatever it is, if it requires there to be a cautionary tale, repugnant cultural other who dangles from the bottom rung in order to keep everybody else in line and to make you and me feel good about things, your religion is broken. It is a world religion based on world values, like the ones that the Pharisees were espousing. If your religion does not require that, if your religion is one that involves enthusiasm about the one who is lost coming home, about the one who is wandering, being found, about the one who is hurting, being bound up and treated with balm and ointment and made well, then you're on to something. You're on to something that looks like the values of the kingdom of Jesus. And so what he's holding out is a very simple contrast. We got some people at this table who are delighted to encounter forgiveness and the life in the kingdom that is being held out and made possible by Jesus. You got other people at the table who are annoyed that somebody might get taken off that bottom rung and really need people to stay there. Jesus comes back and says, What's the point of the whole dang thing, guys? What's the point of religion? You got a God who we all imagine is to be perfect, whatever religion we're coming from. And then we got people who we all know by our own experience are not. What is the actual point of the exercise of all of this that we're talking about? The actual point of the exercise, and I'm putting a lot of words in Jesus' mouth here. Let's just flip these to my words. The actual point of the exercise is reconciliation by the grace of that perfect God figure with imperfect people. Everybody's imperfect. The fancy religious people, the fancy political people, you, me, the prostitutes, the tax collectors, all of these screwed up people. We're all imperfect. And so we are all in need of the redemption and forgiveness of God. And the whole thing, it's not the healthy, you need a doctor, but the sick thing is tongue in cheek. What Jesus is clearly saying throughout his whole teaching here is you're all sick. It's just that some of you know it and some of you don't. Once again, the bad guys in the story are the ones who want to withhold forgiveness, prop themselves up, wallow in their own pride and be celebrated. The people who are the good guys in the story are the ones who look at the king and for all their other flaws, they can tell that is truer and realer. That is the king, and they assume a right posture of humility, acknowledging their sickness and need for a doctor before that king. Mixed metaphors on purpose. They're the ones who get it right. If we want to interpret Jesus' words right, and we might even be interested in tagging along with that and seeing what it might look like for you or me, that is the right posture to assume. Matt, this is a 10 minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon.