The Gospel for The Third Sunday after Pentecost (June 5, 2005)
Matthew 9:9-13
As Jesus was walking on from there he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him. Now while he was at table in the house it happened that a number of tax collectors and sinners came to sit at the table with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ When he heard this he replied, ‘It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. Go and learn the meaning of the words: Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice. And indeed I came to call not the upright, but sinners.’ -- The New Jerusalem Bible. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1995, c1985
Co-mensality (Commensality)
Among others, John Dominic Crossan points out that table fellowship was a mainstay of Judaism in Jesus' day -- as it is in almost every tradition in every age. Who we eat with defines us, when we take a closer look. For Jesus to eat with those shunned by the religious elite was tantamount to a rejection of their understanding of the Jewish way of living, and shameful. Crossan calls what Jesus did "open commensality." It was just one of the radical behaviors that allowed the religious elite to distance themselves from Him, to oppose Him, and finally, to kill Him.
A Reflection
Jesus sat and ate with other human beings regardless of their stations in life. Do we?
Crossan goes on to point out that respectability (the other side of the coin from shame) can be defined only from the point of other people. When we have the need for respectability, it's not who we are, inside, that drives our behavior, but what we look like, outside, defined by other people -- and not God -- that makes us do what we do. So much for "American individuality."
Jesus' way of eating is the direct ancestor of what we call the Eucharistic meal, and is symbolic of how He and His Father deal with us. Jesus takes the bread, breaks it, blesses it, and returns it -- often multiplied beyond our wildest dreams, as described in the "multitude feeding" stories.
But that symbolism also applies to our acts of submission to Him. When we offer ourselves in humility, He will accept us, take us; He will often separate out pieces of our personalities for us to examine, in breaking us; He will richly bless us; and then He will return us into the world to love and to serve Him and each other.
When we separate ourselves from others with our concerns about respectability, or shame, we separate ourselves from Jesus. We need to offer ourselves us to be accepted, broken, blessed, and returned as better citizens of His kingdom.
The Collect
O God, from whom all good proceeds: Grant that by your inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by your merciful guiding may do them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
1:57:29 PM 
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