St. Matthew: The Tax Man Jesus Loved

Scripture Basis

Matthew 9:9-13 (NRSV)

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him. And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" But when he heard this, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, `I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners."

Blog Reflection

How interesting and prophetic that the Apostle we are commemorating today was a tax collector.  The subject of fair taxation has been a subject in American politics for a long time now.  President Obama and the progressive democrats only want the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share so that Government programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Public Education, repairing and maintaining our infrastructure and so forth will be adequately funded.  Republican and Tea Party folks do not want taxes raised suggesting that it affects the job creators.

The grim view of America's economy over the past 10 years suggests that when the wealthiest among us are given tax breaks so that they pay 15% while the middle class pays 35% of their income tax, jobs are not created.  A look at where the unemployment rate is tells that story really well.

Matthew also known as Levi as he was not loved by the community around him.  He was a tax collector who helped the Roman Empire collect money to help them line their pockets.  The tax collectors were often known as the "Publicans".  Interesting word that is missing the "Re" before it.  They were understood to be so detestable that the Pharisees, quite well known for their own wealth and prestige, refused to marry into a family that had publicans as members.  

Jesus called Matthew to repent of his sins as Jesus calls all of us.  Jesus challenges us in the midst of our certainty of life and believing, to be willing to be redeemed again and again. 

We are all raised by our respective families and communities to believe certain things, act in a particular way and think as others inspire us to think.  The Christian religion is not a faith based on a stagnation of principles and morals.  It is a relationship with God, through Jesus by which those who believe and worship as Christians are challenged to always learn things anew.  UCC Pastor Oby Ballinger of Community United Church of Christ in St. Paul Park always points out the in the Bible "God is always doing something new."

The New Testament Reading for today's Commemoration 2 Timothy 3: 14-17 says:

As for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

This particular Scripture is a favorite for Christianists to defend Biblical literalism and using it to dehumanize the poor, women, people of different races, cultures, sexual orientations, gender identity/expression etc.  Such a position assumes that any Christian or non-Christian for that matter who seeks to understand what the Bible means beyond how it is interpreted by Christianists are not heading Jesus' call to Matthew to repent and follow him.   This kind of use is incorrect and misleading.

The repentance Jesus calls Matthew to, Jesus calls all Christians to.  A repentance from the understanding that religion is not a weapon of mass destruction, nor is it an excuse for the injustice encouraged by the corruption of capitalism or racism, class discrimination, the termination of Troy Davis a black innocent man in Georgia. The Christian religion does not condone the violence of gender discrimination or heterosexism, and immigration bias. 

On the issue of capitalism Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite wrote in a Washington Post article:

"Capitalism isn’t “God’s Plan,” it’s an economic system that runs on the human desire for more, our own self-interest. This is not necessarily evil. It can actually be a very productive system, but it is not beneficent. In order for there to be good values in our economic life, capitalism needs to be regulated so it does not wreck the whole ship with unfettered greed."

Troy Davis who is scheduled to be executed at 7:00pm est today said: 
 

"The struggle for justice doesn't end with me. This struggle is for all the Troy Davises who came before me and all the ones who will come after me. I'm in good spirits and I'm prayerful and at peace. But I will not stop fighting until I've taken my last breath."

The repentance Jesus invites Matthew and all who follow him, is a call to recognize and reverence God's presence and redemption in everyone including those who are different from ourselves.

Matthew responded to that message and allowed himself to be taught to live a different life than the one he lived.  Living only for himself and not for others.  Matthew received the grace of God to be able to continue learning all the God had planned for him and the Church.   Particularly those whom society and the Church sets on the sidelines not to be bothered with, but chastised through violent rhetoric and behavior.

God calls the Church and society to recognize the social diseases that continue to harm communities all around us today.  Jesus calls us to follow him, with compassion and a commitment to justice and equality for all of God's people.


Prayers

We thank you, heavenly Father, for the witness of your apostle and evangelist Matthew to the Gospel of your Son our Savior; and we pray that, after his example, we may with ready wills and hearts obey the calling of our Lord to follow him; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, page 244).


O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Prayer for the Human Family, Book of Common Prayer, page 815).


Lord Jesus, for our sake you were condemned as a criminal: Visit our jails and prisons with your pity and judgment. Remember all prisoners, and bring the guilty to repentance and amendment of life according to your will, and give them hope for their future. When any are held unjustly, bring them release; forgive us, and teach us to improve our justice. Remember those who work in these institutions; keep them humane and compassionate; and save them from becoming brutal or callous. And since what we do for those in prison, O Lord, we do for you, constrain us to improve their lot. All this we ask for your mercy's sake. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, page 826).

Be Thankful For the Opportunities Given Today

Matthew 9:9-13 (NRSV).

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him. And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" But when he heard this, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, `I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners."

