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1 He got into the boat, crossed the Sea of Galilee, and came to his own town. 2 They brought to him a paralyzed man lying on a mat. Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralyzed man, “Take courage, my son. Your sins are forgiven.” 3 Some scribes there said among themselves, “This man is blaspheming.” 4 Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why are you thinking wicked things in your hearts? 5 What is easier, to say ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? 6 So that you know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins-” Then he said to the paralyzed man, “Rise, pick up your mat and go home.” 7 The man rose and went away to his home. 8 The crowd seeing this was filled with awe and glorified God for giving such authority to human beings.
9 As he was passing through there, Jesus saw a man named Matthew sitting in a tax office and said to him, “Follow me.” The man rose and followed him. 10 Jesus went and dined at his house, and many tax collectors and sinners ate with Jesus and his disciples. 11 Seeing this, the Pharisees said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 When Jesus heard this, he said, “The healthy do not need a physician; the sick do. 13 Go and learn the meaning of, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Comments
Chapter 9 begins with two stories of Jesus showing forgiveness and mercy, to the consternation of religious authorities. In verses 1-8, over the objections of the Scribes (i.e. Scripture scholars) Jesus forgives the sins of a paralyzed man and then heals his paralysis as evidence of his authority. In verses 9-12, Jesus calls Matthew the tax collector to be one of his disciples and dines at his house with other tax collectors and sinners, to the confusion of the Pharisees, who did their best to avoid situations and people they saw as sinful. (Tax collectors were considered public sinners because they were collaborators with the occupying Romans.) In verse 6, Jesus refers to himself as the “Son of Man” for the second time in Mt (the first being 8:20). In both Hebrew and Aramaic, “son of man” is simply an idiomatic way of referring to a human being. In the OT Book of Daniel, the Messiah is described as, “one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven” (7.13). The sense is that the Messiah will be one who exemplifies what it means to be truly humane. Jesus, by associating this title with forgiveness, shows that mercy is one of the humane values that he expects of his followers. “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” is Hosea 6.6.
