The Lutheran Hour
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"Bad Company"
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Text: Matthew 9:11
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Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! To those of us who know we are sick in our souls and hard in our hearts; who are pained by the past and fearful of the future; the crucified and risen Christ comes to us and says, “I have come for you. I am the One who will heal; I am the One who will save. Come, follow Me.” God grant we sinners believe and follow. Grant such faith to us all. Amen.
There are a lot of people who spend time in front of a mirror to make sure their outside looks g-o-o-d. Unfortunately, many of those folks, including Christians, don’t put the same amount of time into checking their interiors – their hearts, their minds, and their souls. Back in World War II, when everybody saved everything for the war effort, junk men made the rounds to collect things which would help the troops. One of those junk men was knocking on the doors of an affluent neighborhood. At one home he was greeted by a lady who was dressed to the nines. He began his customary spiel asking the same questions he had asked hundreds of times before. He said, “Excuse me, Ma’am, do you have any glass for me? You know, things like beer bottles…?” Normally he continued with a listing of the potential glass items which were needed. This time he was stopped short when the lady interrupted him. Her back straightened, her eyes narrowed and with an icy voice she shot back, “Sir, do I look to you like the kind of lady who would drink beer?” The junkman asked again, “Excuse me ma’am, do you have any glass for me? You know, things like you might use – vinegar bottles or pickle bottles, anything which used to contain things sour?” The junkman was letting the lady know while her home might look good and she appeared to be more than presentable, her insides were just a tad tart.
In truth, our insides don’t often match up with our outsides. Years ago, a small-town’s prosecuting attorney, a Matlock sort of fellow, called his first witness to the stand to give her testimony. The lady was an elderly grandmother who had lived in town all of her life. He began with what he hoped would be a warm lead-in question which would establish a rapport between them. He asked, “Mrs. Weider, you know me, don’t you?” Mrs. Weider replied, “Of course I know you. I’ve known you since you were a youngster. Quite frankly you’ve been a big disappointment to me and everyone else. You lie, you cheat on your wife, you maneuver people, and you talk about them when they’re not around. You’ve convinced yourself that you’re a big shot when you’re not. If I have to tell the truth, I and my friends are pretty sure you’re not going to go very far at all. In answer to your question, ‘Yes, I know you.'”
Understandably, the lawyer was shocked at her answer which gave far more information than he wanted to hear. Wishing to shift the negative attention from himself, he pointed to the table where the defense attorney was seated. “Mrs. Weider, let me ask, ‘Do you know the Counsel for the Defense?'” The lady said she did. She continued, “I’ve know him since he was a baby. In fact, I used to be his babysitter. Like you, he’s been a real disappointment. He’s lazy, prejudiced, and he drinks way too much. He never calls or visits his mother, it took him four times before he passed the bar, and his law practice is in shambles. Yes, I know him.” When Mrs. Weider was done, the judge called both counselors to stand before the bench. In a very quiet voice he whispered, “If either of you asks this lady if she knows me, I’ll declare you in contempt of court and give you a fine so big the national debt will look like pocket change.” That judge knew that while he may wear the robes of authority, inwardly he wasn’t so presentable. In the words of Mrs. Weider, the judge knew he would have been a disappointment.
Sort of like us. May I tell you a secret? When we’re being honest, really honest, most of us know we are disappointments, most of us realize we aren’t all that presentable. Inside each of us there are things which are so dark, so frightening, so sinful, evil, mean, and nasty, we will do almost anything to make sure nobody ever gets a clear glimpse of who we are. We diet and exercise to help our outsides look good, but no diet has been developed which can shape us up on the inside. We may work hard to live in the right neighborhoods, drive the right cars, dine at the right restaurants, send our children to the right schools, and have the right people invite us to the right social events; but there is no amount of work which can make the real “us-es” really right. We are disappointments. I know I am. You know, I haven’t played cards in 40 years. It’s not that I don’t like cards. I do. I just don’t like to lose at cards; I lose my temper when I lose at cards. The last time I lost at cards I stormed out of the house where Pam and I were staying. Sad, isn’t it? I know. I’m a disappointment, and so, my friends, are you. The things in which I am disappointing may not be your thing, but you do disappoint, don’t you?
Maybe it’s because we are so sinful, so dark inside, we always search for that which can make us feel just a little better. We take a certain satisfaction, draw a certain comfort, out of knowing the richest, the most powerful, the most famous are just as disappointing as we are.