In his book: "Always We Begin Again: The Benedictine Way of Living" John McQuiston II writes:

At the beginning of each day,
after we open our eyes
to receive the light
of that day,

As we listen to the voices
and sounds
that surround us,

We must resolve to treat each hour
as the rarest of gifts,
and to be grateful
for the consciousness
that allows us to experience it,
recalling in thanks
that our awareness is a present
from we know not where,
or how, or why.

When we rise from sleep let us rise for the joy
of the true Work that we will be about
this day,
and considerately cheer one another on.

Life will always provide matters for concern.
Each day, however, brings with it reasons for
joy.

Every day carries the potential
to bring the experience of heaven;
have the courage to expect good from it.

Be gentle with this life,
and use the light of life
to live more fully in your time. (Pages 19-20)

I really need those words of encouragement after hearing that our United States Senate could not pass the cloture vote to debate the Defense Authorization Bill.  The bill also contained the legislative vote to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell once the study was completed and it was decided by the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the President agreed that the conditions were met to officially repeal DADT.  Also included in the Defense Authorization Bill was the Dream Act.   I really need those beautiful words by John McQuiston II.  I hope they say something special and beautiful to my blog readers today.

Regardless of who we are, where we come from, what we have done or have not done, who we love or how we love others Jesus calls each of us by name to follow and serve God.  Each of us has things in our past that we are not particularly proud of.  God knows that, yet God calls us anyway.  Most of us have forgotten to love God and our neighbor as ourselves.  God calls us to serve God anyway.   Unless there is anyone including myself who is not human, most of us have maneuvered around to get what we want, even if we push others out of our way.  God still calls each of us to serve God and God's people. 

God is concerned about how we feel about our history.  God is most concerned with what are we going to do with what is here and now.  By way of a confession of sin and a prayer of absolution God can take care of our sins as God has washed away our sins through the death and resurrection of Jesus.  God wants us to here and now decide are we going to follow God.  God is not interested in whether or not we are wanting us to follow Jesus by being someone we were not even created to be.  For lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, questioning and queer people, God is not calling us to give up our sexual and gender diversity.  God is calling us to serve God and God's people as we are, because God has created us that way and loves us that way.  God is calling us to serve God and God's people with our sexual and gender diversity as gifts to love God, our neighbor and ourselves through serving and giving as well as receiving the graces we need to complete our tasks on earth. 

Matthew the Apostle and Evangelist, whom we commemorate today, was a tax collector and an outcast.  Matthew was regarded by many as a nobody because of who he was, and what he did.  See, LGBTQ people do have representation in the Bible.  Yet, Jesus called Matthew to follow him and learn the ways of God's reign.  Okay, Matthew did not remain a tax collector, but he was still a sinner as are all of us.  Matthew now had to make the choice to become who God wanted him to be, using the very gifts he had been given when God created him.   God changed not so much who Matthew was, but how Matthew lived his life as the man God made him to be.  LGBTQ people and those often stigmatized by the Church and society need to see within ourselves the beauty and wonder of God's holy creation.  We need to be reminded that God has given us the opportunity to live and prosper in one way or another, because God is madly in love with us and wants the rest of the world around us to know that.  There in lies the gift of goodness we can expect from today as John McQuinston II wrote in the quote I used at the beginning of this blog entry.

In the General Thanksgiving we pray at the end of our Daily Office that we thank God for "God's goodness and loving-kindness, to us and to all whom God has made."  We bless God "for our creation, preservation and all the blessings of this life, but above all for your immeasurable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory." (Book of Common Prayer, pages 101 and 125).  The grace to be and to continue being is in and of itself a marvelous and gracious gift of Almighty God.  Being LGBTQ or a woman, or a black person, Native American, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, Wiccan, Pagan, Asian, physically, mentally, and psychologically challenged etc, is a gift that God is calling us to use to establish the reign of God in the very time and place that we have been given.  In the movie The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf the Grey tells Frodo "All we have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given to us."  All we have to do is be faithful to God's call in our lives and God will do the rest.

Proverbs 3:1-6

My child, do not forget my teaching,

but let your heart keep my commandments;

for length of days and years of life

and abundant welfare they will give you.

Do not let loyalty and faithfulness forsake you;

bind them around your neck,

write them on the tablet of your heart.

So you will find favor and good repute

in the sight of God and of people.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart,

and do not rely on your own insight.

In all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will make straight your paths.

 

We thank you, heavenly Father, for the witness of your apostle and evangelist Matthew to the Gospel of your Son our Savior; and we pray that, after his example, we may with ready wills and hearts obey the calling of our Lord to follow him; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Collect of St. Matthew the Apostle and Evangelist, Book of Common Prayer, page 244).

Grant us, Lord, not to anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things which are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 20, Book of Common Prayer, page 234).


God of peace, who has taught us that in returning and rest we will be saved, in quietness and confidence will be our strength: By the might of your Spirit lift us, we pray, to your presence, where we may be still and know that you are God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Prayer for Quiet Confidence, Book of Common Prayer, page 832).