The Story of St Matthew

This story was written for our Sunday morning service on 21st September, St Matthew's day. The gospel was Matthew 9:9-13 (I would post a Bible Gateway link, but it seems that site has become an unintended victim of the UK's Online Safety Act). I hope you enjoy reading the story!

St Matthew from Rembrandt's St Matthew and the Angel 

We never liked him.

Sitting there, in his little tax booth all day. Watching the rest of us work, while he simply wrote in his ledger.

“That’s a fine catch!”, he would call out, as we struggled to get the nets out of the boat. And then, as we got to the hard and dirty work of gutting and cleaning the fish, he’d saunter along, his coin purse jangling at his side.

We’d try to tell him many times, how can we pay tax on earnings we’ve not yet made? But his answer was always the same. “The fish you have already caught belong to Caesar, so you need to pay your share now”.

Funnily enough, he never wanted fish themselves as payment.

We might have understood if he was Roman. But he was one of us. Born right here, by the lake. He grew up knowing the struggles we all faced, hearing the tales of the time before the Romans came and started taking over, bringing their soldiers and their laws, ignoring our culture and taking our land. Imposing their taxes.

And he chose to side with them. No, Matthew was never one to “stick it to the man”. He’d rather suck on up, opting for the easy life, and the Roman coin. Well – our coin. We make it, they take it.

And so he sat there, in his little booth. All day, every day. Sheltered from the torrential rain, and the beating sun, reading and writing and watching us break our backs. Matthew the tax man. A Jewish boy in Caesar’s pocket. Taking our money and sending it to Rome.

He’d gotten rich off our work. We caught the fish, and he made the money. As I said, we didn’t like him.

We started hanging around with this fellow, Jesus. He saw us one day, in our boats and started to talk to us. He spoke about how things needed to change, how God really cared for the state the world was in, about how the world cared about money and power and influence, but that God cared about love, and mercy, and justice.

We lapped it up. It struck a chord, you know? There’s been no mercy since the Romans came. There’s been no justice.

We’d seen flashes of anger in Jesus too, when he talked about what was right, and wrong. A foretaste of what was to come, if you like, in those months ahead when he rode into Jerusalem and caused a one-man riot in the temple, throwing tables around and lashing out at the temple-merchants there with a whip!

And so, when Jesus saw Matthew there in his tax booth, counting the money made off of the backs of me and my brothers and colleagues – our money – well, he just marched right on over, didn’t he?

We dropped everything to run after. If this was going to turn into a fight, he’d need some back up.

Jesus got to Matthew’s booth, and Matthew looked up. And I’m standing there, and the adrenaline is rising, trying to work out how this is going to play out. There are soldiers around, of course there are – the whole place is a tinderbox of revolutionary talk.

But Jesus is calm. He’s not angry. He only says two words to Matthew; “Follow me”, he says. It’s not a question. It feels a bit like a command, but what authority does Jesus have over a tax collector working for the empire? But he does. Matthew just gets up and walks out of his booth, leaving his ledgers, and his purse, and the coins left half-counted on the table, and starts to follow Jesus as he walks off.

No-one else quite knows what’s going on, but after a beat or two, we start to run after them both too. I mean, I’d follow that man anywhere I think.

In our wake, the scene turns to confusion, as some of the other fishermen notice the money left on the table and try to make off with it before the soldiers there notice what’s going on, but none of that matters to us. We’re following Jesus and Matthew, and it turns out, we’re on our way to a party.

When we get there, it is the weirdest party that I’ve ever been to. There’s Jesus, of course, and Matthew, still not knowing quite what is going on, and a whole raft of religious folk and intellectuals; not the sort of people you’d tend to associate with the wildest of parties, but it turns out Jesus has also invited a – rabble is the best way I can describe it – of others too. More tax collectors, hookers, beggars, and a couple of people I’d trust as far as I could throw. And it turns out that everyone is just as confused as each other as to what on earth is going on with the guest list. 

One of the religious men asks me as such:

“You hang around with him,” he said (and I’d half a mind to deny it at that point). “What are these people doing here?” waving his hand at the other half of the room.

And I’m still trying to work it all out. Where was the lecture for Matthew on social justice and greed? There’s enough tax collectors in this room to justify that lecture now, alongside all the other sinners. Maybe Jesus is going to preach?

But he doesn’t. And I realise that – even now, looking back – not once have I heard him criticise these people. I’ve never heard him publicly call for repentance from anyone other than those who call themselves religious, those who think they are righteous. I’ve never heard him criticise anyone other than those who call themselves religious, those who think they are righteous. I’ve never seen his anger against anyone except those who call themselves religious, those who think they are righteous.

For the rest of us, though, who know on which side of that room we belong, even if we’d like to be on the other side, Jesus just says, like he did to Matthew, “follow me”. No strings. No demand to change our lives before we do. “Follow me”.

He said it to me, back at the lake. He still says it to me each and every day.

I can promise you, he’s saying it to you now. “Follow me.”

Amen