The Scandal of Grace: The Doctor Is In Text: Matthew 9:9-13
Introduction: A Tale of Two Feasts
The gospel is a story of feasts. It begins with a wedding feast in Cana and culminates in the marriage supper of the Lamb. And in between, we find that our Lord was frequently at table, eating and drinking. So much so, that the starched collars of His day, the Pharisees, accused Him of being a glutton and a drunkard. But we must understand that for Jesus, a meal was never just a meal. Table fellowship is a picture of something much deeper: it is a picture of acceptance, of communion, of welcome. And so, where Jesus chooses to eat, and with whom He chooses to eat, is a profound theological statement. It is a visible sermon.
In our text today, we are confronted with one of the most offensive, scandalous, and glorious meals in all of Scripture. It is a feast that turns the world's notions of religion and righteousness completely upside down. The world, and particularly the religious world, operates on a principle of merit. You earn your seat at the table. You work your way up. You get clean, you get respectable, you get your theology straight, and then, perhaps, you might be invited to sit with the holy people. You climb the ladder, and the feast is at the top.
But Jesus dynamites this entire way of thinking. He does not set up His table at the top of the ladder for the climbers. He kicks the ladder over, walks down into the muck and mire where the outcasts and failures live, and He sets up His feast right there. This is the scandal of grace. It is not a reward for the righteous, but a hospital for the sick. It is not a graduation party for the successful, but a rescue mission for sinners. And this is precisely what infuriates the self-righteous, both then and now. They cannot stand a grace that is actually gracious, a grace that comes as a free gift to people who don't deserve it. They want a grace you can manage, a grace you can earn, a grace that makes sense. But the grace of God in Jesus Christ is a glorious, beautiful, offensive mess.
This passage is a direct confrontation between two rival religions. One is the religion of the Pharisees, which is the religion of human effort, of external righteousness, of keeping your distance from the unclean. The other is the religion of Jesus, which is the religion of divine initiative, of imputed righteousness, and of a Savior who plunges His hands into the filth of our sin to pull us out. One is a religion of quarantine; the other is a religion of healing.
The Text
And as Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax office; and He said to him, “Follow Me!” And he stood up and followed Him. Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, “Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?” But when Jesus heard this, He said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT SACRIFICE,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
(Matthew 9:9-13 LSB)
The Sovereign Summons (v. 9)
We begin with the call of Matthew, a man at the very bottom of the social and religious ladder.
"And as Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax office; and He said to him, “Follow Me!” And he stood up and followed Him." (Matthew 9:9)
To understand the shock of this, we have to grasp what a tax collector was in first-century Israel. They were not just civil servants. They were traitors. They were Jews who had bought a franchise from the pagan, occupying Roman government to extort money from their own people. They were notorious for their greed, tacking on extra fees to line their own pockets. They were ceremonially unclean because of their constant contact with Gentiles and religiously despised for their collaboration with the enemy. A tax collector was the lowest of the low, a man who had sold his birthright for a bag of Roman coins.
And Jesus sees this man, Matthew, sitting at his toll booth, the very symbol of his treason and greed. Jesus does not see a project. He does not see a lost cause. He sees a man. And He issues a command of sovereign, creative power: "Follow Me!" This is not a suggestion. It is not an invitation to a negotiation. It is a divine fiat, the same kind of word that said, "Let there be light." It is an effectual call. The power is in the call itself, not in the one being called.
Notice Matthew's response. "And he stood up and followed Him." There is no hesitation. He doesn't ask about the retirement plan. He doesn't say he needs to give two weeks' notice. He abandons his entire livelihood, his security, his identity, in an instant. Why? Because the call of the Creator has a creative effect. When Jesus calls a man, He gives him the legs to stand and the heart to follow. This is the doctrine of irresistible grace in shoe leather. Grace is not a polite suggestion; it is a royal summons. It is an invasion. And it creates the response it demands.
The Scandalous Celebration (v. 10-11)
What follows is even more shocking. Matthew, the new disciple, throws a party, and the guest list is a "who's who" of the local deplorables.
"Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, “Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?”" (Matthew 9:10-11 LSB)
Matthew's first act as a follower of Jesus is evangelistic. He gathers all his old friends, the other outcasts, the tax collectors and "sinners," and he brings them to meet Jesus. And Jesus doesn't just show up to give a stern lecture and leave. He reclines at the table with them. He eats with them. In that culture, sharing a meal was an act of identification, of friendship, of acceptance. Jesus is publicly identifying with the unclean.
Of course, the Pharisees are watching. They always are. The Pharisees were the separated ones. Their entire system of righteousness was built on quarantine. You stay holy by keeping your distance from anything and anyone unholy. They had constructed elaborate fences around the law to make sure they never got close to breaking it, and these fences kept them far away from messy people. So, from their perspective, what Jesus is doing is unthinkable. He is contaminating Himself. He is endorsing their sin.
