To spend any time with Jesus’ teachings is to be amazed by the depth of the simplicity. I have sometimes asked students in class to write parables, in order to see how difficult it is to tell a simple story that has power, meaning, force and a moral that does not seem sappy, contrived or sentimental. I join them in the exercise. Never once have we managed to come up with a parable that comes near to matching the power of Jesus’ teaching. That is to be expected, I know, but sometimes Jesus’ teachings, whether from having heard them so many times or having thought we understand them in full already, are not allowed their full measure of careful brilliance, even in simple statements. For me, a teaching that fits into this category is “I did not come to call the righteous but sinners” (Matthew 9:13). I think I understand that, especially in light of Jesus’ teaching just prior that it is the sick who need a physician, not the well (Matthew 9:12). Jesus is coming in aid of those who have the need, to heal those who are sick, and so the good physician must be with those who are ailing, regardless of their social and religious standing (see Father Leonard’s and Father Kilgallen’s posts below for excellent analyses of what it meant to be a “sinner” in Jesus’ day). Yet, I always wonder if Jesus in this simple statement is getting at more, asking us to open our eyes to who we are and to what sin is. It is easy to classify “sinners,” but how does it feel to be the one classified as “sinner,” comprising the major component of one’s identity? “This is my friend Bob the farmer, my friend Bill the merchant, and my friend John, the sinner.” But so they are classified in Matthew 9:10-11. Jesus seems to accept the classification, but I think there is something deeper going on in this passage. Ultimately, we are all sinners, and Jesus accepts us for who we are and sees beyond that classification in each of us to call us all to be healed. The question is whether we are willing to put ourselves in the class of sinners in order to allow ourselves to be healed. When Jesus says, “I did not come to call the righteous but sinners,” do we hear the call? I do not suggest that the Pharisees of Jesus’ day did not have a measure of righteousness which exceeded that of those called sinners, but it might be that very righteousness, both for the Pharisees in Jesus’ day and for us today, that blinds us to our own faults and does not allow us to see that we, too, are in need of the physician. When we can accept who we are, then we can join Jesus at the table with the rest of the sinners. John W. Martens

John W. Martens is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn,where he teaches early Christianity and Judaism. He also directs the Master of Arts in Theology program at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He was born in Vancouver, B.C. into a Mennonite family that had decided to confront modernity in an urban setting. His post-secondary education began at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, came to an abrupt stop, then started again at Vancouver Community College, where his interest in Judaism and Christianity in the earliest centuries emerged. He then studied at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and McMaster University, with stops at University of Haifa and University of Tubingen. His writing often explores the intersection of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman culture and belief, such as in "let the little children come to me: Children and Childhood in Early Christianity" (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), but he is not beyond jumping into the intersection of modernity and ancient religion, as in "The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film and Television" (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Press, 2003). He blogs at  www.biblejunkies.com and at www.americamagazine.org for "The Good Word." You can follow him on Twitter @biblejunkies, where he would be excited to welcome you to his random and obscure interests, which range from the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, to his dog, and 70s punk, pop and rock. When he can, he brings students to Greece, Turkey and Rome to explore the artifacts and landscape of the ancient world. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and has two sons. He is certain that the world will not end until the Vancouver Canucks have won the Stanley Cup, as evidence has emerged from the Revelation of John, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra which all point in this direction.