If you listened to Pastor Maron Gaffron’s sermon Jesus Calls the Unqualified | Matthew the Tax Collector on Matthew 9:9-13, you know the booth I’m referring to is the tax collector booth Matthew worked from each day.
But on one particular day, fresh from healing a paralytic and forgiving his sin, Jesus locks eyes with Matthew as He walks by his booth. I imagine Jesus thinking, “Here is one with a different type of paralysis.” Matthew was paralyzed by his choice to work with the Romans. Whatever his reason for taking this job, Matthew was now stuck on the bottom rung of Jewish society, despised by his people, and frozen in a perpetual state of shame with no hope of forgiveness or freedom.
Us Too
Matthew is not the only one to be wrecked by a bad decision. If you can answer yes to any of these questions, you know what it’s like to be trapped in a booth.
Have you ever felt
• unworthy to be in the kingdom of God?
• disqualified to serve or lead because of your past?
• like you needed to get yourself “fixed” before God would want you?
• a deep shame you can’t seem to remedy?
• unlovable?
• exhausted from trying to find meaning in money, status, or prestige?
Like Matthew, we all have booths that ensnare us — and an enemy that wants us to think there’s no way out.
But then Jesus walks by.
Matthew can’t look away as Jesus utters two shame-breaking, booth-busting words to him:
“Follow Me.”
That’s all it took. The Bible doesn’t say Matthew debated for a few days, weighed his options, and finally decided to follow Jesus. No. Matthew immediately recognized this invitation as the miracle he desperately needed: “So he arose and followed Him,”(Matthew 9: 9, NKJV).
We can do the same. Like Matthew, Jesus locks eyes with us, breathes mercy into our situations, and asks us to follow Him out of our booth. He calls us where we are, right now, as we are. He does the calling and the fixing. We say yes and bring ourselves to Him.
Mercy Lived
It is God’s mercy-not-sacrifice gift of Hosea 6:6 that frees us from our booths, our sin, ourselves, and our enemy; and it is this same mercy that God now wants us to extend to others.
Wherever we find ourselves in Matthew’s freedom story (sitting in darkness, holding judgment, a light and mercy carrier, or a mercy receiver), know that mercy is the balm that brings healing and wholeness—to individuals, to a nation, and to the world.
It’s up to us to receive it and extend it to others.