Follow,
he said,
to Matthew, who was not well-loved,
not to battle, or to debate, or to lay siege
to the powers that be,
but to dinner.

And they welcomed to the table
not the kings and princes,
not the caesars and the generals,
but the tax collectors and the sinners.
And this
was a quiet rebellion,
this
was a peaceful protest
led by Jesus and his disciples,
saying,
we do not agree with the status quo.

They broke bread together,
prayed together, maybe even sang together,
sharing sustenance,
gathered together in the middle
of their fractured city.

And the powers that be asked Jesus,
why are you sharing a table with sinners?
Because we’re all sinners, he tells us,
and we need healing,
each one of us, and the world we’ve made.

“Neither is new wine put into old wineskins,”
he says,
for it will not hold.
These upended times teach us that.
We are learning that the new world
is not the old, and we cannot
live the way we have,
love the way we have,
only as it’s comfortable and predictable.
The old world cannot hold the new.

Jesus knew, and Matthew and the others knew,
they were rocking the boat,
setting a new table,
showing what the new world looks like –
the prisoners set free;
the foreigner, the meek,
the poor in spirit welcomed;
the mourners comforted,
those who hunger for righteousness filled,
the peacemakers
called the children of God.

This was written as a reflection for compline in the week following Pentecost, based on Matthew 9: 9-17. I accidentally pulled the daily Gospel reading from the Friday of the week before, Easter 7, but this text connected with the events of this week more so that the correct text would have, as our country continues to see day and night after day and night of peaceful Black Lives Matter protests, peripheral violence and police abuse of protestors.