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  "description": "Readings\n\n * Jeremiah 31:27–34\n * Ephesians 5:1–20\n * Matthew 9:9–17\n * Psalms: 102; 107:1–32\n\n\nMatthew 9:9–17\n\nAs Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, \"Follow me.\" And he got up and followed him.\n\nAnd as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, \"Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors a",
  "path": "/friday-in-the-seventh-week-of-easter/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-22T08:42:03.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.parrott.ink",
  "textContent": "## Readings\n\n  * Jeremiah 31:27–34\n  * Ephesians 5:1–20\n  * Matthew 9:9–17\n  * Psalms: 102; 107:1–32\n\n\n\n## Matthew 9:9–17\n\nAs Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, \"Follow me.\" And he got up and followed him.\n\nAnd as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, \"Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?\"\n\nBut when he heard this, he said, \"Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.\"\n\nThen the disciples of John came to him, saying, \"Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?\"\n\nAnd Jesus said to them, \"The wedding attendants cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; otherwise, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are ruined, but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.\"\n\n## Notes\n\n**Verses 9–13. Calling Matthew.** Matthew (also called Levi in the other gospels) was almost certainly not a stranger to Jesus. Jesus has been operating out of Capernaum and walking the road along the Sea of Galilee; Matthew's tax-collection booth was a regular fixture on that road. Discipleship in the gospels rarely comes from nowhere. The relationships were already there.\n\nBut Matthew was _notorious_. Tax collectors in Roman Palestine were Jewish men who had taken jobs as collaborators with the imperial occupation. They collected on behalf of Rome and made their living off the margin. They were despised both as a class and as individuals. Inviting Matthew to follow him is, in the local imagination, Jesus extending the kingdom invitation to _a tool of the empire_.\n\nMatthew gets up and follows, but he does not liquidate his life. He still has a house. He still hosts a dinner. _Follow me_ in the gospels does not necessarily mean _abandon everything_. Sometimes it means _redirect everything you have toward the kingdom_.\n\n**Verse 10.** \"Many tax collectors and sinners came and were _sitting_ with Jesus and his disciples.\" The Greek is _reclining_ , the standard Greco-Roman posture for a formal meal. Who you ate with was almost as defining as who you slept with. Jesus is publicly _reclining_ with tax collectors and notorious sinners.\n\n**Verses 11–13.** The Pharisees ask the disciples why Jesus eats with the wrong people. Jesus answers with a doctor's saying (\"those who are well have no need of a physician\") and then a sharp instruction: _go and learn what this means, \"I desire mercy, not sacrifice.\"_ The line is from Hosea 6:6. _Go and learn_ is rabbinic language for what a teacher tells a junior student. Jesus is telling the Pharisees, somewhat acidly, to _go study scripture they should already know_.\n\nThe admission of need is the first step toward liberation.\n\nJesus is perfectly willing to offend people. He just refuses to offend in the direction the religious establishment expects. He offends the insiders _for the sake of the outsiders_.\n\n**Verses 14–17. Fasting and wineskins.** John the Baptist's disciples come asking why Jesus' followers do not fast. (Yes, John has his own circle of disciples. A rabbinic system of some kind was already in motion) Jesus answers with the bridegroom image: _the wedding party does not fast while the bridegroom is in the room_. Fasting is a sign of waiting. The thing being waited for is here.\n\nAnd then the famous double-image. New cloth sewn onto old fabric tears the old. New wine poured into old skins bursts them. The kingdom Jesus is bringing cannot be patched onto the existing religious order. It needs new structures, new categories, new wineskins.\n\nBy this point, Jesus is building a reputation as a _drunkard and a glutton_ (the charge surfaces explicitly in 11:19). Fasting can be piety. So can a feast.\n\n## Questions for reflection\n\n _Who you eat with is almost as defining as who you sleep with. Who are you publicly reclining with, and what does that say about whose company you have decided to be associated with?_\n\n_Jesus offends, but he offends in the direction of the insiders, for the sake of the outsiders. Where might you be offending in the wrong direction, losing outsiders to protect the comfort of insiders?_",
  "title": "Friday in the Seventh Week of Easter",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-22T08:42:02.986Z"
}