Which is why people really relish the fall of any man or woman who is supposed to be a representative of the Christ. Did a priest seduce an altar boy; did a tele-evangelist have relations with his secretary; did a minister confess to a dalliance with a male model; did the treasurer of a national ministry misuse the money entrusted to him? Those are the sins which make front-page headlines; which open our evening news. These things are wrong, tragically, terribly wrong. These things should never be done; not by a minister, not by anyone. But they are done; they are done because each of us is by nature and by temperament a disappointing sinner.
And if all this were not bad enough, it gets even worse. You see, every time one of the Lord’s people sins, God’s image and the Savior’s sacrifice gets tarnished. To paraphrase the good thief who was crucified next to Christ: It is just for us to be condemned for our sins, but Jesus has done nothing wrong. In the last century, Oswald Chambers was correct when he commented: “The world is glad of an excuse not to listen to the Gospel message, and the inconsistencies of Christians is the excuse (they use to not listen).”
It was no different the day the Savior called the tax collector Matthew to be His disciple. Jesus had just finished healing a man who had been paralyzed and was passing by Matthew who was collecting taxes at his tollbooth along the side of the road. In the days when Rome ruled the Jewish nation, if a person aspired to become a regional tax collector, he put in a bid and the position was awarded to the highest bidder. To assure you would get the job, it was necessary for you to place a very high bid – an amount which had to be recovered. Of course there was no better or faster way to get your money back than to take it from others. So the regional tax collector would employ men like Matthew to levy taxes, a duty which many did in a most creative way.
Understand, I’m not talking about the regular, legal taxes here. I’m not thinking of the production tax which was 1/10th of your crop; or the income tax which was 1% of your earnings; I’m not referring to the purchase tax which resembled our sales tax, nor am I looking at the road use tax which was like our toll road fees. I’m not even talking about the poll tax – the money you paid for being alive. I’m talking about the extortions, the bribes, the extras which tax collectors could levy at their own discretion. With these injustices, it’s hardly necessary for me to say being a tax collector wasn’t the kind of job which made you popular with the people. On the other hand, if you were willing to be disliked, despised, and detested by your neighbors and countrymen, as a creative collector of the taxes you could become quite wealthy.
Since Scripture is silent in regard to Mathew’s financial condition, I cannot tell you if he was rich or poor. I can tell you he would have been disliked and I can also tell you Matthew’s unpopularity didn’t stop Jesus from calling him to be a disciple. “Follow Me.” That’s what Jesus said. We have no record of any earlier conversation between the two men; there is no indication the two had ever even met before that moment. But Jesus’ words, “Follow Me,” meant Matthew should, right now, leave everything behind; that he should, without any explanation or direction or counting of cost, walk away from what he had and all he hoped to achieve and follow the Savior. It was a momentous decision for Matthew. Many of Jesus’ other disciples could, and did, go back to their previous occupations; but not so for Matthew. He would have known if he walked off the job without reason or notice, there would be little likelihood of the Romans ever allowing him to serve them again.
To make a long story short, Matthew went. He didn’t debate; he didn’t ask for time to decide; he simply got up and followed Jesus. More than that, he celebrated his following with his friends. From what I’ve said, you might guess those friends were not on anyone’s “A-list.” They weren’t the kind of folks who appear in the society section of the newspaper. Matthew’s friends – other tax collectors, other rejects, discards, castoffs of society – serious sinners all, came and celebrated Matthew’s new life with the Christ. Seeing the company Jesus was keeping, the pillars of the community came and whispered something like this to Jesus’ disciples: “Look boys, you don’t have to be a catapult scientist to know that birds of a feather flock together. It’s plain to us all that Jesus is linking Himself up with some pretty bad birds. Now what He does and doesn’t do really isn’t any business of ours, but we think He’s gong to be judged by the company He keeps. We know that’s so, because we’ve already judged Him. What we want to know is this: ‘How can anyone take Him or His ministry seriously? Can you give us any rational, reasonable explanation why Jesus would do such a thing?'”
Do you remember what I said a few minutes ago: Every time one of God’s people sins, God’s image and the Savior’s sacrifice gets tarnished? When God’s people roll around in the dirt, it’s the Savior who always comes away muddy. That’s what happened the day Jesus called Matthew. Because Jesus was associating Himself with sinners, some upstanding, self-righteous people rejected who He was, and what He stood for, and what He was trying to accomplish, and the salvation Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection were designed to give them. When everybody else saw a thief, a traitor, and turncoat, Jesus saw a man’s sinful heart, his troubled mind. When everyone considered Matthew a man to be avoided, Jesus was touched by Matthew’s hurt, pain, loneliness, and lostness.
