I got a speeding ticket that really made me mad last winter! I was leaving Target with all three of my boys on a cold winter afternoon. It was sleeting outside, the kind of sleet that seems to come down in sheets and leaves the ground covered with a layer of ice.
I buckled everybody in the car and slowly pulled out of the parking lot. I am from Connecticut and I know what to do when driving on the ice. DON’T DO IT. (But if you have to get home, go REALLY slowly!) So I was creeping along, going between 5 and 10 miles per hour, when I noticed a cop behind me.
His car was right up on my bumper. I think that he was annoyed that I was not going faster, but since I could hardly see, I stuck with my snail’s pace. As I rolled close to the intersection, the light turned yellow. The cop was so close to me that I could not stop without fear of his car sliding into mine, so I crept through the intersection. Because I was going so incredibly slowly, the light flipped red just as I was leaving the intersection.
The cop pulled me over and slapped me with a ticket for $150!! I sure was mad. I drove home and took digital photos of the ice on the road and the sleet. I had them blown up and took them to court, where I argued in front of the judge.
She reduced my ticket to $50, but I was still mad.
Isn’t that the best thing about this country? You can fight for your rights. You can argue and complain and gripe and whine without fear.
It wasn’t that way in Jesus’ day.
Israel was occupied territory. They were ruled by Romans and they were heavily taxed. What little money that the Jews made was taken from them and given to their rich rulers.
Imagine if the Chinese ruled this country. And they took HUGE taxes from you. And you had no say at all in the government. And the Chinese government officials drove around in Mercedes Benz’s. And you couldn’t pay your bills.
In Israel, they didn’t just come to the house to collect taxes, they set up a booth in town. And the sight of that booth probably would make you sick. It meant that they were going to take your money, and perhaps your livestock, from you. And if you didn’t pay, they would come to your home and collect.
The worst sight would have been the man seated behind the booth. He was not even a Roman. He was a Jew, a man who had sold out his own people to make a profit. Someone who was so sleazy that he was willing to take money from the poor and give it to the rich, just so that he could have some pocket change.
Tax collectors were considered the scum of the earth. They were the guys who had sold their souls. This is the kind of man that Jesus invited to dine with him, to follow him! This kind of a sinner.
People sometimes wonder if they are worthy to receive Holy Communion. Do they deserve it? Are they good enough?
And I say, NO. None of us are good enough. Our lives are a mess. We are a mess. But Jesus invites us anyway.
That’s the kind of love that he came to give us, the love that could invite a tax collector to dinner. And turn him into a disciple.
