Matthew 9:10-11 and Hosea 6:6
The complaint against Jesus in Matthew 9:10-11 is that
he was socialising with people of low moral tone and his defence is
twofold: the (morally) sick need a doctor and Hosea 6:6 drives him into their company.
It wasn't that the Pharisees arbitrarily isolated these
sinners (at least, surely not in all cases). They isolated the sinners
because they thought they should and they felt that they should
because they had a certain view of what covenant faithfulness meant.
But that in turn meant that they had a certain view of what God
thought covenant faithfulness meant. They were sure that they were wise
men of strength and understanding. But God said, "Let not the wise man
boast of his wisdom, or the strong man boast of his strength...but let
him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I
am the Lord who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth,
for in these I delight, declares the Lord." (Jeremiah 9:23-24)
God said, "I desire mercy and not sacrifice" and the Pharisee said, "God desires sacrifice and not mercy."
What exactly was the fault of these Pharisees? Whatever
it was Jesus said they needed to be learners (9:13) because they didn't
know (12:7) what Hosea 6:6 meant. Had they known what God desired they
would have understood why he was among the sinners and (later)
they wouldn't have condemned the guiltless followers of Jesus (12:2,
7). Yes, but how would a true understanding of Hosea 6:6 have cured the
Pharisees of their sickness? The "cure" for sin—as these strong
and wise men understood it—was isolation. Jesus shouldn't have hung
around these people; he certainly shouldn't have allowed the prostitute
to touch him and much less to wash his feet. No, the response that God
desired—so they thought because they knew him, don't you see—was to
avoid them, to walk by on the other side (Luke 10:31-32). Warmth,
friendliness and friendship, kindness and patience must all be withheld.
Even a smile is too much (because it might be misunderstood). No, the
correct treatment for a sinner is to isolate her and to tell others to
isolate her. Let me repeat, you must understand that they thought and behaved this way because they thought God was like this.
So what did God have in mind when he said he desired mercy and not
"sacrifice"? Even if we can't tell with precision there's no doubt that
Jesus thought that Hosea 6:6 buried the theology and approach of the
Pharisees.
God certainly did want sacrifices (including
burnt offerings) if they reflected the genuine giving of the person in a
penitent surrender and a whole-hearted commitment. God called for such sacrifices not only because they had a personal and an individual thrust but because they were one of the ways in which the nation expressed its faith. There was nothing shallow or merely ceremonial about sacrifices offered with and from the heart.
What is it he has in mind in 6:6? He certainly sees the
smoke of the burnt offering going up and disappearing into the air but
he says that that's what their love (again, the word hesed) was
like. It was early morning clouds that were burned away as soon as the
sun peeped over the horizon—smoke vanishing into the air like their
burnt offerings (6:4). They knew God was always faithful and that as
sure as the sun rose his faithfulness even to an erring people made its
appearance (6:3). But for all their fine words and promises he knew that
their commitment burned away with the rising of the sun. They didn't
mind offering sacrifice! In fact that was precisely how they went in
search of God, "with their flocks and herds" (5:6). But that isn't what
God wanted.
Jesus thought these men should have seen that the Torah
was meant to bind God and the national family together in a unity of
loyal love ("hesed"—the word rendered "mercy" in Hosea 6:6). This should
have meant that fellowship and loyalty to the struggling neighbour
would outweigh laws about external purity and correctness. These
external matters mattered but they only mattered if they were
the sign of the inner devotion to God and neighbour and that inner
devotion would have led them to seek the healing of the sinners rather
than isolating them. Hesed is the pervasive attitude, it is the
motivating principle that leads a person to create and maintain a
relationship. In the OT it is the central description of God in his
covenant relationship with an Israel that deserved nothing and was given everything.
To know in our bones that that is true and still to find reasons to
isolate those who are not as morally well-developed as ourselves is a
hazardous move to make.
The Pharisees saw the sins of these people but didn't
see their needs. They saw their sins as something that should be
condemned but didn't see them as something their neighbours needed to be
rescued from. They saw their failures (and the failures were often real
and substantial) but they didn't see their now established patterns of
moral weakness that continued to feed those sins. (It simply isn't
enough to say to such people, "You got yourself into this now get
yourself out of it." The truth is they didn't get themselves into it all…by…themselves.) The Pharisees saw an occasion to criticise them but they weren't able to see that covenant
loyalty to God would have led them (the Pharisees) to work for their
healing. In short, because legitimate purity and kosher concerns were
most important to the Pharisees their sense of brotherhood and debt to
the neighbour was under-developed and maybe non-existent in some cases.
Jesus certainly took their sins seriously but instead of their sins
driving him away from them they drew him to them to deliver them from
the sins and the awful consequences that would follow if they weren't
turned from. The Pharisee saw loyalty to the covenant as strict
adherence to the rules and a careful avoidance of evil and Jesus, while
he saw the laws as of undoubted importance, saw that the whole Torah was
for the sinner's redemption and protection which can only exist in
living fellowship with the Holy Father.
A good doctor would no doubt always maintain personal
hygiene when working with patients but if that weren't possible the
healing of the patient would be paramount and the doctor would work
without a sterile environment. He can never choose to be dirty but he
will always insist on getting in the middle of it to heal. Isn't that what the Incarnation means?
The Pharisee in the temple (Luke 18:9-14) could not be
faulted for his abstinence from sexual infidelity, extortion and other
sins and in that respect he would have been correct to compare
himself favourably with the tax collector. Where he failed was in being
one of those that were "confident of their own righteousness and looked
down on everybody else." He failed by setting his sinful brother
at nought and isolating a man that desperately needed his help. There
was no "mercy" here. At least the publican knew that the one thing above
all things that he needed was for God to give him "mercy" (in OT terms this would have been hesed, God's
covenant love and faithfulness). For the man who in sincerity called
himself "the sinner" (there is a definite article in the Greek text) the
central issue was his own covenant disloyalty and the wish that God
could maintain his covenant loyalty in the face of the sinner's past
lack of devotion.
Why is it that the tax collector went away at peace with
God and his cleaner and more upright brother is censured by no less
than Jesus Christ? It's the tax collector's awareness that mercy
is central to the covenant. He begs forgiveness with eyes down and so
admits his own covenant infidelity and this heartfelt admission shows
that he knows where the inner chamber of God and the covenant is. The
Pharisee, on the other hand, even while he deals with issues of critical
importance offers compliance that has nevertheless missed the heart of
God and the covenant. In Matthew 23:23 Christ will make the point that
these upright and earnest men had left undone the more important matters
of the torah, and one of them was "mercy"—there's no doubt that as
Christ spoke that word he would have used hesed. See Deuteronomy 10:12 and Micah 6:8.
[In addition to all this, of course, and lying
underneath these texts was the Pharisees' view that sin was a series of
acts (or non-acts) rather than a heart's direction that expressed itself
in deeds or a lack of them.]
But Christ wept over Pharisees as well as tax collectors
and noted sinners in Matthew 23 and Luke 17. And while the prayer of
the Pharisee was an awful self-indictment an arrogant tax collector is
no better off. "Oh God, I thank you that I'm not like this
self-righteous Pharisee. I commit adultery at least once a week, steal
people blind, curse them silly and horse around and don't care who knows
it. The one thing I have in my favour is that I know I'm a dirty dog
and don't mind admitting it. So here's to me and all like me. Open the
pearly gates and welcome in an honest moral pain in the neck." Hmmm.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.