...Like A Gentile Or Tax Collector (part 2)

The questions that must be asked are “What would this mean to Jesus’ audience?” and “What would this mean to Matthew’s audience?”  These are interesting, provocative, and interesting questions.  Jesus’ audience would not be unaware of His activities to that point.  They would have known who it was with which Jesus surrounded himself, and they would have known things that were thought and said about Jesus by both His supporters and His detractors.  In the case of Matthew’s audience, we must never lose sight of the fact that Matthew’s written narrative---apparently drawing from Mark, some unknown written collections of Jesus’ teaching, and a community-controlled oral tradition---would have been composed for a largely oral community, and would have been designed to be orally performed in a communal setting, presented from start to finish in a single sitting. 

So, what would both Jesus’ and Matthew’s audience already know, when it comes to their hearing of the words recorded in the eighteenth chapter, that would inform their comprehension of Jesus’ words about Gentiles and tax collectors?  Let’s take a look.  In the fourth chapter, Matthew records Jesus’ re-location from Nazareth to Capernaum (in the region of Zebulun and Naphthali).  This is picked up on as a historical actualization of words from Isaiah, which read “Land of Zebulun and land of Naphthali, the way by the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles---the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, and on those who sit in the region and shadow of death a light has dawned” (4:15-16).  Though we cannot come anywhere close to presuming that Jesus’ audiences would have made this connection, Matthew’s audience hears this reference to a light to the Gentiles very early on the telling of the Jesus story. 

Shortly thereafter, we read/hear that “Jesus went throughout all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of disease and sickness among the people” (4:23).  This, again, is the region that has just been referred to as “Galilee of the Gentiles.”  In addition, Matthew adds, “So a report about Him spread throughout Syria” (4:24a), which was a Gentile area.  Accordingly, owing to all that He was doing and saying, “large crowds followed Him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan River” (4:25).  Right away, we find Jesus’ ministry, as presented by Matthew, intimately connected with Gentiles. 

In the fifth chapter, we hear Jesus saying “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor’ and ‘hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be like your Father in heaven… For if you love those who love  you, what reward do you have?  Even the tax collectors do the same, don’t they?  And if you only greet your brothers, what more do you do?  Even the Gentiles do the same, don’t they?” (5:43-44,46-47)  The juxtaposition of “enemy” and “those who persecute you,” with “tax collector” and “Gentile” are undeniable.  Clearly, they are one and the same.  What is also undeniable, for our purposes, is that juxtaposition is firmly ensconced in Jesus call to love them and pray for them.  This would most definitely serve to inform what it means to treat somebody as a Gentile or tax collector, would it not?

Moving to the eighth chapter, we find that “a centurion came to Him asking for help: ‘Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible anguish.’” (8:5b-6)  This centurion, a Gentile, was part of the oppressive, occupying Roman military machine.  His role, among other things, was to keep the people of Israel in submission.  How did Jesus respond?  Did He refuse the request of this Gentile oppressor of Israel?  On the contrary, “Jesus said to him, ‘I will come and heal him.’” (8:7) 

In chapter nine we find that Jesus “saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax booth” (9:9b).  Here is another opportunity for Jesus to shun one of these dastardly collaborators with the hated Romans.  Yet we hear Jesus say “Follow Me” (9:9c).  After Jesus pulls this tax collector into His growing band of disciples, He has a meal with Him.  Now, whenever Jesus, who is going about offering up messianic actions (in the eyes of His contemporaries), and who is clearly being portrayed as the Messiah in the stories told about Him by the early new covenant community (with this being the obvious pre-disposition of the author of this Gospel), sits down at a meal, the thoughts of “messianic banquet,” which indicated the coming of the kingdom of God (which Jesus consistently announced), would not be trailing far behind.  Those who participated in the messianic banquet, which can only be understood with the context of God’s covenant with Israel through Abraham, were those that would rule in God’s kingdom.  It is in that light that we read “As Jesus was having a meal in Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with Jesus and His disciples” (9:10).