Mt 9:9-13
9As Jesus passed on... he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. 10While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples. 11The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12He heard this and said, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. 13Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”
TAX COLLECTORS AND SINNERS: The Jews in Jesus’ time paid both religious and state taxes. Religious taxes were paid to the priests in Jerusalem for the maintenance of the Temple and its services. State taxes were paid to Rome and the Herodian rulers. Direct taxes were those imposed on land properties and individuals (head taxes). Indirect taxes included tolls, duties, and market taxes of various kinds. Toll collectors sitting in customs posts, like Matthew in the Gospel reading, collected levies on goods entering and leaving a district or passing crossover points like bridges, gates, and ports.
Tax collectors (telonai) were native entrepreneurs who contracted with the Roman administration to collect local taxes. They paid the tax allotment in advance and then organized collection in a contracted district in hopes of making a profit. Such ventures were risky, open to abuse, and not always profitable. Some became rich, like the chief tax collector Zacchaeus (Lk 19:2), but many clearly did not. The tax collectors often mentioned in the gospels were most often employees of the chief tax collector.
Matthew, unlike Zacchaeus, does not seem to be a wealthy man. It is Jesus who invites him at table in “his house” (Jesus’ base) in Capernaum, probably in the complex of Simon Peter’s father. For Jesus to provide a feast, he must be able to marshal sufficient resources to feed a large group. Since there is no privacy in a village life, the Pharisees, like the other villagers, get to know about it and comment on such a dinner.
When Jesus’ honor is challenged, he replies with a proverb about physicians and sick people. Obviously, it is not disease that is spoken here but “sickness” which means “loss of meaning” and which separates a person from God and from the community. “Tax collectors and sinners” need cure, which is reconciliation “brokered” by Jesus, a man of God.