Sunday, June 7, 2026, Second Sunday after Pentecost
“Dinners with Sinners”
Scripture Readings: Psalm 119:65-72; Hosea 5:15-6:6; Romans 4:13-25; Matthew 9:9-13
Service Order: Divine Service III with Holy Communion, Lutheran Service Book
Hymns: “Drawn to the Cross, Which Thou Hast Blessed” #560; “Just As I Am, Without One Plea” #570; “Jesus Sinners Doth Receive” #609
Dear Friends in Christ,
Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus was getting complaints about who He chose to associate with and spend His time with. Why did Jesus choose to eat with “tax collectors and sinners?” Why indeed would He choose to offer His Holy Supper to the likes of us? Mercy, O Lord, mercy forever, that we should know such grace. Amen.
Who was Matthew? We know him today as St. Matthew the disciple, the apostle, the Gospel writer. But when Jesus found him, he was still just Matthew Levi, the tax collector. As a tax collector, or publican, Matthew would have been despised by the Jews, his fellow countrymen. His job was to collect taxes from the Jews on behalf of the Roman government; and the Jews had to pay that tax in the hated, idolatrous Roman coin, the one that had the graven image of Caesar on it.
All the tax collectors (for good reason) were suspected of overcharging, putting the extra in their pockets, and getting rich in the process. Tax collectors were cut off from synagogue and the temple worship; so Matthew Levi was a tax collector, a sinner, and an outcast. His only friends would have been the other tax collectors and sinners. And Jesus chose this guy? To be one of His first disciples, to be one of the “big twelve?” Why? Because Jesus loved him, knew his heart, and knew what he could be. What a scandal, that a Teacher would choose such a man as this to be His disciple, along with a gaggle of fishermen and a couple of zealots, one of whom would later betray Him.
But when Jesus said to Matthew, “Follow me,” Matthew did. He left the tax collector’s comfortable chair, the nice job, the steady income, the security, to follow after Jesus. I think maybe Matthew must have heard about Jesus prior to this. Maybe he’d been discontented with his life, or was feeling some guilt over it. Maybe he had that feeling there was something missing in his life. Maybe, almost certainly, God’s Spirit had been knocking at the door to his heart all along. But whatever the reason, he got up and followed Jesus, and thanks be to God that he did.
Now, when Jesus told Matthew, “Follow me,” where did He lead him? Where were they going? To Matthew’s house! Jesus led Matthew to his own front door; and then Jesus invited Himself to dinner. That’s another thing to know about what Jesus was doing. To the Jews, you would never enter into the house of a known sinner, let alone sit down to eat with one. Consorting with a sinner, fellowshipping with someone on the outs with society, made you an unclean sinner yourself; it was guilt by association. Jesus didn’t seem to care about rules or customs or conventions, though. He cared about people, and He cared for their souls. It’s also worth noting that when Jesus was invited to dine at the house of a Pharisee, He did that, too. He was “no respecter or persons,” the Scripture says.
Jesus had called five disciples at this point: Andrew, John, Simon Peter, Philip, and Nathanael. Matthew would have been #6 to join the group, with 6 more being added afterward. So, at the dinner party at Matthew’s house, there was Jesus, five of His disciples, and Matthew and his friends. And who were Matthew’s friends? Other sinners! Fellow tax collectors, fellow outcasts. Was that man Matthew Levi Jesus’ only target in this thing? Was he the only one converted? Scripture doesn’t say, but we can only assume Jesus was after more: That Jesus had an eye on Matthew’s household and family, and on Matthew’s friends and their families, too, once they’d heard the Good News, and seen the changes Jesus made in him. Isn’t it great how this works? Isn’t it great what a little love and mercy and kindness can do?
So Jesus sat down to have dinner with sinners, as an act of pure mercy and outreach and grace. But all the Pharisees saw was a scandal: "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" What about our rules? What about the sacrifices? What about the dietary rules and the handwashing? What about the purification ceremonies and the ritual baths? What about the 30 days or 60 days that someone has to wait before they can be declared pure? And what about all the rules about what a sinner has to do before we’ll welcome them home again? And what about the separation between us and the sinful world? What about the Jew versus the Gentile, the “us versus them?” If we lose our traditions and laws and rules, we won’t be Jews anymore, and we won’t be God’s people.
