This past Wednesday was the Feast of Saint Matthew. I learned this when going to a set of readings for a daily mass on USCCB. I won’t pretend to know much about him (only reading the day’s gospel did I remember/learn he was a tax collector), but Saint Matthew is special to me because Matthew is the name of my father, the name of my first-born son, and is my own middle name that lives as generational placeholder between the two.
Of all the Gospels, Matthew’s is the one I’ve read most. Maybe it is because it’s the first of the New Testament (I believe there’s reason for that too).
To me, it is Matthew’s accounts that best capture the power in Jesus’ blessings and messages in his Sermon on the Mount. It is Matthew that best tells the Temptation of Jesus in the Desert; and I believe he does so too for so many of Jesus’ other speeches, preachings, and parables.
In the reading for the Feast of Saint Matthew, the Gospel tells of Jesus’ calling Matthew to follow him:
“As Jesus passed by, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples.
The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
He heard this and said to his disciples, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ I did not come to call the righteous but the sinners.” (Matthew 9: 9-13)
The first takeaway I have in this passage is that, when called, Matthew answered—and followed—without reservation. If/when perceiving our own selves called to do same, do we answer with such readiness? In my own life, I know there are times I balked, hesitated, and failed to answer when I sensed; but I believe, too, that God continues offering opportunity after opportunity for us to answer, follow, and be changed.
Next, I look at how the Pharisees—powers and authorities of the living world and its judgments—criticize the company Jesus keeps. Sinners and tax collectors were regarded then (and still by some today) as swindlers, cheats, usurers, and exploiters of the poor—deplorables of an ancient (and maybe still present) age. Why would the Creator and Spirit of all the Universe hold with such a crowd?
An still, sinners and tax collectors, this is the company with whom the Son of God keeps, not the self-righteous, the judging, the titled, empowered, and governing actors in this world.
Why?
Love. Mercy. Hope.
What need do those at ease in this world have for God? And with that question, might this question be meaningful today in our growing cultural agnosticism or outright disbelieve in time of material plenty? What need have we for a physician, doctor of Faith and Spirit, when world and prosperity (Mammon) provide?
In self-righteousness, judgment, and power, the empowered Pharisees—the very professors of spiritual authority and speakers for God—are closed to the openness of spirit and acceptance that enables one to engage and affect those in most need of aid, God, and Hope.
Knowing this, Jesus does not waste his time on those who cannot see what and who He is; and for the purpose of preserving their own place and power in an immanent world (even as the Pharisees profess to be authorities for the laws of God) the Pharisees become active adversaries and intentional destroyers of Jesus to the point of murder on a cross.
Why do the Pharisees reject Jesus’ engagement of sinners and those the world deems “unworthy?”
Mercy and empathy are powerful instruments in aiding and raising those who are low. Mercy and empathy treat those the world would break, condemn, and keep low and elevates them to a plane of humanness and equality.
Mercy, its soft empathy and love, is an instrument of liberation and destroyer to even the harshest of hierarchies and empire.
Only in judgment, condemnation, and denial of mercy and empathy can false-divisions be sustained: a fixed few empowered over the mass of many. Little has changed in this nature of man today. Look how fast our world seeks to judge, condemn, and break those it can. How often does the world today (and us in our judgments), just as then, seek to make sacrifices of others in judgments rather than show mercy and give opportunity for ameliorations and reconciliations?
Also, as the Pharisees judge, one should ask how, without engagement, does one reach and affect others? How is the Kingdom of God advanced, and the collective Spirit of man improved my upholding to predetermined and fixed judgments and labels that fix man into collectives of purposeful separation and social isolation?
In our two thousand years since, how far has man advanced beyond this standard? What politician, or exploiter of the masses would ever try such today? Observing all of history, including our present, one might assess: not a step.
Only through engagement, mercy and openness to another as an equal, can one affect: a relevant lesson for evangelism in present age when Faith is cultured to be secular and remain isolated to Sundays and fixed sites.
By calling Matthew, Matthew’s answering to the call, and Jesus’ continued engagement and keeping in the company of sinners and tax collectors, Jesus lives the example of God’s will that is to engage and offer all—especially the sick, sinful, and needing in our world—opportunity to be welcomed, changed, and instruments for the will, love, and Kingdom of God.
Still, as God’s love is the gift and power of free will, we are all left to our own liberty of response. When engaged, which will/do we choose?