Wednesday in the 25th Week of Ordinary Time, September 21, 2022

The Feast of St. Matthew

Matthew 9, 9-13

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, “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 sinners.”

The Jews in the time of Jesus paid several different taxes: the Temple tax, which went to Jerusalem; the head tax, which the Roman authorities charged and which did not cost a lot, but which had to be paid in a coin bearing the likeness of the emperor.  Using a coin of this type reminded the people that they lived under a foreign thumb and it also smacked of idolatry.  Then there were the customs or toll taxes, paid on merchandise on its way to its destination.  The toll stations were set up in cities and at crossroads on the trade routes.  Wealthy men would bid for the appointment to these tolls stations.  Once appointed, they paid Rome the expected tax in advance and then recouped their costs through what they charged the merchants who had to pay it.  There might be several toll stations along any given trade route.  Of course, the opportunities for gouging and extortion abounded.  These tax collectors were despised by the population for their exorbitant wealth, their power, and the abuse of their responsibilities.  In addition, the people considered them unclean because of their familiar dealings with the Gentiles.  St. Matthew would have been one of these.  Zacchaeus would have acted as a regional supervisor who received kickbacks from them.

Despite their status and the feelings of the people against them, some tax collectors were attracted to John the Baptist, who stood against all that they stood for.  The tax collectors, in their rich clothing, would have made an odd sight among the followers of John and the mostly ordinary people drawn to him.  Yet they braved the comments and whatever unease they felt to stand by the Jordan River to hear him preach.  We do not know of any who became more or less regular disciples.  Like most folks, they would have gone to hear John preach on the coming Messiah and how they should live their lives in anticipation of his arrival.  Matthew might have been one of these.  Though swathed in wealth and luxury, he felt an urgency in his heart that he could not explain.  John’s words would have provided a little soothing, but the urging did not go away.  Instead, it increased.

Capernaum was not such a large town that Jesus could have gone unnoticed even if he had wanted to.  But all in the town had seen him, heard him, and many would have been healed by him.  Matthew would have known about him and probably had heard him.  But if he had any hope of speaking or following Jesus, he knew that a greater gulf existed between them than between he and John the Baptist.  John performed no miracles, but Jesus seemed to be alive with the power to heal.  At the same time, the urging he felt within himself grew ever more persistent every moment that Jesus was near.  

It was Jesus who came across the gulf.  “As Jesus passed by, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post.”  Probably the customs post was set up near the gate of the town or just outside it, on the road.  The Lord would have had to deliberately come there.  “Follow me!”  Jesus did not call to him in the act of walking, as though casually, but looked deep into his eyes, right into his soul, and called out to him.  A large number of people would have heard him.  And just as Peter and Andrew were in the midst of their work when the Lord called, so was Matthew, perhaps at that very moment making an assessment or issuing a receipt.  The Lord always seems to call when it is least convenient for us.  And then Matthew stopped and felt unable to bear the urgency any longer and got up and went to the Lord, to the shock of everyone standing by.

“While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples.”  Matthew, shaking with excitement and a little dazed, led the Lord to his house, not knowing or caring what anyone else would think.  He had a substantial household whether he was married or not, though it is safe to say he was: slaves and servants and possibly relatives and unmarried family members.  The house was large enough to provide room for the Lord and such close followers as he had at the time, as well as his family and friends — “tax collectors and sinners” — scoundrels of various sorts, the sort of friends only a tax collector would have.  The talk would have gotten loud in the house, for these were not refined people, but those who lived on the edges of society.  Jesus would have felt right at home here, however, and acted and spoke freely with all who wanted a word with him or sought his attention.

The Pharisees came along to see the spectacle of the righteous man cavorting with the wicked.  They sought to sow dissension among the disciples by pointing out his behavior to them.  But the Lord heard them and had a sharp answer for them: “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.”  For the Pharisees, there were the righteous of the world and the unrighteous.  For the Lord, there were the righteous and there were those who could become righteous — and there were the wicked who sought to prevent them.  “I desire mercy, not sacrifice. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”  The Lord quotes from Hosea 6, 6: “Hosea: “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice: and the knowledge of God more than holocausts.”  Significantly, the next verse: “But they, like Adam, have transgressed the covenant, there have they dealt treacherously against me.”

St. Matthew devoted himself to the Lord Jesus the rest of his life and traveled far in preaching the Gospel, traditionally including to the land of Ethiopia.  His Gospel, written in Hebrew or Aramaic for the Galilean Christians of 35-50 A.D. suffering persecution by the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem, focuses on the need for perseverance in the Faith and on the great Judgment to come.  The great collection of the Lord’s moral teachings he hands on to us provides us the means to live our lives so as to be set on the Lord’s right hand in that Judgment.

We pray to St. Matthew for help in our perseverance and in living the righteous life made possible by Jesus Christ.