That’s why, when the disciples were questioned about Jesus’ motivation, they never gave an answer. Jesus, as the Son of God, is omnipotent, all-knowing and all-hearing. The Divine, who can listen to a million-times-a-million simultaneous prayers, had no difficulty picking up these whispered challenges. When His critics asked: Why is Jesus hanging around with these disreputable types, Jesus replied, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick (do)… I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” To heal the sick and to save sinners is why God gave the first promise of a Savior to Adam and Eve after they had sinned. To heal the sick and to save sinners is why He rescued humanity through the gopher wood ark of Noah when the world had grown corrupt. To heal the sick and to save sinners is why He made a promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; why He recruited Moses to lead His people from slavery to freedom; why He kept sending judges to recall His people who had wandered; prophets to remind His children when they had forgotten.
To heal the sick and to save sinners is why Jesus exchanged the throne room of heaven for a manger in a dingy, dirty, dung-filled stable. To heal the sick and to save sinners is why Jesus rejected Satan’s temptation of comfort, power, and success; why He allowed Himself to be arrested, beaten, spit upon, crowned with thorns, whipped, and crucified. To heal the sick and to save sinners is why He carried our sins to the cross and it is why He showed Himself in resurrection victory to those who were defeated, discouraged, and afraid. To heal the sick and to save sinners – sinners like you and me – is why Jesus stops before us and says, “Follow Me.” It is His call to repentance, forgiveness, and eternal life.
Samuel Colgate helped create the Colgate business conglomerate. Along with being an astute businessman, Colgate was also an ardent servant and supporter of the Savior. One Sunday, his church had a big push to evangelize the neighborhood. The pastor preached a moving message and at the end he extended an invitation for those who wished to come forward and declare their Spirit-given desire to leave their past behind, follow the Savior and be blessed by the forgiveness Christ has won.
According to the story, one of the first people to walk down the aisle and kneel before the church altar was an infamous woman who had a most sullied reputation. She cried as she knelt and she renounced her licentious life. She asked God to forgive her and then she stood up and turned around. To the sea of faces before her she humbly stated she was committed to following Jesus and that she was happy in His blood-bought forgiveness. She concluded by saying: I wish to now become a member of the church. Her request was met by silence – a deafening silence – a prolonged silence. Everyone knew every time one of God’s people sins, God’s image and the Savior’s sacrifice gets tarnished. They were reluctant to have their church or their Savior besmirched by associating themselves with this – sinner.
The silence was broken when Colgate stood up and said: “I guess we blundered when we prayed that the Lord would save sinners. We forgot to specify what kind of sinners. We’d better ask Him to forgive us this oversight. The Holy Spirit has touched this woman and made her truly repentant, but the Lord apparently doesn’t understand that she’s not the type (of lost sinner) we want Him to rescue. We’d better spell it out for Him just which sinners we had in mind.” Colgate’s words jolted the congregation into remembering who they were; that they, too, were all sinners who had been blessed by the Savior’s sacrifice; who had been forgiven by His blood and promised eternal victory through His resurrection. The motion was made and unanimously approved that the woman be accepted into church membership.
To eat with sinners, to drink with them, and save them, is why Jesus came. It is why He called Matthew to follow Him; it is why the Holy Spirit touched the heart of that prostitute and saved her; it is why He reaches out to each of us. If you are among those who are staying away from the Christ and His church because there are sinners there, let me say, “Of course there are. If they weren’t sinners, they wouldn’t need a Savior.” If you reject Christ because of what we are doing wrong, forgive us, but realize we are weak and foolish children who need God’s great grace and His ongoing guiding hand; if hypocrites in the church stand between you and your Redeemer, realize if they are between the two of you, they are actually closer to Him than you are.
And if you are among those who know the Christ, who acknowledge your dependence upon His great grace, give thanks. Give thanks and live as one of His people. Live not as if your life depends on it – because of Jesus it doesn’t; no, live as if the lives of the unbelievers around you depend on what you do. Let us, in all we do, honor Him who has come to be healer to our hearts, Savior to our souls. It is for that purpose this broadcast exists. It is why we say, if we can show you the Savior who says, “Follow Me,” please, call us at The Lutheran Hour. Amen.
LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOX (Questions & Answers) for June 8, 2008
Disposal of Old BiblesANNOUNCER: How would you dispose of an old Bible? Pastor Ken Klaus responds to a listener’s question. I’m Mark Eischer. You know, this is a question I’d never heard before and hadn’t really thought that much about. I remember when my son was in Boy Scouts, we had a ceremony for disposing of old flags. But what about old Bibles?
