Matthew 9:9-17--The Calling of Matthew and a Question About Fasting

​Matthew 9:9-17 English Standard Version (ESV)
Listen:  https://www.biblegateway.com/audio/mclean/esv/Matt.9.9-Matt.9.17
Jesus Calls Matthew
9 As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him.
10 And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. 11 And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

A Question About Fasting
14 Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” 15 And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. 17 Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”

---

While Jesus has already called some other disciples before this, this is the first disciples that we see Jesus call by name to ask the disciple to come and follow Jesus, and it makes sense because this is the the author of the book telling about how Jesus chose Him.  In that culture, this would not be the kind of man that you'd want to be associated with.  This man was a Jew, but he decided to work for the Romans in order to line his own pockets because as a tax collector, the Romans were okay with him charging people too much tax and only paying Rome what was due them and keeping the rest for himself.  Because of this the Jews hated tax collectors and saw them as traitors and they rejected their citizenship and told them they were not allowed to worship in the temple and they were treated as bad or worse than prostitutes, Samaritans, and Gentiles (we'll see later how these other groups of "sinners" and outcasts were treated by Jesus.

Jesus not only asked Matthew to follow Him, but He went to Matthew's house for dinner and He ate with him.  The religious leaders treated "sinners" like they had a contagious disease that might "rub off" on them if they got too close to them and God might somehow see the unrighteousness of the "sinner" that rubbed off on the man who perceived himself to be holy and righteous.  These "men of God" had been following Jesus and his disciples to keep an eye on Him and saw this.  Since they wouldn't dare defile themselves by going into the house to ask Jesus, they asked His disciples why He would keep company with such people and fellowship and eat with them?  Again, Jesus shows that He knows what's going on even when the religious leaders are trying to be sneaky.  Jesus wasn't going to let anyone else answer for Him and His answer was that these people see that they have a need to get well, but that the religious people didn't see that need in themselves, so it would be impossible for Jesus as the Great Physician to heal someone that didn't want to be healed and restored (remember that the stories of healing so far have not just about healing someone's body, but someone's heart and soul as well).  Then Jesus tells them to go and learn why God told the Jews that that He desired mercy and not sacrifice.  God wants us to be in a right relationship with each other before we offer our praise and offerings to Him.  For this reason, Jesus said that He had come to call the sinners, not the righteous because the sinners knew they were in need of repentance.

The scribes, Pharisees, and religious teachers weren't the only ones with questions though.  John the Baptist had quite a following as well and while a couple of John's disciples left to follow after Jesus, John would have many other people that would continue to come to him for baptism and to hear the message of repentance and would follow after him.  These disciples that came to ask the question wondered why John made his disciples fast and Jesus didn't seem to make his disciples fast.  Jesus' answer was one of His disciples knowing His identity and knowing they were in the presence of the bridegroom and that it is a time now for them to celebrate, but that one day soon He would no longer be with them and then it would be the time to fast. 

Then Jesus took the opportunity to tell them that He didn't just come to put a new region (new wine) into an old religious system (old wineskins) because the new wine would destroy the old wineskins, but new wine had to be placed in new wineskins.  In the same way you don't make a patch or an old garment from a new garment because they will tear away from each other and you have ruined the new garment to make a patch that won't work for the old garment.  Instead, if you simply want to "patch up" the old garment, you have to do it with cloth from another old garment.  In this Jesus was saying that He wasn't simply going to come and "patch things up" from a system that was pretty good--He was coming to make all things new.  Christianity can't be explained as Judaism 2.0.  We will see some people tried to go around and confuse the Gentiles with this kind of message though say that people first had to become Jews before they could become saved and that once saved, God still required them to make ritual sacrifices and obey all the Mosaic Law (and of course remain under the authority of the Jewish scribes and Pharisees that interpreted that law).  This group called the Judaizers would be a thorn in the side for the spread of the gospel throughout the Diaspora and the "uttermost parts of the earth" later.  For now though, Jesus is being clear to the disciples of John and the religious leaders that He's not here simply to fix a broken system, but to make something completely new and different.