Notice their tactic. They don't confront Jesus directly. They go to His disciples. This is a classic move of the enemy. They try to sow seeds of doubt and division among the followers. "Why is your Teacher...?" They are whispering, trying to peel the disciples away from their Master. They are attacking Jesus' character through insinuation. If He were a true teacher, a true man of God, He wouldn't be doing this.
The Divine Diagnosis (v. 12)
Jesus overhears their grumbling, and He responds with a simple, profound analogy that cuts to the very heart of His mission.
"But when Jesus heard this, He said, 'It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.'" (Genesis 9:12 LSB)
With this one sentence, Jesus reframes the entire situation. The Pharisees see the gathering as a party of rebels that a holy man should avoid. Jesus sees it as a hospital ward that a physician must enter. The Pharisees see themselves as the healthy ones, the righteous ones, who must protect themselves from infection. Jesus identifies Himself as the Great Physician, and His mission is to go where the sickness is.
This is a devastating indictment of the Pharisees' entire religious system. They thought their job was to stay away from sick people. Jesus says a doctor's job is to go to them. A doctor who only hangs around with other healthy doctors is useless. The sicker the patient, the more urgent the need for the physician. Jesus is saying, "Of course I am here. This is precisely where I am needed. This is my office."
The central issue here is the diagnosis. The tax collectors and sinners knew they were sick. They had no illusions about their spiritual health. They were the moral lepers of their society, and they knew it. But the Pharisees were sick and didn't know it. In fact, they were convinced they were the healthiest people in the room. And that is the most dangerous sickness of all, the sickness of self-righteousness. A man with cancer who knows he has cancer might go to the doctor. A man with cancer who thinks he is in perfect health will do nothing until it is too late. The Pharisees' "health" was their damnation.
The Theological Homework (v. 13)
Jesus then gives these Bible experts some homework, sending them back to their own Scriptures to learn the heart of God.
"But go and learn what this means: ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT SACRIFICE,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners." (Matthew 9:13 LSB)
He quotes from the prophet Hosea (6:6). This is a sharp rebuke. He is telling the masters of the law that they have fundamentally misunderstood the law. They had become so obsessed with the "sacrifice" part, the external rituals, the ceremonies, the dietary laws, the quarantine procedures, that they had completely missed the "compassion" part, the heart of God. God is not interested in religious performance that is divorced from a heart of mercy. He is not impressed by your perfect church attendance if you have contempt for the broken person sitting in the next pew.
The Pharisees' religion was all sacrifice and no mercy. They would tithe their mint and cumin but neglect justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Jesus is telling them that God's priority is a heart that beats with His heart, a heart of compassion for the lost and broken. Their meticulous rule-keeping had become a substitute for love, a way of puffing up their own pride while despising others. God hates that kind of religion. It is a stench in His nostrils.
Then comes the thunderclap, the mission statement of the Incarnation: "for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners." This is one of the most glorious and terrifying sentences in the Bible. It is glorious for those who know they are sinners. It is the best news in the world. The invitation is for you. The call is addressed to you. The feast is spread for you. But it is terrifying for those who believe they are righteous in themselves. For them, there is no call. There is no invitation. Jesus is, in effect, saying, "I have nothing for you. You have diagnosed yourselves as healthy, so you have no need of me, the Physician. My ministry is not for you."
Of course, Jesus is speaking with a sharp, divine irony. He knows that "none is righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10). There are no "healthy" people. There are only two kinds of people in the world: sick people who know they are sick, and sick people who pretend they are healthy. The gospel is for the first group. The door to the Kingdom of God has a sign over it, and it reads, "For Sinners Only." The self-righteous need not apply.
Conclusion: The Only Way to the Feast
This passage forces a question upon every one of us. With which group do you identify? Are you at the table with Jesus, knowing you have no right to be there, clinging to His grace alone? Or are you outside, with the Pharisees, grumbling that the guest list is not up to your standards?
The fundamental error of the Pharisee is to think that you can make yourself clean enough for God. But the gospel teaches that we are far too sinful and God is far too holy for that to ever be possible. You cannot climb out of the pit. The pit is too deep. You need a Savior to come down into the pit and carry you out.
The good news is that this is exactly what Jesus Christ did. He is the Great Physician who did not just visit the hospital ward; He took the sickness of His patients into His own body. He, the only truly healthy man, became sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21). He went to the cross, the ultimate place of uncleanness, outside the camp, and bore the full infection of our rebellion. He drank the cup of God's wrath against sin, our sin, down to the dregs.
Therefore, the only way to the feast is to admit you are a sinner. The only way to be healed is to admit you are sick. The only way to be counted as righteous is to abandon all your own righteousness as filthy rags and cling to the perfect righteousness of Christ alone. The gospel call goes out today, just as it did to Matthew at the tax booth. "Follow Me!" And that call is for sinners. So come. Come to the table. There is a seat saved for you, not because you are worthy, but because He is gracious.