Thursday in the 24th Week of Ordinary Time, September 21, 2023

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.”

“As Jesus passed by, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post.”  St. Matthew includes the story of his own conversion and calling in a very restrained manner.  We can infer only a few details about his state and position from what he tells us.  First, he was an adult Jewish male whose Jewish name was Levi.  As an adult Jewish male, he was probably married.  He collected taxes either for Herod or for Rome.  He would have been literate.  He would have lived in a large house with servants.  He could read  Hebrew and Greek.  He may have been a follower or at least a hearer of John the Baptist.  This is in line with the fact that we are told tax collectors went to John the Baptist and that at least some of the Lord’s disciples had followed him, as well as with Matthew’s readiness to leave everything for Jesus.  “Follow me.”  Jesus invites people to follow him.  In the case of other teachers, people asked if they might follow them, and they may have paid for this privilege.  The Lord’s invitation is very simple.  It makes no promises.  It relies entirely on the conviction of the person invited that nothing mattered beyond following Jesus.  “And he got up and followed him.”  He left his tax collecting right in the middle of the day without wrapping it up just as James and John and left their father and the servants in the middle of mending their nets.   

“While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples.”  Matthew brought Jesus and the other Apostles to his house for the big midday meal.  It sounds as though Matthew customarily ate with other tax collectors “and sinners” or that he hastily invited them to come.  “The Pharisees saw this.”  The fact that the Pharisees are present underlines the likelihood that they were keeping a constant eye on the Lord.  “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”  They would not have entered the tax collector’s door but must have stood outside of it and called to the Apostles from there.  That way they also knew that Jesus would hear them.  Their objection came out of the idea that these men would not have kept their cleansing rituals, especially necessary since they consorted with Gentiles in their work.

“Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.”  The Lord identifies sinners as “sick” in that they have harmed their souls and consciences through their sins.  “Go and learn the meaning of the words, I desire mercy, not sacrifice”.  The Lord Jesus quotes Hosea 6, 6, referring to the insincere sacrifices made by so many at the time.  Anyone can purchase a goat and given it to a priest to make the sacrifice ordained by the Law, but only the one who loves God shows mercy to his fellow human being.  “I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”  By the time the Son of God was walking the earth the term “righteous” had practically lost its meaning though misuse.  Here the Lord uses the word to signify those who esteemed themselves “righteous” when they were not — that is, they did not show mercy.  

This calling of St. Matthew follows the miracle in Matthew 9, 1-8, the cure of the paralytic.  Since Matthew follows the method of showing how Christ’s miracles validated his teachings, we can see here how a miracle explains the event following it: Matthew is paralyzed with his sin so that he cannot rise from his bed of sin, but the Lord bids him rise up.  He “calls” this sinner to become a saint, and Matthew stands up.  He could have refused or pretended not to hear in order to keep up a way of life he had frown accustomed to — a spiritual invalid — but he seized the moment of grace.  And never looked back.