The Feast of St. Matthew, September 21, 2020

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 calls of St. Matthew and St. Peter share some similarities in that each of them was called in the midst of his work, which he immediately left, and in that each of them recognized themselves as sinners at the time of their call.  We remember how Peter told Jesus, “Leave me, Lord, for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5, 8).  Matthew, on the other hand, did not need to say anything.  His collaboration with the Romans through collecting taxes for their puppet ruler Herod Antipas, was plain to see.  Peter and Matthew would have known each other, as Matthew served as the tax collector for the town of Capernaum.  For most of his life, Matthew went by the name of Levi.  “Matthew” seems to have come later, since not all the Gospel writers use it.  It has been suggested that just as Jesus changed Simon’s name to “Peter” and called the sons of Zebedee the “sons of thunder”, so might he have called the tax collector Levi “Matthew”, which means, “gift of God” in Hebrew.  Most likely he was a native Galilean.  St. Irenaeus tells us that after Pentecost, Matthew preached the Gospel through the land of the Jews for twelve years.  Others say that later he went off to the East to preach, probably in Syria.  He would have written his Gospel during his time in the Holy Land.  The very early Greek Father Papias (60-130 A.D.) tells us that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, by which he may have meant Aramaic.  Three hundred years later, St. Jerome writes that he has seen this book.  It would have been translated into Greek fairly quickly, some Fathers venturing that Matthew did this himself.  The Church in India maintains that St. Thomas brought a copy of this Gospel with him when he brought the Faith there around the year 50 A.D.  It is not certain where, when, or how St. Matthew died, but with the other Apostles he is accorded the honor of having died for Christ.

“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.”  That is the entire story of Matthew’s call by the Lord, as Matthew himself tells it.  We see the other Apostle to write a Gospel, St. John, similarly circumspect.  In fact, John does not even mention his own name.  We can suppose a little though, at the details of this life-changing encounter for Matthew.  According to Matthew’s chronology, Jesus has lived in Capernaum, a town of some 1,500 souls, for a little time.  He has preached in the synagogue more than once, he has preached on the coast, he has spent much time there curing people.  Matthew would certainly have known about Jesus in such a small locality where not much happened from one day to the next.  He must have seen Jesus walking by before, and heard him preach outside.  Touched and moved by what he heard Jesus say and by the stories of people he knew who had been cured, Matthew must have longed to speak to Jesus, to listen to him from close by, and to ask him his own questions.  However as a tax collector, the people barely tolerated him.  They saw him as representing Herod Antipas, whom they despised.  But it was also true that tax collectors drew their pay from what they collected, an incentive for them to do their job thoroughly.  This led to overcharging and even extortion.  Tax collectors as a result lived better than their neighbors, even if they tended to live on the outskirts of town and associated with other despised folks like the prostitutes.  A respectable Jew would never associate with a tax collector, let alone enjoy his hospitality.

But this Jesus did.  Matthew recollects, “While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples.”  It is hard to say whether this dinner occurred the same day as that on which Jesus called Matthew to follow him or if it happened some time afterward.  Matthew as an author is very abrupt with his transitions, according to our modern western manner of reading.  The disciples may have found the dinner rather testing, surrounded by people they had always thought of as akin to being unclean.  Jesus, however, acts and speaks confidently.  When the local Pharisees show up — probably only appearing at the gate of the house’s courtyard and not actually entering — and ask the disciples pointedly why their Master is dining with “tax collectors and sinners”, Jesus is ready with an answer, as though he has come to this dinner in part in order to provoke them: “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.”  Jesus speaks frankly about the spiritual condition of the people with whom he is associating.  He does not gloss over their sinfulness, but admits it freely.  At the same time, he calls himself their doctor, their “physician”.  He is the one who can heal them of the sickness of their sin.  This claim goes in hand with all the healing of physical sickness and conditions he had been doing in the town, at one point even forgiving sins.  If the Pharisees had eyes to see with, they would have realized that with this claim he revealed that the physical healing was a sign of the spiritual healing that was necessary, and the physical ailments mere signs of the more grievous spiritual wounds people had inflicted on themselves.

“I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”  Jesus quotes or at least paraphrases Hosea 6, 6: “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice; the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings.”  This verse contradicted the very core of what the Pharisees believed, that the worship of God consisted in following their particular interpretation of the law, which went into intricate details of what was allowed and what was not.  Jesus is telling the Pharisees that he is the Physician who is needed here, and there is no place for them.

He has dismissed the Pharisees with a curt, “Go.”  As they turn to leave, he tells them, “I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”  This would have stopped them in their tracks.  Who is he who can speak like this?  “I did not come”, that is, into the world?  Who comes into the world of his own accord and for his own purpose?  Who talks like this?  “I did not come into the world to call those who consider themselves righteous, but those who know themselves to be sinners.”  And to what does he call them?

St. Matthew witnessed this himself and tells it to us so that we might remember it as vividly as he did, and to know deep down that if we will admit that we are sinners, we will be able to hear the Lord’s call to us.