But when we were so far away that the people could no longer see us, I ordered us to go ashore again; for it was already well around midday, and we had nothing to eat at the ship. When we went ashore a good two hours’ journey from the earlier house, we then had to go back a considerable distance to a small village where we wanted to have our midday meal.
But before the village stood a main tollhouse; and look, at the barrier by the toll table sat that very young man—only thirty-five years old, which among the Jews still counted as young—who had spoken so wisely in the earlier house as one of the eight brothers who have brought the man crippled with palsy there.
When the Pharisees and scribes caught sight of him, they said: ‘Now things look bad! Now he is a Roman toll collector! He will take a quite dreadful toll from us! What do we do now?’
I say: ‘Leave your worry aside, for it is of no use here. I shall arrange what is best here!’
With these words I step (Matt. 9:9) up to the toll collector and say to him: ‘Matthew—that was his name—hand this table over to someone else, and follow Me!’ And immediately he stood up, handed over the table and followed Me without any objection; and when the disciples, Pharisees and scribes standing before the barrier asked what they had to pay—
Matthew said: ‘This time the Lord has paid the toll for all of you. He has made my uncle well; how should I now take a toll from Him, the divine Master?!’
Then the barrier was opened, and they all went through free of charge.
But when we then came into the village, Matthew led us into his house, where all the toll collectors employed at this main toll station, and a multitude of overseers and other sinners by the measure and judgment of the Jews, Pharisees and scribes, were having the midday meal. For Matthew’s house was large and at the same time an inn, where the Jews could get something to eat and drink only for money, while the toll collectors, overseers and sinners were exempt from payment, since they were all servants of this house, which had leased the toll from the Romans.
But I was immediately invited to the table by all the toll collectors, and My disciples were in very good spirits about it. Not so the Pharisees and scribes who were with them: smoke rose strongly into their noses (Matt. 9:10) because they were not invited to the table too.
But it happened that while I was already sitting at the table with a multitude of toll collectors and sinners, another multitude of toll collectors and sinners came into the house from other places; for Matthew’s house was widely known as very wealthy and hospitable, and large gatherings took place there, especially on the Sabbaths. They all greeted Me with the utmost friendliness and said that no greater honor could ever befall this house than to have Me as a guest among them; and they enlarged the table and all took their places at My table.
But the Pharisees and scribes crowded up to the house’s large open gateway to watch Me there—what I might do and say?! When they saw that (Matt. 9:11) I dealt with the toll collectors and sinners with the utmost friendliness, they secretly grew very angry and asked My disciples, who were outside with them: ‘Why does your master eat with toll collectors and all the most notorious sinners? Is he perhaps secretly one of their kind too?!’
But when I heard this question, I turned at the table (Matt. 9:12) towards them outside and said very briefly and cheerfully: ‘The strong and healthy (Matt. 9:13) have no need of the physician, but only the sick! But go and learn what this means:
‘I take pleasure in mercy, and not in sacrifice!
‘I have come to call sinners to repentance, and not the pious, who have no need of repentance!’
The Pharisees and scribes understood these words in their own favor and said nothing further in response, for they felt flattered by them.
But I then entertained the company with all kinds of parables through which human life was presented very palpably in its weaknesses and in the depravity that only too often arises from such weaknesses. I also gave them very forceful outlines of the true upbringing of children and showed them how a bad upbringing of children must in time result in every conceivable evil, spiritually and bodily.
Thus I taught the company why the human being was created by God and how, as a free being, he should freely act out of himself to fulfill God’s purpose, thereby becoming a perfect spiritual being that cannot be exterminated.