An AI generated synopsis of Dan Roukema’s January 18 message
Matthew 9:9–13
On our anniversary Sunday, we intentionally turned to a story that captures Jesus at his most recognizable: creating space at the table.
In Gospel of Matthew 9:9–13, Jesus does more than teach or heal. He eats. And in doing so, he reveals who he wants at his table, how he heals division, and where transformation truly begins.
Who Jesus Calls
The story opens with Jesus approaching a tax collector’s booth and offering a simple invitation: “Follow me.” Matthew gets up and follows.
If we hear this story without understanding what it meant to be a tax collector, we miss its disruptive force.
Tax collectors were not merely unpopular civil servants. In Jewish society, they were ranked alongside thieves and murderers. They were collaborators with Rome, empowered to extract money from their own people and enrich themselves in the process. Many did exactly that. Their testimony was invalid in court. They were barred from the temple. They were religiously, socially, and morally disqualified.
This matters, because Jesus does not call a misunderstood outsider. He calls someone known for exploiting the poor.
To be chosen as a rabbi’s disciple was a profound honor—a vocation worthy of one’s entire life. Rabbis selected those they believed were worth investing in. And Jesus chooses someone not even allowed to step inside the temple.
Grace begins here.
Acceptance at the Table
Matthew, overwhelmed by this acceptance, responds in the only way he knows how: he throws a dinner party. He invites Jesus. And he invites all his friends—“many tax collectors and sinners.”
At this point, the story becomes scandalous.
In Jesus’ culture, sharing a table signaled full acceptance. To eat with someone was to publicly identify with them. Jesus is not quietly tolerating these people; he is broadcasting welcome.
This does not mean Jesus endorses their behavior. He does not suddenly approve of exploiting the poor. But he does affirm something deeper: their worth as people and their openness to a higher calling.
These are not innocent victims of unfair moralism. These are people who lie, cheat, and harm others. And Jesus receives them.
Healing Real Division
The tension runs even deeper when we consider who else is at the table.
Just before this scene, Jesus has already called fishermen—Peter, Andrew, James, and John. Matthew’s tax booth sat in Capernaum, right on the Sea of Galilee. Many scholars suggest it is likely these fishermen had personally been cheated by Matthew.
Imagine Jesus saying, “We’re going to Matthew’s house for dinner.”
This is not abstract reconciliation. This is Jesus placing people with real grievances, real resentment, and real political differences at the same table.
And it does not stop there. Among Jesus’ twelve disciples will be Simon the Zealot—a man whose very identity was bound up with resistance to Rome, sometimes violently so. On one end of the spectrum: a tax collector collaborating with empire. On the other: a zealot resisting it.
Jesus is not naïve. He is deliberate.
He intends to heal the world one table at a time.
The Doctor and the Sick
When the Pharisees see this, they object: “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
Translated into contemporary language: Why does he associate with people who exploit the poor?
Jesus responds with a line both obvious and subversive: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.”
Doctors do not avoid the sick for fear of contamination. They go to them to bring healing. And just as a doctor visits the sick, Jesus eats with sinners—not to affirm their brokenness, but to restore them.
Then he presses the point further: “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus consistently exposes this truth: there are not righteous people and sinners—only those who know they need grace and those who think they do not. And those who think they are righteous often find themselves furthest from God.
A Table of Grace
This is not an “anything goes” story. Jesus does not call the self-righteous. He calls sinners into discipleship. Matthew leaves his booth. He does not remain unchanged.
Every disciple has a call story. Every one of us comes with patterns we are captive to—some behind us, some still clinging. Jesus holds us. We slip. Jesus holds us again.
And he keeps calling us toward something more.
The table is not a reward for transformation. It is the place where transformation begins.
Without Jesus at the table, we stay the same.
Without one another at the table, we stay the same.
So come to the table—with all your issues. And like Matthew, set tables of your own. Invite others to meet the Jesus who has shown you such astonishing grace.
Because the healing of the world still begins here—
one table at a time.
Watch the full message here.
The Table Church 