St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

September 21, 2003

The Rev. Dr. David M. Wendel

Saint Luke’s Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Lessons:  Ezekial 2:8-3:11;  Ephesians 2:4-10;  St. Matthew 9:9-13

     If you've seen the news this past week, you've been hearing quite a bit about "Richard  White", who was arrested for murdering a man, and then confessed to having murdered quite a few others--even giving the authorities directions to some of the bodies.  Sadly, this man was a horrendous serial killer, and no one seemed to have a clue.  As I was watching Good Morning Colorado one morning, the reporter said his father had made a statement, affirming that he was a good son, but he'd been teased and made fun of when he was a child.  And I thought--well, I guess that explains it all. 

     The more years I serve in the ministry, the more I have come to realize, we all have baggage.  We all bear some scars of abuse; we all have some deeply hidden shame;  we all were made fun of, at some point in time, when we were children.  We all had some form of disfunction in our families;  we all struggled and suffered when we were teenagers;  we all, as we were growing up, went from days of joy and satisfaction, to days of loneliness and despair.  And I would venture to say, most, if not all of us, have experienced similar things as adults.

     Some of us here, have struggled, as adult children, with domineering, abusive parents.  Some of us here have had to bear harassment and teasing at work, even as adults.  Some of us have been, or are being abused, by a controlling spouse.  Some of us know the devastation of having been betrayed by an unfaithful spouse;  some of us know the shame of having been unfaithful to our spouse.  Some of us will have to fight, our whole lives, against alcoholism, or drug abuse, or sexual addiction.  Some of us deal daily, with feelings that we don't fit in, we are isolated, we are lonely.  After many years ministering to real people, who live real lives, I have come to understand, that in some sense, we all feel…outcast.  That's a good word to describe it, isn't it?  At times, we all feel, "outcast"... cast-out, unwanted, unloved, yes, even unacceptable.  And I reflect on this, of course, because this is the day when we commemorate, one of the followers of Jesus, whom we might consider one of the most outcast, unwanted, unloved, yes, even unacceptable, of all the disciples of Jesus--Matthew, the tax collector.

     As you know, this is the day of St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist, who, from our twenty-first century perspective, sounds like a very fine fellow.  He's a saint, for gosh sakes--and an apostle, and an evangelist!  Sure sounds like he was part of the "in-crowd"

--an insider, a mover and a shaker.  But that was not how  Matthew's contemporaries viewed him.  In our gospel lesson, we hear that Matthew, Levi as he was also known, was a Jew, but also a tax collector.  Jesus saw Matthew sitting at his tax collecting booth--and from there, Jesus called him to come be a disciple.  After that, Jesus went to dinner at the home of some un-named person, which tradition has always assumed was the home of Matthew.  Which would make sense, because who would a tax collector have to dinner, but other tax collectors?  And Jesus, who alone, among the Jews, would come eat with tax collectors and sinners.  Now to us, today--tax collectors, in and of themselves, are not considered such bad folk, why, some of our best members have worked for the IRS!  But to the Jews in Jesus' time, Matthew was branded not only because he collected taxes for the Roman Emperor, but because He was a Jew collecting taxes for the emperor.  That was doubly incriminating, as it was viewed as selling out your kinfolk, to the enemy.  In Israel, Matthew was indeed, an outcast--unacceptable to his own people because he had sold out to the Romans--unacceptable to the Romans because he was a Jew.  All the way around, Matthew was out in the cold;  isolated and alone.  Imagine what a life he must have led…until that day when Jesus happened by his tax desk, and called to him.  "Follow me!"  Jesus said, and surely, Matthew must've wondered who this rabbi was speaking to.  No self-respecting Jew would have spoken to him, and least of all a rabbi--a teacher of the faith, like Jesus.  And yet, Jesus was speaking to him--Jesus was calling him, to become a disciple!  For Matthew, this was a gift;  a gift that changed his life.  A gift that caused him to write a book of good news, a Gospel that proclaimed to the Jews, how Jesus was the Messiah, but a Messiah who showed mercy;  a Messiah who talked to all people, unconditionally.  A Messiah who treated sin-sick sinners, the same way that he treated those, who were supposedly righteous.  Which, by the way, was what so offended the Pharisees.  To hear Jesus speaking to them, the Pharisees, the righteous religious establishment, in the same way that he spoke to tax collectors and sinners--why, it just wasn't right.  The Pharisees considered that they were already following God, by keeping God's commandments.  They were part of the elect, redeemed community of God's people--they looked down upon tax collectors and other sinners.  They kept themselves separate, intentionally, from outcasts and undesirables.  For Jesus to call those people--tax collectors and sinners-- to come,  join the community;  to come, follow along with, side by side with Pharisees and scribes--the so-called, righteous--well, that just wouldn't be acceptable, in fact, it would be offensive to the Jews who thought they were better than that common rabble.  And in our first lesson from Ezekial, God might have been speaking to the evangelist, the gospel-writer, Matthew, saying, "Go and get you to the house of Israel, and speak my very words to them.  For you are not sent to a people of obscure speech and difficult language, but to the house of Israel--but beware, the house of Israel will not listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me."  St. Matthew wrote his gospel, aiming it directly at the Jewish people, hoping, against hope, that Israel would hear the good news, and come, truly follow Jesus.  But, as we know, many rejected this good news.  Many of the religious leaders of Judaism, rejected Jesus' call to come follow, because Jesus meant, come, follow me, along with all the other outcasts and sinners!  Enough rejected Jesus, that finally, they had him put to death on the cross.  But that didn't keep him from coming to outcasts and sinners.  That didn't keep Jesus from calling us all, to come, follow!  Because even now, even today, through the ministry of St. Matthew, apostle and evangelist, we hear Jesus calling us, outcasts and sinners all--saying, "Follow me!"  And we, you and I, together with Matthew, and the Pharisees, and all the rest, have a choice to make.  Will we respond to Jesus, and commit our lives to following him?  Or, will we,  with those hard-headed Israelites, not listen, and not follow, because, we think we are well and whole, and have no need of a savior?  What the call of Jesus comes down to, is not just an academic exercise--not an intellectual questioning, "shall I follow, or shall I not?"  It comes down to, will I leave behind, my tax collecting, my sinful ways, my wounds from the past, my broken-ness, to come, truly follow the Great Physician, who will lead me and guide me into salvation and wholeness?  Or, am I content to remain where I am, as I am.  The choice, really, is between death, and new life, in and through Jesus Christ.  Not to follow Jesus, is to remain in our stagnant, stifling, sin-ful life situations.  To follow Jesus, is to, follow--Jesus;  to follow him out of our past, into the future--where we can be what God has created us to be.  Forgiven, healed, redeemed, restored, mended, whole, children of God--children of God, not because we have followed, but because we have followed Christ Jesus--as St. Paul writes, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing;  it is the gift of God."  It is pure gift, that Jesus, crucified and risen, comes to us.  It is pure gift, that Jesus calls us--you and me--to follow Him.  It is pure gift, that with the help of the Holy Spirit, we are able to follow Jesus, out of death, into life--into that life for which we were made in the first place, that life which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life…the way of life, in and through, Jesus Christ--

     In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.