KLAUS: Actually, this comes up more often than you’d think it would.
ANNOUNCER: And this question came to us from a man who owns an old worn-out Bible and would like to know the right way to dispose of it. He says it’s not an “important” Bible (by that we mean it’s not an antique); it’s not a family Bible that contains all the records of births and deaths; it didn’t cost a lot of money to begin with; and it’s not filled with handwritten notes.
KLAUS: We are saying it’s just a Bible that our listener has owned for a long time and it’s seen a lot of use.
ANNOUNCER: Exactly. Now, the problem is, from use and age the binding’s given way; some of the pages have become wrinkled, others are lost; it’s getting hard to take it anywhere because sections kept falling out. So our listener wants to retire that Bible and get a new one.
KLAUS: And the difficulty is, he wants to know how to dispose of the old one in a proper way. In other words, he wants to know how to properly “get rid” of his Bible.
ANNOUNCER: I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there.
KLAUS: You’re right, Mark. It is a question people ask. I know I asked it a good many years ago. I asked it when we were moving and I was packing my library and I found I had two Bibles which were exactly the same. One was worn out, the other was brand new. I kept the brand new one and threw the old one away with a box of other books. I have to say, I didn’t feel very good about doing that.
ANNOUNCER: And I think that’s what our listener is feeling. He knows the Bible is the Word of God and he doesn’t feel comfortable just throwing it into the garbage can along with the potato peelings and the coffee grounds. And he doesn’t want to chuck it into the recycling bin along with the old TV Guide and the newspapers. He can’t give it away to somebody because the Bible is already worn out and falling apart.
KLAUS: And he doesn’t want to burn it, because that kind of sends the wrong signal to the people who are around.
ANNOUNCER: OK, so what should our listener do?
KLAUS: Many years ago I asked that question and I went looking for an answer.
ANNOUNCER: What did you find?
KLAUS: I didn’t find anything. In the Islamic world, there are rules on how to handle a Koran that has worn out. In the Jewish community, they take the Torah and give it a burial, with a service and even a casket. But in the Christian community there is no formal tradition in place.
ANNOUNCER: That seems strange.
KLAUS: Doesn’t it? That is, perhaps, because we recognize that while the contents of the book is God’s inspired, inerrant Word, the paper, the ink, the binding, the glue, the cover of that book is just like any other. Bibles are sacred because of what they contain, not because of the material of which they are made.
ANNOUNCER: So there are no hard and fast rules?
KLAUS: No. Some say throw it away like you would any other worn out book. Some can do that, others can’t. Some say give it away, but that just seems to be transferring the problem to someone else. Burning or burying seem to be the best ways to proceed.
ANNOUNCER: But you said burning might be misunderstood or send a mixed signal.
KLAUS: It might, as might burying. But I think the way in which the burying or burning are done could make a difference.
ANNOUNCER: Like how, for example?
KLAUS: Let me just think out loud here Mark. Many of our congregations have their own churchyards or cemeteries. Suppose a special spot in the cemetery was set aside for the burial of worn out Bibles. Suppose every few years or so, the congregation asked their people to bring all their old, worn out Bibles together so they might be disposed of in that spot. There might even be a service when those Bibles were, you should excuse the expression, “laid to rest.”
ANNOUNCER: OK, that takes care of burial… how about burning?
KLAUS: A similar thing could happen. Many churches have groups that go on camping trips or retreats. Why not ask the people to bring in their old Bibles which need to be disposed of, and take them along to the retreat. There, under respectful circumstances – in a campfire, perhaps – those Bibles could be disposed of.
ANNOUNCER: You also mentioned having some kind of a service – almost a decommissioning, I suppose. Have you ever seen such a service?
KLAUS: I have. In fact, I wrote one. It’s not long. It’s not anything official. It’s just something I felt comfortable with.
ANNOUNCER: This has been a presentation of Lutheran Hour Ministries.Music selections for this program:
“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by John Leavitt. Concordia Publishing House/SESAC
“We Believe That This Is Jesus” arr. Mark Sedio. From Safe in God’s Faithfulness by Laudamus (© 2007 Concordia Seminary Chorus) Concordia Publishing House/SESAC
“Praeludium in D” arr. Paul Manz. From Hymn Improvisations by Paul Manz (© 1992 Paul Manz)
“Von Gott will ich nicht lassen, BWV 658” by J.S. Bach. From Cramer & Resch at Kramer Chapel by Craig Cramer and Richard Resch (© 2001 Concordia Theological Seminary, Ft. Wayne)