Br. Jack Crowley

Saint Matthew

Matthew 9:9-13

Follow me. Those were the two words Jesus said to Saint Matthew when they first met. Follow me. Saint Matthew heard those words, got up from his tax booth, and followed Jesus.

Now in most situations, if a stranger comes to your place of work and tells you to follow him, it’s probably not a good idea to follow him. Yet, we know Jesus had a way with people. Jesus knew the hearts of humanity, and Jesus knew how to read a room. So when Jesus saw Matthew sitting at his tax booth, Jesus only needed two words to convince Matthew to leave it all behind. Follow me.

I would love to know what was going through the mind of Matthew when he first saw Jesus. I always wonder what kind of day Matthew was having. I mean we’ve all had our bad days at work when we think to ourselves I gotta get out of here.

One time, I was flying on a plane and the man seated next to me started talking to me. I wasn’t wearing my habit but he still opened up his life to me and told me all about it. At one point in the conversation, he said that sometimes he felt like quitting his job and joining a monastery. He asked me if I ever had that feeling. I said yes.

There is also a chance that maybe it was a normal day when Matthew met Jesus. Maybe Matthew just sensed that there was something special about this guy. This down-to-earth stranger who spoke so plainly to him.

Clearly, Jesus and Matthew had a moment. Something happened. We’ve all been there, when you meet someone special and you just know in a way beyond words that something beyond yourself is going on. Something that feels both beneath the surface and heavenly. Who wouldn’t want to follow that feeling?

We all have our own story of how we came to follow Jesus. Trying to put that story into words is close to impossible. Instead, we put words into our story. We do our best to describe and analyze our connection with Jesus, but ultimately we know what’s in our hearts can never be fully verbalized. There are some things that will just be between us and God. Thank God for that.

Like Saint Matthew, we also all have our own little tax booths. Some situation that comes between us and Christ. Some barrier we stay seated behind and watch as our lives go by. We tell ourselves one day I will get up out of this. One day I will fully follow Christ with all my heart.

Every day of our lives, we must get up out of own tax booth. This is hard. It’s always tempting to stay seated in the status quo. Yet throughout scripture, the status quo rarely survives an encounter with Christ.

The good news is that Jesus knows all of this. He knows what we’ve been through, what we are going through, and where we’d rather be in our lives right now. He knows we’ve all missed the mark a few times. He knows sometimes we land in our own tax booths despite our best intentions.

The good news is that Jesus is ready to help us to move. Jesus is ready to help us change. Jesus is not only ready for us to follow him, Jesus wants us to follow him.

We celebrate Saint Matthew because he had the courage to follow Jesus. He left it all behind to follow Jesus. He had no idea what he was getting into, but that did not stop him.

We too must have the courage to keep following Jesus. We must heed the call of Jesus every day of our lives with our own lives. We must get comfortable with depending on Jesus, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us feel.

The alternative is a life built solely on self-reliance. A life stuck behind the tax booth of our own selves. That is an exhausting life. That is a life that gets old quickly.

To radically depend on Jesus is intimidating, yet so many who have gone before us did so. The lives of saints were often built on leaps of faith. I don’t know of any saints who lived a quiet, comfortable life. I don’t know of any saints who lived a life free of challenges.

Saint Matthew followed Jesus all the way to martyrdom. He gave up his life to that call. We all do the same in our own way. Follow that call. Amen.