Rev. Dr. Les Martin

The Feast of St. Matthew 2025
Rev. Dr. Les Martin
Matthew 9:9-13

I desire mercy, and not sacrifice. -Matthew  9:13 (ESV)

In the Name of the Living God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today, we celebrate the Feast of Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist. His name in Hebrew means “gift of Yahweh.” He was a tax collector in the town of  Capernaum, and his work was levying taxes on the fishermen like Peter. As we heard in our Gospel reading today, Jesus calls him as a disciple, and later appointed as one of the 12 apostles (10:3). The early church identified the first book of the NT as “the Gospel according to Matthew.”

Matthew, Mark and Luke all place the call of Matthew after the healing of the paralytic and Jesus’ pronouncement of his right to forgive sins (Mt 9:1–8), and before the dinner for “tax collectors and sinners” (vv 10–13).  This location for his call clearly identifies Matthew as one of the sinners (v 13) to whom Jesus offers forgiveness.  Matthew’s response to Jesus is obedient, decisive, and sacrificial- Luke 5:28 tells us that he got up, left everything he was and had behind, to follow Jesus.

In all three lists of the 12 apostles (Mt 10:2–4; Mk 3:16–19; Lk 6:14–16), Matthew appears; but Matthew alone speaks of “Matthew the tax collector.” Besides distinguishing this Matthew from others, “tax collector”- Matthew’s deliberate self-designation- would also recall the life out of which Jesus had called him.

But what exactly was the kind of life was Matthew called away from?  I know none of us much like the IRS today, but it was something more than just that in NT times. The Romans collected a variety of taxes. Their own officers undertook some of this work, but also delegated it to private individuals, Jews and others, who were required to return to the authorities an agreed sum. Seeking to augment their wages out of real economic need or sometimes just greed, they often collected far more than they were required to pay- painful, exorbitant amounts-  and became a hated group. The Jews among them were particularly despised, as being not just unjust but also collators with Empire. Such men were regarded as sinners and were often linked in the phrase “tax collectors and sinners”. This is the Matthew we meet at the beginning of our story today.

If that’s how we meet him, I think it’s only fair to ask “why?” How does a man who becomes an apostle, evangelist, and author of one of our gospels-  a man who reportedly took the faith first to his own Jewish people and then all the way to Persia- how does he start out in one of the most despised and morally compromised occupations he could’ve had?

The first possibility has everything to do with living life in an unjust system. Any of you who have spent any amount of time in the developing world would understand this immediately. In Nigeria, for instance,  most lower level government functionaries do not earn enough to live on, provided they are even paid. I was often stopped by the police, the army, and customs officials in the hopes that they could extract a sum of money from the white man. Many of them, I believe, were not particularly wicked people. They were just doing what they could with their position to try and survive. It was ethically wrong, annoying, and often provoked me to anger, but at another level, I get it. When you live in a system that is corrupt and does not provide for you, you do what you need to to provide for yourself. This is a possibility for why Matthew finds himself where he is, just a guy trying to get by when all the odds are stacked against him. Honestly, I think most of us would prefer to think of one of the apostles and evangelists this way- a basically good guy trying to live his life, but making some poor choices- but there is another possibility.

That possibility is this: whether as a result of the unjust system of Roman occupation, or because of the fallibility and sinfulness of the human heart, Matthew could have simply been evil.  Not super-villain evil, I’m not suggesting that, but rather the banal, wretched, petty evil that is no less spiritually destructive, but doesn’t necessarily make the headlines. In second, Timothy, chapter 3, verses two through five, Paul reminds us what people will inevitably become in the wake of the tragedy in Eden.  He writes:

…people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,  heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. (ESV)

We know this. ’Twas ever thus, and the story of our cultural, moral, and political decay affirm it as an ongoing reality.

So it could be one, or it could be the other. Actually, it could also be some mix of both. We just don’t know. What we do know is that both descriptions apply to us as well. We are people of limits- those imposed on us by unjust systems, be they our culture, our faith, tradition, or our family of origin. By age, mental and physical illness, addiction, and just plain random chance in a fallen world.  So often, I think our banal little sins are a product of the lives we have found ourselves in, of our inability to live beyond the limits that were imposed on us.  We are just trying to get by.  At the same time, we know that the truth is this: 

We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts…We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and…there is no health in us. (Confession of Sin, Daily Morning Prayer, BCP 2019)

Beloved, the sad fact is that not all our sin is a result of circumstances. In our brokenness, the reality is we also create and cooperate with the sin in our lives.  In Romans 7:15, Paul cries out in real frustration about these limitations in our fallen hearts- his and ours.  He writes:  “For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want – instead, I do what I hate.” (NET). In verse 24, his agony comes to head as he says: “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (NET) But by 8:1-2, we hear the solution as he proclaims:  “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the life-giving Spirit in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.”  We may indeed be people of limits, both imposed upon us and freely chosen, but the good news is this: Jesus Christ offers us something different. To Matthew, to Paul, to you and me this very day.

It’s useful to note a couple of things about Jesus’ encounter with Matthew in the Gospel today, both to get a sense of how our Lord works with us, and to get encouragement as we struggle against all our limitations. If your life is anything like mine right now, you need such a reminder and such encouragement.

My first observation is this: note that Jesus calls a tax collector, not an “ex-tax collector.”  The love of Christ always comes to us as we are- not as we might hope to be, or even as he wants us to be. He goes to Matthew’s house, the text says, and has dinner there. Jesus meets Matthew- and us- in the shambles of the life we are living right now, not some other one- lives of exhaustion, of illness, of compromise and sin. Transformation has to start somewhere, and it always starts with the broken sinner, right in the midst of his broken, sinful life-  not with someone who has moved on from that. Let’s face it, if we could move on from that, we wouldn’t need Jesus at all.

We should also note that the call is just to follow Jesus, nothing else. In our disappointment and anger, we may focus too much on tearing down unjust systems, on “rage against the machine.” But the world is ever with us, we can’t win that battle. Further, when focusing too much on the wrongs we perceive around us, there’s always the temptation that the victim will become the victimizer. Our focus needs to be on the one we follow, not on the utter unfairness of it all.

In our despair, we may be attempted to give up on ourselves, to feel that our more personal failings and our poor choices will never change. Again, this is the victim becoming the victimizer, only now we choose to victimize ourselves. Again, the call is clear to focus on Jesus who both delivers and transforms us, not on how pathetic we think we may be. 

As we follow the one who desires mercy, not sacrifice, we are invited to do the same. To be merciful to those people, institutions and situations that oppress us. They will know we are Christians by our love, after all. And to show mercy to ourselves, even when we are at our most broken and unlovable. We receive mercy free of charge, with no demand for sacrifice, and as we remain rooted in Christ, we find that we can become people like that, too, by his grace.

In his 1994 song, “Things We Leave Behind,” Christian musician Michael Card sings of St Matthew in the following way:

Matthew was mindful of taking the tax, pressing the people to pay. Hearing the call, he responded in faith, followed the Light and the Way.

That’s the lesson Matthew would teach us today, I think. Whatever brokenness and sin we find ourselves in, Jesus invites us to follow him into a life that is beyond all our limitations. Trusting him, following him, moving deeper into his heart of mercy, tax-collectors become apostles, and you and I will slowly but certainly walk in all such good works, as he has prepared for us, as well.  Come, follow him.