"Matthew's Story"

Sermon by Pastor David Layman

September 16, 2007

Matthew 9:1-13

My name is Matthew. I was a tax collector that Jesus called to follow him. My hunch is that you folks today don't think too highly of tax collectors. Perhaps you've heard the story of the little boy who had the habit of sticking coins in his mouth. One day he had a quarter in his mouth, and accidentally began to choke on it. His mother saw her son choking, and cried out for help. A man was passing by, ran up on the front porch, grabbed the boy by the heels, turned him upside down, hit the boy on the back, and the quarter popped out. The woman said "Oh, thank, you doctor. You were passing by at just the right time!" The man responded "I'm not a doctor. I work for the Internal Revenue Service!" Anxiety and frustration over real estate tax assessments may give you a bit of an understanding about how people might not like tax collectors! But it was worse in my day! Today, you don't hold people who work for the county treasurer's office personally responsible for your tax assessment. But 2,000 years ago, people like me paid the Roman government money in advance for the right to collect taxes in a certain locality. Then we tried to make a profit on our transaction. We weren't limited to a specific amount we were to collect from an individual. We knew we had to pay a certain amount to the Romans, and what was left over was our profit and salary. The discretion we had in how much tax we assessed naturally made us an object of hatred to everyone who thought we were asking too much. Let me ask this: How many of you, when working on your 1040 forms, look at the bottom figure and conclude, "Yes, I ought to be paying this much!"

As a tax collector, I knew that I was commonly despised. One would hear the phrase "tax collectors and sinners", which were lumped together in religious people's minds as being in the same category as a prostitute and a drunkard. Since the "righteous", or as I'd rather put it, "self-righteous" people of our day lumped us together as outsiders, we told ourselves we really didn't care to hang around them anyway. Besides, we could afford the finer things in life, and don't think we didn't flaunt it. I was one of the best dressed people in Capernaum. I didn't wear any of that homespun stuff. Nothing but the finest fabrics for me. I had the best set of wheels in town! I never bought a used chariot; only the finest two wheel drives. And you should have seen the horsepower I had. I know I only got 5 miles to a bale of hay, but it was worth it just to make those hypocrites eat my dust!

Jesus spent a lot of time in Capernaum, so he and his followers had to stop at my booth frequently. Jesus had some followers that clearly despised me (especially Peter!) Peter was a hot head in those early days, and made no effort to conceal his resentment. But Jesus was different. He didn't treat me like I was the scum of the earth. Neither did Jesus act intimidated by my power as a tax collector, or the wealth and opulence of my lifestyle. On the contrary, Jesus treated me like a human being. I wasn't used to it at all! It puzzled me.

Jesus was always teaching. And I couldn't help but overhear some of what he taught. I'd never heard teaching like that! My parents had raised me in the traditions of the Law and the prophets. When I became a tax collector, I was no longer welcome in the righteous company of the local synagogue. I told myself I didn't want to hang around with those hypocrites anyway. And initially I relished all the luxuries my life as a tax collector could afford. I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the fellowship of other tax collectors and so called people of "ill repute." They knew how to have a good time, and weren't spiritual snobs like the Pharisees. But after a while, I began to experience an emptiness. I continued to be outwardly proud and arrogant, but I began to see some of my friends paying the consequences of too much wine, women and song. Nobody else would have guessed it, but I was searching for something more.

I think Jesus picked up on this. One time I was all by myself, and Jesus somehow got off by himself, and stopped to see me. I'd had occasional visits by a committee of scribes and Pharisees before, announcing how I was a disgrace to my people and was condemned by God. Such occurrences were always public attempts to shame me, and they just egged me on to shout abuse back at them and overcharge them even more the next time they had to pay taxes. But that conversation with Jesus was different. No one else was around. He didn't begin by condemning me. He started out by asking me about myself. He got me talking about my upbringing. Before I knew it, I started to pour my heart out about how my mother had died heartbroken because I'd become a tax collector, how I rarely had any contact with my father. I found myself saying "I can't believe you've come here to spend time with me, Jesus! You're the only religious person I know who's given me the time of day!" Jesus never said to me "Matthew, you haven't done anything wrong by becoming a tax collector." He clearly shared what God desires from each and every one of us. But he did it with such love! I found myself agreeing that in my private thoughts, I wasn't very happy with my life, and I wanted something more from life. Jesus heard other voices coming, and quietly slipped out the back. I was in shock. Believe me, it took me a while to process what Jesus shared with me!

