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It is a rare person who hasn’t had an eventful day at some point in life, good or bad, that had the significance or should we say the power of changing everything. A moment that you know that from this point forward things are going to be different. The type of days about which we say, “This is the first day of the rest of your life, how are you going to live it?” “There’s an irrefusable opportunity here, but are you going to take it.” Or sometimes it is one of those things that happens that leaves us and the people around us saying, “You never know what a day is going to bring.” Things happen that change everything and you have to go on. Do you get out of the chair and get on with it?
Here we find Matthew in such a moment – the first day of the rest of his life. In the Gospel that bears his name, he is the fifth named and called disciple behind the fishermen Peter, Andrew, James, and John. Some others seemed to have volunteered but without necessarily counting the cost. He was faced with an invitation from Jesus to follow him.
Matthew was a tax collector in the small little town of Capernaum up on the northern tip of the Sea of Tiberius, Galilee to the locals, but you know how the Romans liked to put their emperor’s name on things when they occupied a land. And you also know, tax collectors worked for those Romans collecting taxes for them. Roman taxes were a burden for most everybody. It was very easy to get behind on them. You were taxed on your land and because you had a head (the head tax). There were tolls on roads and customs at borders. You were taxed on what you wanted to sell and sales tax on what you sold. Tax collectors typically came from already wealthy families and found ways to extort more tax than was required to further enrich themselves. They kept a ledger of who was and was not paid up and had Roman soldiers at their disposal to enforce things. Thus, they were considered to be traitors.
Matthew was sitting in his tax collector’s booth one morning there on Main Street. A crowd had suddenly formed down at the sea shore and was rather exuberant, praising God loudly. As the crowd headed on up into town, he was able to gather that that guy Jesus had told a paralyzed man his sins were forgiven which upset the religious hoity-toities. Then, to prove he had the authority to forgive sins, Jesus healed the man and this wasn’t the first time this Jesus of Nazareth guy had done such a thing in the last few months since that John the Baptist freaky dude got arrested. A paralyzed man would have been considered cursed by God for his secret sins and by this healing apparently Jesus proved he had the authority to amend that. Jesus was verging on God’s territory which the hoity-toities claimed as their exclusive domain.
When Jesus in the midst of the crowd passed Matthew’s booth, he stopped and said to Matthew, “Follow me.” Perhaps Jesus knew Matthew was looking for a way out of the ledger keeping and the bullying and being seen as a traitor. Matthew found himself having the courage to get out of the chair and follow.
They showed up at “the house” about lunch time. It was probably that guy Peter’s mother-in-law’s place. When they entered the dining room, already reclining there at the table were a few of the other tax collectors in the area and a handful of those people that the religious hoity-toities liked to pass judgement on because they had better things to do on Saturday morning than go to synagogue and listen to the Rabbi’s argue about irrelevant stuff. Nor were they able to afford to make a trip to Jerusalem once a year to make a sacrifice so that they could be considered good people. Nor could they afford the Temple tax that those religious hoity-toities were glad to collect and take to Jerusalem on their behalf. With the Romans around you had to pay to live and make a living. With the hoity-toities, you had to pay just to be a good person. Matthew started to feel at home with the people at Jesus’ table and reclined.
The hoity-toities from the sea shore also followed Jesus to the house. When they saw the company he kept, they went behind his back and questioned his disciples as to why he sat at table with such as these, you know, people like Matthew. I’m sure Matthew was a bit put out by their judging him. Jesus got wind of it and got quite frank with them. He quoted a short verse from the prophet Hosea telling them, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire compassion rather than sacrifice.” Boy, did he hit the nail on the head…but who was the “I” he was referring to? Himself?
