In case you missed it this week, Casey Anthony is “not guilty” of murder. In 2008, the remains of her little 3-year-old daughter, Caylee, were found 5 months after she was reported missing. Within weeks, Casey was indicted on charges of first degree murder of her daughter. During the investigation, Casey Anthony lied to investigators about where she worked, lied about where her daughter was, lied about what she had been doing in her free time, was arrested four different times, was found to have an intimate relationship with one of the investigating officers, and even invented the existence of at least two people. This past Tuesday, Casey Anthony was declared “not guilty” of first degree murder. This past Thursday, she was sentenced to ten days in prison for lying to police, getting credit for time-already-served.
Some people have been quite upset by that verdict. When the “not guilty” verdict was announced, the crowd outside started chanting “Baby killer.” Various celebrities condemned the verdict on Twitter. According to one poll I saw, nearly 70% of Americans believe Casey Anthony is guilty. Someone created a Facebook page called “I hate Casey Anthony.” There are over 23,000 people who have signed up for it. There’s another Facebook page called “People Who Think the Casey Anthony Verdict Was Wrong.” There are almost 300,000 signed up for that one. There’s not a lot of love for Casey Anthony.
Well, if that’s the reaction someone can get for not being guilty, then what do you suppose people would be capable of when they discover something about you for which you are? You don’t have to commit murder to have skeletons in your closet. In prepping for this sermon, I came across a website on which you can anonymously post the heaviest things that are eating away at your heart. It has been proven that holding onto secrets about yourself, especially the bad ones, dramatically increases your stress, drastically cuts into your amount of needed rest, and radically transforms your mood and emotions into an absolutely inconsistent mess. This website was created as a way for people to unload the heaviest burdens on their hearts without having to attach their name to it and face any of the consequences.
So far, there are 115 pages worth of anonymous confessions. Some are pretty minor – they have a crush on a co-worker. Most are much more serious. In skimming them, I’d say the number one confession was some form of cheating in a relationship. There’s a lot of drug use, alcohol abuse, and a sickening amount of physical abuse. But no matter the confession, these anonymous confessors each have one thing in common: they’re scared of what might happen if someone discovered their skeleton. They’re fine with the whole internet world knowing the most intimate details of their secret as long as no one can ever connect that secret with their name.
And it doesn’t take a judge and jury to figure out why. How would you feel if you came into church this morning and found everything about you, everything you’ve ever thought and done, printed in the bulletin? Would you stay? What would your friends think if they learned about the kind of things you used to do? Or maybe you’re more scared about something you’re currently into; something you know you should never do. But you are. That’s an even heavier burden. Would your family leave you? Would your kids despise you? Would you lose your job, your marriage, your reputation – if they found out the truth about you? Many of the anonymous confessors on the website say that they’re so scared to admit the truth because, by now,they’ve told so many lies to wrap up and hide their skeleton that, if you undid even one of them, the whole web would come crashing down and expose not only what they did, but for exactly how long they’ve been dishonest with the people who love them and trust them. For someone with a secret, that’s terrifying.
What if you didn’t need to be afraid of that happening? What if I told you that there is a way that you don’t have to be scared of your skeletons? Would you be interested? Would you listen? If so, then you are beginning to get into the mind of Jesus’ disciple Matthew. Matthew had skeletons too. He had been living with them for a very long time. And he wanted them removed. So Jesus approached him with a simple invitation that could make it happen, the same invitation that today he gives you.
(9) As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. (10) While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. (11) When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” (12) On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. (13) But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
A man once fell down between the rails in a subway station. People were all crowding around trying to get him out before the next train ran him over. They were all shouting, “Give me your hand!” but the man would not reach up. A man elbowed his way through the crowd and leaned over the edge. “Friend,” he shouted to the trapped man, “what do you do for a living?” “I work for the IRS. I’m a tax collector,” he said. “In that case,” the man replied, “Take my hand!” The man immediately grabbed the hand and was pulled up to safety. The rescuer turned to the amazed crowd and said, “Never ask a tax man to ‘give’ you anything. He only knows how to take.”
Compared to some of the other disciples, we don’t know a whole lot about Matthew. Besides here, Matthew is only mentioned 4 times in the New Testament, and those 4 times are each a listing of the 12 disciples. And he’s typically way down on the list, in the 8th or 9th spot. You might know that Matthew isn’t the only name he’s called in the bible. He is also called “Levi.” And you probably know what he did for a profession. He was a tax collector, and their reputation back then wasn’t much better than it is now.
The way that tax collectors made their money back then was that, once the government received the money it demanded, the tax collector would get whatever was left, which means that, if they collected more taxes, they got to keep more money. And the government didn’t decide what to tax. The tax collector did. A tax collector interested in making money would tax pretty much anything they could connect with each person – their home, food, land, children, the grass clippings that blew from the neighbor’s lawn onto theirs. Many would also inflate the value of merchandise so they could get more taxes from it. If your house last year was said to be worth $100,000, they would tell you that this year, even though the market is down, it is worth $120,000, and so receive more taxes. This was the world Matthew participated in. There were bribes, kickbacks, and a lot of very creative math.
