Proper 5 :: Genesis 12:1 – 9 / Psalm 33:1 – 12 / Romans 4:13 – 25 / Matthew 9:9 – 13, 18 - 26
This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, June 11, 2023, by Fr. Gene Tucker.
“THE LORD’S CALL TO DISCIPLESHIP”
(Homily text: Matthew 9:9 – 13, 18 – 26)
This morning, we are blessed to hear
the account of Matthew’s call to become a disciple of the Lord. We get the
impression that Matthew’s response, as he sat at the tax booth receiving
people’s taxes, was immediate. That is to say, it seems as though Matthew got
up, left everything on the table as he was working, and perhaps simply walked
away to follow the Lord. We don’t know for sure, but perhaps he told an
assistant, “Take care of this stuff, I quit”.
Matthew’s call to follow the Lord meant
a radical change in the shape and the future trajectory of his life.
For one thing, Matthew, who is also known
as a Levite, was one of a class of priests. That he is known to be a Levite
identifies him as one of the group of “local” priests. Matthew was also working
for and collaborating with the occupying Romans. Jews who did that were
especially despised for their work, for they were assisting the Romans in their
occupation of the Holy Land. That Matthew was, most likely, also a priest,
probably made their dislike for him even greater. I think it’s safe to assume
that that was the case. No wonder that tax collectors were often lumped in
together with other notorious sinners.
When Matthew got up from the tax booth
that day, he became a member of a new community, which was composed of others
who had said “yes” to the Lord’s call to discipleship. What was the character of this new group of
followers of Jesus, those who would become Matthew’s new community? That aspect
of Matthew’s call and conversion is also fascinating, for it included another
disciple who – given normal expectations and behaviors of the day, and given an
absence of Jesus’ leadership – would have absolutely hated Matthew. The
disciple we’re talking about is Simon the Zealot. The Zealots were a group of
people among the Jews who advocated the violent overthrow of the Roman
occupation. Maintaining such a stance meant that they would, most likely, have harbored
a deep hatred of tax collectors. But the reality of having become a disciple of
the Lord meant that such normal ideas and attitudes melted away as a new
priority took their place.
This is, by way of a summary, the
nature of Matthew’s call to follow the Lord, and the character of his
conversion to being a disciple – and then an Apostle – of Jesus Christ.
Since we’re talking about the Lord’s
call to become a follower, and about the changes in life that come when a
person decides to follow the Lord, let’s ask ourselves two questions this
morning:
1. When did the Lord call each of us to
become a follower, a disciple?
2. What changes came when the answer
was “yes” to that call?
These two questions, I maintain, demand
an answer from each of us.
After all, perhaps the Lord’s call came
at Baptism. For in Baptism, we die to self and rise to a new life in Christ.
Or, perhaps that call came at a
specific time, place and circumstance: That occasion when we realized that we
were helpless to change our own lives and to become a Christ-like person.
Perhaps we can remember the words we prayed as we asked the Lord to enter our
hearts and to begin a process of conversion, beginning with the inner self and
working outward to the outer self.
Whether we grew into the reality of
what Baptism means over time, bit by bit, little by little, or whether we had a
specific conversion experience, each path of our response to the Lord’s call to
discipleship always involves a realization that we must bottom out, we must
admit we are helpless to attain God’s standards of holiness by our own means
and abilities. After all, the meaning of
Baptism is that we descend into the waters which would otherwise overcome and
kill us, only to be raised out of the water by God’s grace. We are given a new
lease on life, and that new life – as it was for Matthew – meant a new, more meaningful
life.
Now, let’s address the second question
we asked a moment ago, that one about the character of our lives after we
accept the Lord’s call.
Matthew’s call and conversion meant a
new path, a new way of being, a new purpose in his life. His behavior following
the Lord’s call confirmed the genuine nature of his response to that call.
In our own lives, also, we are called
to mirror a different set of values. We are called not to think like the
secular world around us, but to be shaped by an entirely different set of
values. In every age, the values of God’s kingdom are different than the values
of the society in which the kingdom is planted.
So, we can address this question to
ourselves: “How is it that I am thinking and acting like a disciple of Jesus?
How is my thinking and acting different from the values of the society in which
I find myself?”
May the Holy Spirit enable us to see
ourselves clearly, as God sees us. May we respond to God’s call to become a
follower of Jesus, and may we, by our thinking and our acting, reflect the
values of God’s kingdom.
AMEN.
