06/11/2026
Tax collectors are the best.
Am I right?
Everybody loves a tax man…
Not so much.
Tax collectors have never been popular, as you can imagine.
Steve Forbes was running for office one time in the primaries. He made a comment about whether we should adopt a flat tax and dismantle the Internal Revenue Service so that there would be no tax collectors.
Arthur Godfrey said, "I'm proud to be paying taxes in the United States. The only thing is I could be just as proud for half the money."
Jay Leno joked that President Clinton says he looked forward to the day when a citizen could call the IRS and get the right answer to a question. And Leno continued, “I look forward to the day when I call the IRS and get a voice that says, ‘Sorry, that number has been disconnected.’”
Joe Lewis, the famous boxer, if you remember him, was asked by a sports writer who asked him, "Who hit you the hardest during your ring career?" And Joe replied, "Uncle Sam."
People don't like the tax man because they take money away from us, money that we could use for other things, for our own wants, for our own desires.
Things haven't changed over the years. People have always disliked tax collectors because nobody likes having to shell out money if they don't have to.
In fact, our archaeologists who found a 3,000-year-old tablet in Iraq and the inscription said, "You can have a lord, you can have a king, but the man to fear is the tax collector." They have always been around. They have always done their jobs.
And yet, we have to have taxes. It pays for all sorts of services that we want. The roads that we drive on, the military that protects us, the fire department, the police department, teachers, all sorts of things that we need and want. And that's wonderful.
But it's the waste of money that we really don't care for. Or I'm assuming I'm not the only one who feels that way.
Remember the Beatles song The Tax Man? It was just a few years ago, so you might not be familiar with it.
“Let me tell you how it will be.
There's one for you, 19 for me, 'cause I'm the tax man.
Yeah, I'm the tax man.
Should 5% appear too small?
Be thankful I don't take it all 'cause I'm the tax man.
Yeah, I'm the tax man.
If you drive a car, I'll tax the street.
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat.
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet because I'm a tax man.”
They will always find ways to charge more taxes.
I don’t know about you, but you see roads and projects where they say, “We’re going to put toll booths up because we need to cover the cost of building this road. Once the construction cost is paid off, we’ll remove the toll booths.” Right?
Then, once the road is paid off, it’s, “Well, we’re going to leave them up a little longer so we can build a buffer and pay for future repairs.”
And then, you know, 50 years later, the toll booths are still there. They keep collecting the money because it’s easy income. People grumble about it, but they don’t really do anything about it.
It has always been that way. Going back to the time of Jesus was no different, and that’s the whole reason Jesus calls Matthew the tax collector to join him as one of his disciples.
Matthew was despised by everyone because, even in the Roman world, the government needed a certain amount of money to pay for its costs—its army, its roads, its aqueducts, and all the things people wanted and benefited from. Some were even willing to pay for those things.
But there was also waste involved. You see, what the Roman Empire did was say, “We need this amount of tax, and this is what you’re responsible for collecting.” So they let people essentially bid on the job or enter into a contract to become a tax collector, as Matthew would have done. Whatever money they collected that met Rome’s requirement was passed on to the government. Anything collected above that amount—guess who got to keep it? The tax collector.
So, of course, they were all honest and only charged what the Roman Empire required, with just a small fee added on, right? … Nope!
Because that’s where the greed and corruption came in. That’s the whole reason for doing it. It’s kind of like our politicians, right? They all want this job in government that pays them $100,000, but they spend $35 million to get the job. How does that work?
So they get the job, they’re the tax collector, and they make their money. They’re basically billing and cheating their own people out of money. And they’re Jews, too. Matthew’s a Jew charging taxes to the Jews for the Roman Empire. First of all, he’s working for the Roman Empire, which the Jews don’t like at all anyway. He’s a turncoat. Then, on top of that, he’s cheating them. So they really don’t like him—or anyone else like him—because of the abuse. They were universally hated.
These tax collectors would amass great fortunes at the expense and misfortune of their neighbors. They were notoriously dishonest and despised, fleecing their own countrymen and then trying to cheat the Roman government by taking bribes from wealthy people and collecting less than what they actually owed in taxes. So they cheated everybody.
