Spiritual Social Distance

The day after the first death from Covid-19 in the US, Matt Colvin and his brother started buying hand sanitizer. Thousands of bottles, which they resold on Amazon for up to $70 per bottle. He was providing for his family, he said. He was performing a service to the community by making hand sanitizer available to people who needed it. It was also “crazy money.”

But then Amazon blocked him from selling because he was price gouging, profiting off the pandemic. The world knows all about it because he agreed to an interview with the New York Times, which even included photos of Matt with his wife and son – and his 17,700 bottles of hand sanitizer which he had no way to sell.

People responded to the story with intense anger. He is a disgusting, despicable human being, the epitome of greed and selfishness. Some threatened him with death. What is wrong with you? people fumed. Are you sick?

That is exactly how people felt about tax collectors in the time of Jesus, and for the same reason. People today are profiting off the coronavirus pandemic. Tax collectors profited off the Roman occupation of Israel. They were sellouts, collecting customs fees from their countrymen to give to the conquering power. And like corrupt officials around the world, they were known to pocket as much as they could themselves.

The result was the original social distancing. Tax collectors were barred from the synagogue; they were not permitted to give testimony in court; they were lumped in the category of “sinners.” Respectable Jews would not eat with such a person. They separated themselves from such a dirty person, the same as a person with a contagious disease.

So what was the motivation of a tax collector? Why would anybody endure such shaming? Obviously, they cared about something else more than personal honor and reputation. More valuable than loyalty, friendship, religion – more valuable than God himself – was money. Money was the tax collector’s true god.

So one day Jesus was walking along and he saw a disgusting, despicable, sellout tax collector named Matthew sitting at his tax collector’s booth. Jesus said, “Follow me.” And Matthew got up and followed him. This is found in the gospel of Matthew 9:9-13. The story is that simple. Jesus said, “Follow me.” Matthew got up and followed. Why did he suddenly abandon his very profitable profession to follow this wandering teacher around?

One of my friends in high school watched the movie Dazed and Confused with some friends and his own dad, who actually lived through the time depicted in the movie. In the film a group of high school graduates drive around in fast cars getting drunk, getting high, having sex, and driving around to do it all again. The dad had lived just that kind of life when he was younger. After watching the movie, he said, “That’s exactly what it was like. And we all hated it.” They were miserable, yet they went and did it again and again.

Matthew the tax collector was also miserable. His high income came at the cost of everything else. He had no real friends, no place of honor or respect in society. He was worshiping the wrong god, and you become like what you worship. Matthew was becoming more like the god to which he was enslaved. Greedy people see others as either a way to make more money, or an obstacle to making money. They are an asset or a liability. Treating people like positive or negative numbers corrupts the soul. Specifically, by not loving others, you lose the capacity for love altogether. Matthew could not give or receive love. Matthew was sick. He was dying.

Jesus walked by and said, “Follow me.” Italian artist Caravaggio created a brilliant painting of this scene. Matthew sits in a dark room, entwined with his tax collecting buddies. One hand counts the money lying on the table. Jesus stands at the other end of the room with Peter, light shining into the dark tax collectors’ den from above the head of Jesus. Jesus makes a vague pointing gesture with his right hand. Matthew’s other hand, the one that is not counting money, points to himself: “Who, me?”

We tend to think that a rich man like Matthew made a great sacrifice to follow Jesus. He gave up his money, after all. Matthew must not have seen it as a sacrifice, though. Matthew was sick. It’s no sacrifice to be offered a life-saving medicine.

Matthew was dying, enslaved to the god of money. Jesus calls him out of death and into life. Matthew gets up and follows. The call of Jesus unlocks him from his slavery to the powers of death. Matthew saw the opportunity that was presented to him. Money is a terrible god. Jesus is a good God. Matthew was invited into something he had never known – a life of love. He was called into the circle of Jesus. Spiritual and social distance were replaced with love.

Matthew then did what none of us can do in this season of coronavirus – he threw a party. What a dinner! Matthew was there with other tax collectors and “sinners.” Jesus and his disciples were there. The Pharisees, who were very serious about their religion, were there too. They asked Jesus’ disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with people like this?” Does he approve of them? What about purity?

Jesus himself answers with a three-part explanation, which turns out to be a description of the mission of the Messiah. (The Mission of the Messiah happens to be the sermon series I had planned long ago for this time. It turns out the Scriptures and themes fit the times with a surprising relevance.) Jesus describes his actions with Matthew and his mission overall with the following three points:

1. The healthy don’t need a doctor; the sick do.
2. Go learn what this Bible verse means: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”
3. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

We have become far more aware of our urgent need for doctors in recent days. We have also become more aware of how the critically ill truly need medical care. Jesus calls himself a spiritual doctor. So everything that people thought about Matthew was true. Jesus agrees, Matthew was sick. And that is exactly why Jesus was sitting and eating with him and his sinful friends. There was no need to be concerned that Jesus would be contaminated by the sinners he ate with. The contagiousness went the other way. People who hang around with Jesus are made healthy.

