Guilty By Association

June 8, 2008     Proper 5 A

Genesis 12:1-9             Psalm 33:1-12

Romans 4:13-25         St. Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

The opening section of our Gospel lesson is in two parts. The first is an encounter with a man named Matthew. The second is in the midst of a dinner in Matthew's house.

The scene isCapernaum, Jesus' own town (9:1). Capernaum was located on the northwest corner of the Sea of Galilee along the major road of international trade between Damascus and Egypt. Domestic trade among the towns and villages on the shores of the Sea of Galilee also had to pass through Capernaum.

Capernaum was well situated for collecting tolls that were levied on all goods in transit whether entering, leaving, or simply being transported across a district. Tolls also had to be paid for goods crossing over bridges or landings or through gates. Matthew was a toll collector who worked in the Capernaum custom house.

In Jesus' time, a toll collector was a native who contracted with Rome to collect the allotted tolls but paid them personally to Rome in advance and hoped to collect enough to make a profit. Historical evidence indicates that the gamble rarely paid off. The rich and the educated, a minuscule minority in Jesus' day, routinely criticized toll collectors. The poor rarely had anything on which duties could be levied and would likely sympathize with rather than criticize those who, like themselves, were trying to eke out a subsistence.

The man sitting at the custom post is said to be Matthew himself, the author of this Gospel. A good story would have been about just why he left that position. The reality is that he was collecting money for the dominating Roman Empire currently occupying the country.

The Pharisees are religious men attempting to hold the nation together under the rule of God's laws. This apparently legalistic approach drives them crazy when Jesus violates, what they believe to be, God's law and God's will for all Jews.

Jesus seems very aware of their annoyance with his ways. We hear his final words to them as a reminder of what lies behind the law and will of God.

The Pharisees are aware of Jesus having been doing healings in their district. Sickness was an indication, in their way of thinking, that the sick persons or their parents had sinned. Jesus uses the illness image to summarize what he had been doing and why gathering sinners, and curing the sick were really the same work of God.

The Pharisees do not see themselves as sick nor sinners so Jesus is telling them that this is why he cannot relate with them and why they cannot understand and accept him.

In the second section of our Gospel, Jesus draws an analogy between his association with toll collectors and sinners, and the association of healers with sick people. Knowledge of the history of medicine helps a modern reader appreciate the analogy. In antiquity, healers preferred not to treat sick people because if the sick person died the healer might be put to death as well.

Jesus' activity contrasts with this cultural view because he touched the untouchables and associated with the outcasts in a way that good healers should have done but didn't.

Moreover sickness in ancient Israel nearly always entailed separation from the community until health returned. This was part of the understanding of purity and wholeness. In a group-oriented culture, separation from the community is a fate worse than death.

This sheds some more light on why Jesus is seen in such a poor light among the leaders of the people, and is welcomed by the common people. Jesus is guilty of sin by his association with the perceived sinners of the day. The Pharisees, however, as presented in Matthew's Gospel would not consider themselves sinners.

The problem is, not all people who are sick, know they are sick. In confirmation class we discuss this issue very early on in our look at the Heidelberg Catechism. It is possible to have an illness and not know it. This is no less true today in our age of advances in medicine than it was in Jesus' day. How many people have a disease that goes undetected until the final stages when treatment is difficult or impossible? It is possible to be ill and not know it.

Although Jesus does not direct this charge directly at the Pharisees in our Gospel lesson today, it must surely have been in the back of his mind. Thus he offers the pronouncement, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick." The problem occurs when the sick do not know they are sick.

Rather than Jesus being guilty of sin by association with sinners, those who associate with Jesus will be forgiven. This is the kind of role reversal that is never understood by those whose lives are controlled by sin. Association with Jesus brings forgiveness of sin and a new understanding of mercy and grace.

When Jesus sits and eats with the sinners in the second section of our Gospel, Jesus is offering a community of association. Association with Jesus acknowledges the need of healing. Continuing association with Jesus acknowledges the reality of healing from the disease of sin. We who gather in Jesus' name are among that community of the healed. We are innocent by association. Instead of Jesus being dragged down into sin by his association with those whom the Pharisees call "sinners" but Jesus would call "ill", those "ill" are healed by their association with Jesus. Jesus is calling for us also to identify with the ill and associate with him that we also may become healed and continue to live in his health.

Like Matthew and the other guests at his table, by our association with Jesus we are guilty of needing God's healing. But having that healing we are expected to show mercy on others, unlike the Pharisees who can only show contempt. If we are to be guilty of association, may our association be with Jesus.