We’ve seen how Matthew, in chapter 8, tells stories of Jesus’ miracles in such a way as to emphasize not just how great Jesus’ power was but also the way he transgressed expectations—the expectations of religious leaders among Jesus’ own people, the expectations of Jesus’ disciples (who are left wondering just who he really is), and the expectations of the pagan folk of Gadara, who apparently felt that the cost for exorcising a couple of violent homeless men was much too high.
He’s putting himself in a dangerous position, isn’t he?
It looks that way. And Matthew implies that it was an inevitable consequence of his basic message, the message embodied in the Sermon on the Mount, with its blessings on the merciful, its command to love one’s enemies, its indifference to normal human anxieties. And now chapter 9 continues this series of miracles, leading finally to a radical rupture with the established religious leadership. That little expedition to Gadara on the far shore of the Sea of Galilee was a kind of prologue to more extensive travels that will fill the middle of Matthew’s Gospel. But, for now, Jesus is back in “his own town” (9:1). You get the sense that he’s just stepped out of the boat onto the shore when he sees “some people” carrying a paralyzed man on a cot and he himself initiates the interaction that follows.
And that’s not how I remember the story. I thought he was indoors in the middle of a crowd and they actually had to open a hole in the roof and let the cot down on ropes!
Yes, once again Mark tells a much livelier version of this story (2:1-12), and it’s the one that irresistibly sticks in our minds. But in Matthew’s time as much as in ours, people who retell a story typically have a purpose in mind that necessarily shapes the telling. And Matthew’s purpose, here, is to talk about tensions and conflicts as much as miraculous healings
He seems to be feeding the tensions! Why does Jesus start off by forgiving the man’s sins? He doesn’t even know him. And it’s his faith but that of the people carrying him that catches Jesus’ attention. Where does this sudden focus on sin come from?
People often make an association between sin and sickness. In our time, we’re more to start with sins of diet or stress or (lack of) exercise. In other periods, any sort of sin would do. I wonder if Jesus is saying, in effect, that we always have to deal with the deeper causes as well as the symptoms. Yet, it’s interesting that forgiving the sins doesn’t, in itself, heal the paralysis. Maybe the point, then, is that people require all sorts of healing and we shouldn’t be misled into thinking that the physical healing is the only important kind. Forgiveness is as much an expression of God’s love as bodily healing.
In any case, Matthew has stripped the story down in a way that focuses it squarely on Jesus’ remission of the man’s sins and the outraged reaction of the scribes who are present. The story of the healing that follows is a miracle in its own right, but it also (and this may be even more important) makes it difficult for the authorities to criticize Jesus’ granting of forgiveness.
But their reaction seems perfectly reasonable to them, since only God can truly forgive sins; there is no provision for a human being to do it. He’s violating the religion he shares with them. So how can Jesus call their reaction “evil”?
Matthew may be suggesting that their religious system is more important to them than the good done to the man by hearing a message of forgiveness. Certainly, when Jesus does go on to heal the man’s paralysis, it’s a direct challenge to them, their criticism, and, in effect, their authority. And, to make matters worse, Matthew, for once, also includes the traditional note of amazement at the end of the story—something that’s routine in Mark’s Gospel, but not in Matthew’s: “When the crowds saw it, they were filled with awe, and they glorified God who had given such authority to human beings.” The point? Jesus has public opinion on his side, which makes the scribes’ position more awkward and also raises the stakes and ultimately precipitates a public rift.
I suppose that hanging out with tax collectors and sinners isn’t going to help, either.
Probably not. In chapter 8, Jesus turned down a scribe who wanted to be part of his inner circle. In this chapter, he summons one Matthew, a tax collector to join that very group. What does Matthew know of Jesus at this point? What sort of disciple would he prove to be? Why does Jesus summon him without warning? These are questions we’ll consider further when we come to the formal listing of the Twelve in chapter 10.
But we can at least say that calling Matthew immediately puts Jesus in touch with a whole group of interested hearers who might never have dared approach him on their own—the tax collectors and sinners that he has dinner with at Matthew’s house. Who were these people? “Sinners” is such a broad term that it could include almost anybody who was less than rigorous in piety. Tax collectors, for their part, were further suspect because of their work. Taxes were collected on a system that rewarded those who collected as much as possible, making them the natural enemies of everyone who had to pay the taxes. But, also, they had a practice of going into people’s houses and poking their noses and hands into all sorts of things. They could easily become unclean in the process and then carry that uncleanness into the houses of other people, such as the Pharisees, who were trying to maintain the highest standards of purity. It’s no wonder the Pharisees reproach Jesus’ disciples about it. They feel they can no longer trust his commitment to purity.
So he tells them to go soak their heads! He’s not trying to avoid conflict, is he?
Not at all. But he’s not just being insulting. He’s setting forth a basic principle. The love of God brings forgiveness to sinners and healing to the sick. It may seem meaningless, then, to the righteous and healthy—or to those who conceive themselves as such. But a suggestion remains hanging in the air that the righteous might be mistaken about themselves. There is a suggestion, too, that the religious leadership has misunderstood the God on whose behalf they claim to act. If they are more concerned about sacrifice (and the purity code that governed access to it) than about mercy, they have God quite wrong. Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6 to make it clear that this is no new-fangled notion of his own.
What about fasting? Even the disciples of John the Baptist are upset about the lack of that among Jesus’ disciples.
Since fasting was broadly accepted as a basic expression of piety, it must have seemed bizarre that Jesus and his disciples weren’t practicing it. And Jesus has the effrontery to say that his ministry is a wedding feast, the exact opposite of fasting. His teaching won’t be conventional. It’s a proclamation of “good news,” which changes everything. How strange to read the passage about patches and wineskins here after Jesus’ assertion in the Sermon on the Mount that he wasn’t changing anything at all (5:17-20)! He is changing nothing. And he is changing everything. And neither he nor Matthew intends to give us a detailed explanation of how to work this out, though he does expect that fasting will reappear after he is taken away from his disciples.

Next up: A DECISIVE BREAK WITH THE RIGHTEOUS (13:18-38)