I have talked with so many people who feel so buried under their own unworthiness that they say, “I could never go to church.”  I always point those people to this truth: the healthy don’t need a doctor; the sick do. Those who are aware of their sickness of sin should cheer for joy! Come to Jesus. He will make you well.

There are, of course, plenty of people who don’t feel unwell at all. They are the Pharisees, confident in their goodness. But Jesus gives these Bible scholars a lesson: “Go study some more,” Jesus says. “You missed this text.” Jesus points them to Hosea. Along with many other prophets, Hosea placed the emphasis not on external religious observance, but on the heart, character, and actions. What does God want? Mercy, compassion, love. Which is precisely what the Pharisees were missing. Religious people can be just as sick as the obvious sinners. Matthew’s heart was wrapped around his money. The heart of the Pharisees was wrapped around themselves and their righteousness. They needed a doctor too, but they refused his treatment.

In this way, Matthew had a spiritual advantage over these others. His sickness was obvious. The whole world was telling him about it, especially the Pharisees. Matt Colvin, the hand-sanitizer salesman, did finally realize his sickness. Thousands of people piled abuse on him for his selfish greed. So eventually, he and his brother decided to donate their 17,700 bottles of hand sanitizer.

The last thing Jesus says is that he came to call sinners, not the righteous. Righteousness is not a word we use very often in English, but it was an everyday word for Jews. When Jesus was baptized by John, he said that he did it not because he needed to repent for sins, but to “fulfill all righteousness.” In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus declared that the righteousness of his followers must be greater than the righteousness of the Pharisees. The Sermon on the Mount then goes on to illustrate what this greater righteousness is like. To sum it up: love. Which brings us back to the verse in Hosea that Jesus quoted.

What is interesting is that when Jesus called Matthew, he explained that he did not come to call the righteous, but sinners. Jesus calls sinners, but he intends to make them righteous. And the righteousness of Jesus is expressed primarily in love. This is making the sick well. Matthew gave up using people for his own financial gain to walk with Jesus. Jesus loved him and taught him to love. He ended up with a righteousness greater than that of his critics.

In a time of crisis like this coronavirus, the best and the worst are on display. There are price-gougers and scammers at work, people looking to profit off the desperation and death of others. Many others feel a compulsion to do something good, from cheering nightly for medical workers, to delivering food to an elderly neighbor, to praying.

Some people have pointed out that the things people tend to worship – athletes, actors, health, money – have all been taken away. Sports, entertainment, well-being, and the economy are all good things; they’re just bad gods.The coronavirus has the potential to send many people towards spiritual health. Come to Jesus and be made well.

Just a small warning, here: Jesus’ cure is deeper, more painful, and more glorious than any of us at first imagine. In Caravaggio’s painting, the panes of a window create a cross, a sign of what Matthew was being called into when he gave up tax collecting to become an apostle of Christ.

At the beginning of Matthew 9, just before the calling of Matthew, Jesus heals a paralyzed man. First, he forgave his sins, which was shocking, because who can forgive sins except God. But Jesus showed his authority to forgive sins by healing the man. “Get up,” Jesus said. And the man got up. Just after the calling of Matthew, Jesus raised a girl from the dead. It says that “he took the girl by the hand, and she got up.” Matthew also “Got up.”

In Greek there are two words used here, both meaning get up, or rise. Both of these words are also used to describe the resurrection of Jesus. Like a man sleeping, Jesus shook off death and got up. Here during his life we see him raising the dead. He takes a dead girl by the hand and she gets up. He speaks a work to a paralyzed man and he gets up, his sins forgiven. He speaks a word to a tax collector whose soul is dying by the day, and he gets up.

Caravaggio pointed to this in his painting. You know that scene from the Sistine Chapel where God reaches his hand out to give life to Adam? (The hand on the left).

Caravaggio knew that one too. In his painting of the calling of Matthew, the hand of Jesus looks strange because it is a copy of the hand of Adam from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. The hand of Adam, not God. Because Jesus is the new Adam, the true human being. Jesus is human and God. When he calls, he gives life. He makes a new creation.

Jesus calls us out of death and into life.

We hope that the coronavirus will not bring death to too many. But someday, death will come for us all. Those who have come to the spiritual doctor look at death differently than others. When we close our eyes in death, we will hear him say, “Get up!” And we will rise with him to rejoice in his kingdom of glorious love. Then there will be no distance at all between us and God.

If you have read this far, apparently you like to read sermons. So do I. Since we’re in the time of the coronavirus, videos of our church services are available here.