Friday in the 13th Week of Ordinary Time, July 5, 2024

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.”

This passage of the Gospel of St. Matthew is placed directly after the episode of the healing of the paralytic, and so we can presume that this event also took place in Capernaum.  If true, then Jesus chose at least five of his twelve Apostles in this one town, the others being Peter and Andrew, and James and John.

“He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post.”  Just as the Lord Jesus had to go purposefully to the shore in the very early morning in order to find the fishermen whom he called to follow him, so he would have “passed by” purposefully the customs post in town at just the right time in order to meet up with Matthew.  In order to get Matthew’s attention, the Lord would either need to wait in line for his turn, or to force his way through whatever crowd there was.  It seems more likely that he did the first.  What he did not do was to wait until Matthew was done for the day and the townspeople had departed.  Jesus caught Matthew right in the middle of his business day, with all the people watching.

“Follow me.”  The Lord does not introduce himself to Matthew, though surely Matthew knew of the Lord, who had lived in the town for several weeks by then, and had cured so many and had preached so effectively.  As a despised tax collector, he would have avoided crowds, but he must have heard him at some point, and what he heard stirred his conscience and began to fire his zeal.  Now, with Jesus standing face to face with him and calling him, he threw in his lot with him and left his attendants, the tax money, his records, all of it, “and he got up and followed him.”  The word “followed” is understood in two senses: he followed him physically and spiritually.  For years, people had wondered about his loyalties.  To Israel? To Herod? To Rome?  Or, only to himself?  But now there was no denying that they lay with Jesus.  And he had burned his bridges.

“While he was at table in his house, etc.”  The big meal of the day in ancient times was taken in the afternoon, so the calling must have occurred in the morning.  Matthew had a big feast prepared in a hurry, just as Abraham had done for the three guests who would later promise him the birth of a son within the year.  Jesus and his small band of close followers reclined with Matthew in his dining room while servants brought the food and wine around.  Peter, Andrew, James, and John knew Matthew well and had no reason to like him, but their Lord seemed to enjoy his hospitality, and so they ate, too.  As at least sometime followers of John the Baptist, they had seen tax collectors come to be baptized with all the others.  They had heard them ask the Baptist what they should do.  John had not chased them away as the Pharisees would have.  He spoke to them.  “And the publicans also came to be baptized and said to him: ‘Master, what shall we do?’  But he said to them: ‘Do nothing more than that which is appointed you.’ ” (Luke 3, 12-13).  Had Matthew been one of these?

The workings of grace are very mysterious, which is one reason the Lord tells us not to “judge”.  To work effectively at tax collecting, Matthew needed to effect a certain demeanor, but beneath this, grace was already turning him inside out.  It only needed the simple summons of Jesus for him to be made right, inside and out.