The Feast of St. Matthew, Saturday, September 21, 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.”

“And he got up and followed him.”  The Evangelists make a point of showing that the men called by Jesus to follow him do so immediately.  Peter and Andrew hear him call them and do not hesitate.  Nor do James and John, when Jesus calls them.  Philip runs to tell Nathanael about Jesus and, after a brief exchange, Nathanael declares Jesus to be “the Son of God and the King of Israel” (John 1, 49) and follows him.  Perhaps Matthew, whose call is described in the Gospel Reading for today’s Mass, has the most to lose by dropping everything to follow Jesus, but he does so with the same alacrity as the others.  Matthew, at the time Jesus calls him, is a minor official in the employ of Herod, in charge of collecting the taxes in Capernaum.  He would have had a large house, as is evidenced by the banquet he throws for Jesus, and plenty of money.  Probably he was a middle-aged man with a wife and family.  While not enjoying especial popularity with most of the townsfolk, he could boast of a range of friends, mostly fellow tax collectors and those regarded by the Pharisees as “sinners”, who perhaps also served Herod in some capacity.  But all of this Matthew was willing to give up, as, in the words of St. Paul, “I count all things to be but loss for the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ, my Lord,  for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but as dung, that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3, 8).

The advantage in giving up wealth, power, popularity, and pleasure in this world for Christ is that we attain true freedom in the use of our will.  To possess wealth, power, and so on is to be enslaved by them: our every move has to be measured in terms of keeping what we have and increasing it where we can.  But a person unchained from them need pay no attention to their demands at all.  And so Matthew sets himself free to follow Jesus wherever he goes.  In fact, he sets his will before Jesus as an offering for Jesuscto use as he sees fit.  Perhaps hardest of all, Matthew shakes himself free of his pride.  As a tax collector, he was resented by the population, but no one could deny that he had a certain sway over them.  He represented the government.  He knew people.  More than likely, he could read and write.  Throwing all this aside, Matthew makes himself a student (the meaning of the word “disciple”) of an itinerant preacher, with no formal education. from a town obscure even in Galilee.  Matthew “had it made” in this world and gave it all up in such a way that he could never go back.

Any of us who hope for heaven must follow Matthew’s example.  The Lord demands that we take up our cross and follow him, making his will our own, replacing that which was heavily damaged by Original Sin for that which desires our eternal happiness far more than we could, and which will certainly guide us there.