Truth be told, I'm a private kind of person. When I was a child, I wasn't the kind of child that was always the center of attention, always raising his hand, speaking up. Peter was that kind of student! I sat back and took in everything that was going on. The teacher had to directly call on me to get me to speak up. When I became a tax collector, I hid behind arrogance and wealth and possessions. Jesus looked more deeply into me than any of my tax collector associates or the religious folk who despised me could see. He came to me privately and showed me the error of my ways. And at the same time, he showed me love and acceptance.

Jesus knew that it takes a little while for seed to germinate. Some time after his visit, Jesus was walking along with some of his followers, and I had others standing in line at my tax booth. Jesus looked at me, and I looked back at him with a look that said "I want to continue that conversation you started!" Jesus said to me "Follow me!" Others about him were shocked, and the crowd gasped! "Jesus has called a despised tax collector to follow him! If he gets up from his table, there goes the neighborhood!" I stood up and began to follow.

You live 2,000 years later, in a world considerably different from mine. In my day, people learned primarily through the spoken word. We didn't have printing and the internet and text messaging. Those who followed Jesus primarily shared his teaching and the events of his life orally until the original disciples began to die off and suffer persecution. That's when the teaching I and other followers preserved assumed the form of gospels telling the Good News of Jesus. You have the opportunity to study these gospels when you gather together, and apply them to your lives.

The gospel which bears my name, Matthew, is not really about me. It's about Jesus! The early church had four gospel accounts of Jesus' life, each taking a somewhat unique approach to relating the totally unique life of Jesus. It wasn't like Mark, Luke, John and I were publishing these writings under our names and hoping to make the New York Times' best seller list! These writings had to be called something, so the early church attributed them to 4 of Jesus' followers, instead of calling them "Gospel Number One" and "Two", etc. "Matthew" makes a special point of emphasizing how the Old Testament prophecies received their fulfillment in Jesus. The gospel of Matthew emphasizes that the self-righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees is not the way to live. Matthew includes 5 great sections of Jesus' teaching, just as the Old Testament had the "Pentateuch", the 5 books of the law of Moses. One of these 5 sections is Matthew 18, which groups will begin to study September 23. Matthew also emphasizes that Jesus came into our world as the king of all. There's a special focus in my gospel on the importance of humility, which I as a once arrogant tax collector had to learn. And Jesus was always seeking to save the lost and despised: people like me. You'll see illustrations of that in the gospel of Matthew. Jesus drove home the truth that we who have been forgiven much need to be forgiving! The name "Matthew" means "gift of God". I came to see that all the wealth I'd accumulated as a tax collector couldn't save me. Salvation is the undeserved gift of God. When we have received such a gift, and been forgiven so much, we must not only accept this gift as humble servants; we must pass it on to others!

I hope in the coming weeks, everyone present will read the gospel of Matthew from start to finish. Early Christian missionaries went from village to village, were invited into a home, and began to share the gospel with their hosts. People didn't go to movies in our day; they didn't sit down and watch tv. They were always eager for news from the outside world, and couldn't read a newspaper to get it. Visitors were expected to bring news. Christian missionaries knew the gospel by heart, and would share it, from beginning to end, with their host. It would take about 3 hours. Today, few people read the gospels the way you read a novel. You read a few verses from one book in the Bible, and then switch to another. That would be like watching one scene from a great movie, and then going on to something else, with no knowledge of what happened before or after. Get yourself an easy chair, open up a gospel, and begin to read. You're bound to discover the best Good News you've ever heard!

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