My grandfather was involved, back in the 20’s and 30’s, with the fight to bring English language services into the Lutheran Church. (He was for it). Do you know what the argument against it was? “We can’t be Lutheran if we lose our language. We should be teaching our children German, not allowing them to worship in English. This is the slippery slope, the first step in losing our heritage.” And my grandfather’s answer, so I remember him saying about it, was, “What about the families and children around us who don’t know German? Should we forget them and turn them away, or doesn’t God love them, too? And doesn’t God want them to hear the Gospel in words they can understand? (The Catholic church has had the same argument over the years about the Latin Mass).
Jesus’ answer, to the Pharisees, legalists, and law-keepers of every stripe, is that people come first above anything else, all the time. People come from different places, different ethnicities, and different backgrounds; but what all of us have in common is that we’re all sinners in need of God’s forgiveness and grace. Jesus says, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” And which of us is healthy, as far as sin goes? Who of us isn’t sick with sin? Who of us can go a single day without sinning? Who of us here doesn’t need to be forgiven? Martin Luther, God bless, him, said we all need to hear God’s Law, so we can understand how sick we are. If you have some physical illness, you have to become aware that something is wrong before you’ll seek out a cure, right? (And usually it’s pain that gets us to go to the doctor).
The Law shows us our sin, which, if left untreated, is fatal as fatal can be. The wages of sin is death, so we’re all, in a spiritual sense, terminal. And Jesus our Lord brings us the medicine, the remedy, the cure for our sin; and the only cure, the only medicine that can save us, is His own precious blood. “All who are thirsty, come to the waters,” Jesus says. “Come and take the free gift of the water of life.” We’re saved because Jesus was and still is willing to sit down and have dinners with sinners like us. We’re saved because Jesus sees the depth of our sin, yet He loves us anyway. Foul and full of sin as we may be, He doesn’t turn away. “Foul, I to the fountain fly,” the old hymn says.
My brother Ken suffered for years from rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes. In his last few years, he was just so thin, and his arms, legs, and face were covered with sores. At his funeral, one of my aunts (who really was a dear, sweet person), said, “I always meant to go see him, but it was really hard for me to see him in that condition.” That’s so sad; Jesus touched lepers when no one else would.
Jesus says in our Gospel, “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” What we have on our Communion table this day is the result of Jesus’ sacrifice. The gift we’re receiving is because Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, gave Himself on a cross for the sake of our sin. Our Communion isn’t a sacrifice that we’re making, as some teach, but a gift that we poor sinners are receiving. It’s a gift of grace and mercy, from a God who knows perfectly well the condition we’re in, and has chosen to love us anyway.
Jesus says, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” And since, as we’ve established, none of us are righteous on our own, that means He’s calling unrighteous sinners like you and me. “That is what some of you were.” St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians. “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
Matthew Levi didn’t finish the day in the same condition he started it in. He started the day as a tax-collecting sinner; but he ended the day as a disciple of Jesus -- and he lived the rest of his life as an apostle and a missionary, and ended it and as a martyr for the sake of his Savior.
Does Jesus love you just as you are? Yes, He does, whether you’re a publican or a tax collector or any other kind of sinner you can name. But He loves you enough not to leave you as you are. When Jesus sits down to eat with a sinner, His intention is to leave the sinner changed, in mind and heart and soul. Remember what the Emmaus disciples said, after Jesus broke bread with them? “Were not our hearts burning within us when He shared the Gospel with us?” Changing hearts and lives and souls is what Jesus does.
So, “Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces, but He will heal us; He has injured us, but He will bind up our wounds. After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will restore us, that we may live in His presence. Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge Him. As surely as the sun rises, He will appear; He will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth."
Come to us, Lord Jesus. You have come to us is Spirit and power in Your blessed Word. Now come to us with forgiveness, life, and grace in Your body and blood. In Jesus’ name; Amen.
Rev. Larry Sheppard, M.Div.
Trinity Lutheran Church, LCMS, Packwaukee, WI; St. John’s Lutheran Church, LCMS, Oxford, WI
pastorshepp@gmail.com