St. Matthew

The Call of Matthew
Matthew 9:9-13
I sometimes wonder if Matthew ever looked back to the day when Jesus called him to leave his tax-collectors booth and follow. The gospel doesn’t make it clear whether he managed to make an informed choice; it doesn’t even tell us if he thought about the decision at all. We are merely told that he “got up and followed”. Matthew was standing at the crossroads of living an ordinary or extraordinary life; the certainties of what he knew versus the risks of a great leap into the unknown.
The next we hear of Matthew is when he is hosting a dinner party for tax-collectors and “sinners”, I think we have all been to parties like that. Jesus defends his choice of company by declaring that he came to heal the sick not the healthy, to call sinners not the righteous. The transformation is progressing, Matthew’s old life is disappearing and the new adventure has begun.
The calling of Matthew, his following Christ, the meal and the guests are all a sign and a foretaste of things to come, when the logic of this world will be overturned by the perfect justice of God. Jesus is revealing his identity as the son of the true God, so he responds to his critics by using the text the prophet Hosea applied to God seven hundred years before “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”. By calling and welcoming sinners, the outcast and the unworthy, Jesus brings the offer of universal salvation to all people, for all time. There are no surprises in this reading, it is clear and direct. It is wonderful to think that we are a fly on the wall when Jesus reveals his mission – this is his mission statement, and it should be ours too.
We may not be blessed with a personal invitation from Christ as he walks through our town; however when we witness the daily struggle people have to obtain justice, peace, food and medicines, when we think of the global market turmoil, where billions of pounds are being wiped off the values of shares and banks are struggling to survive, we need to watch for the real cost of the downturn as it reaches those who have least, at home and abroad. Christ is calling once again, using the same words to invite new disciples to the same mission. If we listen, we will hear.
There is an old Welsh saying “Bad news goes about in clogs, Good news in stockinged feet”. We should, like Matthew, put clogs on the Good News, taking it to those who haven’t been invited to a party for a long time. It’s all part of the wonder of faith, the joy of believing, and the certainty God’s love. It is your mission and mine. God always appears in disconcerting ways. He seems to delight in relying on what is the least adequate according to human judgement. He calls sinners like Matthew to be disciples, and God counts on us, weak as we are, to make the kingdom present.
“I desire mercy not sacrifice” – this is not an opportunity for us to shower God with great acts of self-righteousness, but to be willing to seek him in the corners of the world where the best parties happen, where all the unworthy are invited, even us.