And you know who knew that? The man who invited Matthew to follow him. Sitting there in Matthew’s house, Jesus didn’t beat around the bush, he didn’t try to hide or sugarcoat anything. He stood up in front of everybody, got their attention and said he was sitting with people, Matthew included, who were “sick.” He called Matthew a sinner. The type of skeletons for which people get prison time these days were all out in the open. What a nice dinner guest! Would you feel offended if Jesus pointed out your deep, dark secrets to your guests and friends?
It seems that Matthew wasn’t. The Pharisees were instead. They weren’t offended that Jesus called Matthew sick. They were offended that Jesus was having dinner with him. They knew Matthew’s skeletons. They kicked cheats like him out of the synagogue, right alone with every prostitute, thief, and drunk. Matthew was the kind of guy they told their kids never to be like. And there is nothing wrong with that.
It’s not wrong to point out someone’s sin. Jesus did just that in front of all Matthew’s guests and friends. It’s not wrong to hate sin. The fact that God created hell, and actually uses it, says quite a bit about his feelings toward our indiscretions. It wasn’t wrong for the Pharisees to point out the wrong way Matthew was living. It’s not wrong to hate the fact that Casey Anthony was lying. It means you know what’s right from wrong, and you actually care about.
One of the reasons some folks are so upset about that verdict is that they simply cannot understand how anyone could do so much of what she was accused of doing, and they’re glad they can’t imagine themselves doing that. There are just some sins you know you will never get anywhere close to committing. It’s possible that there isn’t a person here who can conceive what it’s like to commit murder. Or maybe you can’t believe that anyone would ever cheat or steal. It just baffles you that some people don’t go to church. And all those teenagers robbing from the gas station and beating kids up in the park? “I would never raise my kids like that,” you might say. And you wouldn’t be the only one.
In Luke chapter 18, a Pharisee prayed, “God, I thank you that I’m not like other men – robbers, evildoers, adulterers, and especially that tax collector.” There were a lot of things he could never picture himself doing. But Jesus used him as an example of someone who should never picture himself going to heaven. Feeling better about ourselves because we don’t commit the same sins other people do is really shaky ground because, at any moment, Jesus could stand up and list any number of sins you commit that many robbers, evildoers, adulterers, and tax collectors never would.
Maybe someone who is disgusted with Casey Anthony’s lies has a tendency to gossip. Or someone who can’t understand how anyone could murder steals from work and cheats on their taxes. Someone who gets so mad that people don’t come to church drinks too much. Someone who gets disgusted with the kids at the park has a spouse disgusted about their inattentiveness to their relationship. Someone who condemns the tax collector’s greed worries. “There is no difference,” Paul says in Romans. They’re all sins. “Don’t be deceived,” it says in 1 Corinthians, “[All] the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Jesus condemned the man who prayed because he believed he was healthier than those other folks who did all those bad things. But if you’re saying you’re healthy, then what you’re really saying is that …you don’t need Jesus. “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick,” Jesus said.
Did you know that there is a soap for washing away fat? It’s called Seaweed Defat Soap, which promises to “keep your skin tender and make you slender.” In China, where this soap was created, they put a limit on the number of bars of this soap you could buy at one time, telling people they had to limit themselves to 24 bars of this soap so there’s enough to go around for everyone. Of course, before you can take one of these bars of soap off the shelf, go up to the cashier and buy one, you have to be ready to admit to the cashier and everyone else standing in line that you are … fat.
If you want Jesus to take care of the skeletons in your closet, if you want him to heal you, then you have to be ready to admit that you are … sick. And there is one very simple way to determine if you believe that you are: How often are you giving yourself the medicine? Can someone who believes they are entirely and completely in need of Jesus and his healing give themselves the medicine only once a week on Sunday morning, and only when they have no weekend plans conflicting? How often do you open up his Word and let Jesus remind you that he doesn’t even want everyone with him. He only wants you if you have skeletons.
“I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners,” In other words, if you’re better than everyone, Jesus wants nothing to do with you. If you already have it all figured out, then, in Jesus’ kingdom, there’s no room for you. But if you really are a sinner, then “follow me,” he invites you. If you ever feel weak and vulnerable, he wraps his arms around you. If you know that your hands are really dirty, then know that the blood coming out of his hands has cleansed you. If you really do have a past, Jesus planned a future for you. It’s the one where he lifts your heaviest burdens off your heart and brings to a feast where the host already knows everything about you and still directs you to the seat he’s already prepared just for you. Jesus isn’t ashamed of you. And if Jesus isn’t ashamed of us, then why do we ever treat anyone like we’re ashamed of them? If Jesus can forgive our skeletons, then why can’t wives forgive their husbands, and parents their children’s, and why should we ever give up on the community in which we’re living? What reason do we ever have to look down on someone and hold grudges, or put up barriers of arrogance so that block burdened sinners from finding the one man who can set them free from everything?
Do you know what the name Matthew means? Since 1975, Matthew has been in the top 10 most popular names for newborn babies in the Unites States. The name Matthew means “Gift of God.” When Mark and Luke write about Matthew, they don’t call him Matthew. They call him Levi. Only Matthew calls himself Matthew, not because he believed he was God’s gift to anyone, but because Jesus coming to him, inviting him, even though he knew every sin and skeleton within, and not being scared off or ashamed of him, but instead standing up, defending him, and eventually being hung up and dying for him, was God’s gift to him. It is the same gift that Jesus gives you. Your skeletons don’t scare him, and they shouldn’t scare you.