The Kingdom Movement

A Literary & Pastoral Study Guide to the Gospel of Matthew

The Inspiration of Matthew,

by Caravaggio

On the King's Errand

Devotional Reflections on Matthew's Gospel

The Powerplay of Forgiveness:  Mt.9:1 – 13

^9:1 Getting into a boat, Jesus crossed over the sea and came to his own city. ² And they brought to him a paralytic lying on a bed. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, ‘Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven.’ ³ And some of the scribes said to themselves, ‘This fellow blasphemes.’ ⁴ And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, ‘Why are you thinking evil in your hearts? ⁵ Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, and walk’? ⁶ But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’ – then he said to the paralytic, ‘Get up, pick up your bed and go home.’ ⁷ And he got up and went home. ⁸ But when the crowds saw this, they were awestruck, and glorified God, who had given such authority to men. ⁹ As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector’s booth; and he said to him, ‘Follow me!’ And he got up and followed him.  ¹⁰ 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. ¹¹ When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why is your teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?’ ¹² But when Jesus heard this, he said, ‘It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. ¹³ But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’

          Imagine a person deeply wronging and betraying you.  Then imagine your brother (imagine having a brother if you don’t) saying to this person, ‘I forgive you for that.’  Wouldn’t you be a bit upset?  Doesn’t forgiveness rest with you, the hurt party?  What right does a third party have to come up and forgive someone who has done you wrong?  That’s how many Jews would have felt about Jesus forgiving ‘tax collectors and sinners.’  Who is he?  How can he say this?

          In this section, a division between people begins for the first time in Matthew’s story.  It will continue to grow.  The division involves the ‘scribes’ (9:3), who are legal experts of the Mosaic Law, and ‘Pharisees’ (9:11), who were another faction within Israel linked to the scribes; they were a public pressure group, advocating for heightened observance of Jewish traditions.  Let’s understand their take on Jesus.  Often when you’re part of a beleaguered minority in a larger culture not your own, you feel spiteful towards people who are ‘sell-outs.’  Matthew is just such a sell-out.  The tax collector Matthew makes money by skimming off the top of his own Jewish countrymen.  He works for the Roman imperial government which oppresses Israel.  He even makes a profit by charging more than what the Romans officially taxed; this was the Roman way of enticing betrayers from among their conquered peoples.  If you were Jewish, you would have regarded him as a betrayer of your people, your God, and your cause.  He was pimping his own community.  He was making a profit by extorting his own people!

          That’s the puzzle.  How could Jesus offer forgiveness to Matthew and his tax collector buddies?  How is it his prerogative in the first place?  After all, Jesus wasn’t the only person they offended.  They offended many, many Jews.  Another line of reasoning would say that Jesus should make Matthew and the tax collectors apologize to other Jews.  Forgiveness should have been their privilege, right?  Wrong:  Now the scribes and Pharisees have to forgive Matthew, simply because Jesus did.  He establishes his ability to forgive sin in 9:1 – 8, and then demonstrates it with Matthew and other tax collectors in 9:9 – 13.

          Do you ask this question, too?  How can anyone, even God Himself, forgive people if He is a spectator to the conflicts happening between human beings?  Unless God is not just a spectator…

          By claiming to forgive people’s sins, Jesus is claiming that he is just as wounded and offended than you are – and more so – when people hurt you.  How can this be? 

Once, when my son was an infant, my wife put him on the bed and turned to fold clothes.  When she wasn’t looking, he rolled off the bed and fell to the floor.  I was really upset with my wife, and had trouble speaking to her for two days.  Even though she hadn’t done anything wrong to me personally, she had done something wrong to our son.  As I forgave her, I had a small insight into why God forgives us even though we sin against each other: He is personally invested as our heavenly Father in each one of us.  An offense against a person isn’t just an offense against that person.  It’s an offense against God. 

Jesus’ claim to forgive sin is a window into the nature of reality.  Behind it lie other massive claims:  that Jesus is the one who treasures all human beings as his very own, that he is invested in all relationships, that he determines all moral reality, and that he defines all spiritual truth.  If he is the one who truly can forgive our sin, by healing us from the corruption in human nature, then all of our actions must conform to his, and simply be a response to his.  If Jesus forgives Matthew the tax collector and welcomes him into the family of God, then so must the other Jews.  If Jesus forgives the person who hurts us and welcomes that person into the family of God, then so must we.  Ultimately, forgiveness is not ours to give.  We can only reflect the forgiveness Jesus offers, and retain it in our own hearts.

During World War II, on February 28, 1944, Corrie Ten Boom and her sister Betsie were arrested for housing Jews in their home in Holland.  They were taken eventually to Ravensbruch, a prison camp in Germany where they were treated horribly.  Corrie watched labor camp guards strike Betsie for being too weak to shovel.  Betsie later died.  Corrie was discharged in 1945, and she began to share all over Holland, Europe, and the United States what God had done in those dark days.  Then, she went to Germany, and this is what she writes in The Hiding Place: 

                ‘It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck.  He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time.  And suddenly it was all there--the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain-blanched face.

                He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing.  ‘How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein.’  he said.  ‘To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!’

                His hand was thrust out to shake mine.  And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.

                Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them.  Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more?  Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.

                I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand.  I could not.  I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity.  And so again I breathed a silent prayer.  Jesus, I cannot forgive him.  Give me Your forgiveness.

                As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened.  From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.

                And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His.  When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.

We will need Jesus’ help.  Thank God He offers it to us. 

Is there someone you have not forgiven?  Ask Jesus to give you his personal forgiveness of that person.