Then some of John the Baptist’s followers showed up. They were staying in the proximity of Jesus since John got arrested. They had seen the heavens opened and heard the voice when John baptised Jesus, “This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased. John’s disciples, like the hoity-toities, were expecting the Messiah to show up at any moment to kick the Romans out. They, like the hoity-toities, thought they could hasten his coming by following the Law of Moses and praying and fasting a lot. They wanted to know why Jesus and his disciples didn’t do the same. Jesus answered by making a cryptic clue to himself being the Messiah here now and that it was time now to celebrate because it won’t be long before the hoity-toities make him gone, if you know what I mean. The new, the works of power, that he was doing will tatter that old religion like sewing unshrunk cloth onto old cloth or putting new wine into old wine skins. So, it’s best to put new wine into new wineskins like these tax collectors and sinners.
Just then one of the town leaders, a powerful man, rushed in, knelt before Jesus, and begged him to come to his house and lay his hand on his little twelve-year-old daughter because she had just died and Jesus could make her live. Whoa. Touch the dead? Raise the dead!? Did this man know what he was asking! Who did this man think Jesus was? These are things only God can do. Jesus didn’t deny having that kind of power nor did he try to talk the man down. They just all got up from the table and went with the man.
On the way, a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years came and touched the edge of Jesus’ robe. Blood was life and she was bleeding to death from where God brings life into the world. That’s not good. The hoity-toities had laws about ritual purity. They stigmatized her as impure in the eyes of God and by touching Jesus she would have made him impure as well. Jesus felt the touch, but he didn’t get angry with the woman. He simply encouraged her and told her that her faith had healed/saved her. Suddenly, she was healed. This is new wine for sure.
Then they made it to the leader’s house. Jesus went up to the dead girl’s room. He took her by the hand. Touching dead people also made you impure, by the way. But the girl got up. She got up! That there is some new wine too.
When they came out of the house, two blind men started following Jesus loudly shouting over and over, “Jesus, son of David, have compassion for us”. Jesus made it back to “the house” and invited them in. Yes, the blind also carried the stigma of being cursed by God for some secret sin. “Do you believe I can do this?” Wait a minute. Do what? They answered, “Yes, Lord.” Hold on. Jews only call God Lord. What are they saying? Jesus said, “Let it be done for you according to your faith.” He touched their eyes. Their sight came back. Jesus told them not to tell anybody he did that, but they went and told everybody. How could you not?
Now here’s the clincher. Jesus and the disciples set out from the house to go camping and fishing or something. Just then someone brought a demon possessed man who couldn’t speak to him. Lo and behold, Jesus cast that demon out and the man could speak again. Everybody was saying nothing like this had ever happened in Israel before. The hoity-toities, well, they said that it was by the authority of the ruler of the demons that Jesus could do these things that only God could do.
So, that was the first day of the rest of Matthew’s life. You never know what a day is going to bring. What a day. What Jesus did that day impacted Matthew so much that he continued following him. It led him to collect stories about Jesus and write something called a Gospel voiced to speak primarily to the hoity-toities in the wake of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70AD. The Pharisees and the followers of Jesus were the two predominant forms of Judaism that survived that event. Matthew was trying to build a bridge.
Jesus brought something new, unconditional compassion in the power of the Holy Spirit, while the Pharisees were clinging to the old. Allowing God, allowing Jesus to do something new in our lives is a difficult thing. I remember the night I finally said yes to the inner tug of the voice of Jesus saying “Follow me.” And the day I said yes to the inner tug of the voice of Jesus calling me to the ministry. The first time I stepped into a church service and felt that there was a sweet, sweet Spirit in the place and I knew it was the presence of the Lord. I remember the day Jesus took away the burden of the anger, hurt, and unforgiveness I felt towards my mother and step-father because they had chosen themselves over their families. He took that burden, and it weighed a lot, and replaced it with a joyful love for them. I remember how when antidepressants brought out that old family tradition or should I say the demon of alcoholism even in me, the good son, the minister, I remember the night Jesus utterly took that compulsion to drink before which I was absolutely powerless away. There’s more, but I think I’ve made the point that Jesus changes things. He brings new life and changes things.
But we need to be careful about how we cling to the old, about how we can be hoity-toities. We can stand in judgement of even our own children and ignore the new, the unconditional compassion of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, that he touched us with and claimed us as his own. Do you remember the day that happened for you? Amen.