The Jews were fanatical nationalists to begin with. They didn’t want the Roman Empire around, and they certainly didn’t want to be paying taxes to them. They saw paying taxes to Rome as turning their backs on God’s rights, majesty, and sovereignty by giving loyalty to someone other than God. They already had the temple tax, which they paid because it supported their religion and was part of who they were. But they didn’t want to be paying taxes to a foreign government as well.
So it was really kind of bad for the tax collectors. They became ostracized. They became outcasts in society. They were seen as unclean. They were barred from the synagogue and joined the ranks of the lepers and all who were considered unclean under the law. They were forbidden to testify in court and were thrown into the same category as robbers, murderers, and tax collectors.
It was a horrible place to be. But they got rich, so they didn’t care.
So this universally hated and despised man was called to be a disciple of Christ. Someone no one wanted to associate with, someone everyone kept their distance from, is the very person Jesus calls to be his follower.
Which brings us to the hemorrhaging woman.
This poor woman, through no fault of her own… The Mark version is different from the Matthean version. Matthew changes some things, but anyway, I’m not going to get into that.
Here you have the hemorrhaging woman. She goes through her monthly cycle, but for her it’s not monthly—it’s lasted 12 years. Mark says she spent all her money seeing doctors, and they couldn’t help her. Matthew doesn’t really go into all of that, but he still tells the story of her coming to Jesus.
In Mark’s version, she touches Jesus, which would make Jesus unclean because, since she’s bleeding, she’s considered unclean. So for 12 years she, too, has been a social outcast—unclean, avoided, untouched.
In Matthew’s version, she touches the tassel of his garment. You have to understand that under the laws of Moses, people were told to wear fringe on their clothing every day, right? So instead of putting fringe on every piece of clothing, they kind of got around it by putting fringe on one piece of clothing—the little prayer shawl they would wear. It’s kind of like a little apron they wear, and it has a fringe on it. The ends of it are tassels that are longer than the rest of the fringe.
It was believed that there was power in the tassels of the fringe. So some people, kind of like people buying sports cars to, I don’t know, compensate, would make their tassels bigger than everybody else’s because apparently they had tassel envy.
The power was supposed to reside in the tassels—or so they thought. So when the woman came up and touched the hem of his garment, the fringe, the tassel, she believed she would be healed because she would be drawing on the power of Christ himself. And in doing so, she was healed.
Again, that’s one of the differences between the two stories. Here, Matthew says that Jesus basically comes right out and tells her, “Your faith has healed you,” because it’s not about touching the tassel. There is no innate power in the tassel. It can’t do anything. It’s just an article of clothing, right?
What mattered was that she believed that simply coming to Christ in that way was enough for her to be healed from her hemorrhaging—and she was. It was that faith that healed her. It was the power of God working through that faith that healed her.
And in that healing, she was restored to the community. She was no longer an outcast. She was no longer unclean. She was no longer kept away from good society, the right people. She was allowed to join them once again.
As was Matthew.
When he leaves the tax booth behind and becomes a disciple of Christ, he is no longer unclean. He is no longer disbarred. He is no longer cast out of society. He is accepted into the very body of Christ.
Because Christ doesn't care what we care about what we as humans think are important in this world. The things, the passions, the desires that drive us that have nothing to do with God.
We as people of faith, as Matthew was, as this woman was, are called to live a life different and separate away from the corruption of the world. To welcome those who are outcast, to be with and present for and break bread with people who are despised by society.
We don't join society in judging and despising them.
We join Christ in welcoming them into our homes, into our society, into our community, into the body of Christ.
Not because we get something out of it, but because the other person gets something out of it. To no longer be unclean or ostracized.
It's as if Jesus says to us, "I welcome everyone, even society's outcasts.
You should do the same.
I heal the sick and suffering.
You should offer them respite and comfort.
I give new life to those willing to follow me.
And I call you now to follow me here and now in this place to do my work in the world.
And then follow me on the day of resurrection as you join me and all who believe to live in my love and glory in heaven forever.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
