Matthew the scribe

Wednesday, September 21, 2022

Feast of Saint Matthew, Apostle and evangelist

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

Matthew the scribe

As Jesus passed by, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.

Matthew’s story in The Chosen is compelling. He is slightly autistic and obsessive. He has been cursed by his family (“my father says he has no son”) because he chose to be a tax collector for the Romans. His only friend is his dog. Gaius, his Roman centurion guardian, is his friend also, but would never admit it.

Quintus, the praetor (magistrate) for Pilate, takes a liking to Matthew, because Matthew stands up to him. He assigns him the task of following fisherman (including Simon) who have been fishing on the sabbath and thus avoiding taxes. But more importantly he says to Matthew, “You can write, can’t you?” YES! Of Course. Quintus hands him a notebook and says, “Follow them everywhere. Go in disguise if you have to. Write EVERYTHING down!”

And doesn’t Matthew do just that? For the rest of his life? Jesus saw what Quintus did. “Matthew, you are our scribe. Write everything down.” And so he does. He also kept track of income and expenses.

Margaret and I fell in love with God’s boy Matthew. His quirks were charming for us, on the other side of the television screen.

While Jesus was at dinner in Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples.

In The Chosen Matthew’s fellow tax collectors are nowhere to be seen. He avoids people and spends time instead with his dog. His eyes are downcast, he carries cloths to grasp alien objects (like grapes), and stays hidden in a hired cart as he passes through the marketplace. I think he must think of fellow tax collectors as his parents think of him, as scum of the earth, worse than the Romans. “Because I chose what I am doing, and you did not,” he tells Quintus.

The Pharisees saw this ragtag dinner and asked Jesus’ disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

Not all the Pharisees hated Jesus. Nicodemus, highly esteemed as a teacher, was far more fascinated than disturbed. But there were some haters, and their own insecurity opened them to fear. Their self-awareness was far outstripped by their sense of threat and blasphemy. God mattered to them, and they had to prove themselves worthy. Blind guides, Jesus called them.

Jesus heard their question and said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. Now, go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

As often was the case, Jesus seems to have his tongue in his cheek. He implies that the Pharisees’ righteousness is somehow valid. But the Pharisees are blind to their own sin, they only see  themselves as righteous, not as the sinners they are. They separate humanity into two camps, and they are in the righteous camp.

And so Jesus cannot call them. He looks at them with sadness and compassion. They cannot receive God’s forgiveness if they think they do nothing wrong. They are not healthy. They are sick. They need the doctor, but they refuse to go to him.

Sometimes I feel that way, of course, about my body. Getting older, wearing out, how much time do I choose to spend at the doctor’s office. But my body is one thing.

And my soul is another.

(Ephesians 4, Psalm 19, See Te Deum, Matthew 9)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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