St Matthew

I have it easy

You don’t know me - I can stand up here and speak about following Jesus, about Christian character, about faith, without you being able to compare what I’m saying to the reality of my life. Up to seven weeks ago, I lived 75 miles away, and I appear here this morning fully formed as the Area Dean - and then I head back to Flixton. If what I say isn’t matched by how I live, then you’re not likely to notice.

It’s harder for you. It’s hard to be open when you speak about your faith, harder to try to speak to people about Jesus, when they know you so well - family, friends, colleagues. Maybe if you had some spectacular miracle to tell them about, some healing that could only be explained as the power of God, something like that - where they could see the difference in your life before and after, maybe that would be easier. But unless something like that happens, it’s tempting to leave the work of witness, of telling people of God’s love, to other people who don’t have the same baggage - who didn’t know your friends three years ago when you messed something up, and who won’t have to see them at work on Monday morning.

Matthew

If tradition is right, we’re reading Matthew’s own account of how he came to follow Jesus, from beginnings that would have made most people write him off.

Mark and Luke tell the story, and use another name for him - I like St John Chrysostom’s suggestion that they’re avoiding telling everyone of the apostle’s murky past. Matthew doesn’t hide anything. He had been a tax-collector, a collaborator with the Romans; his friends were sinners, people who no-one else would invite to their homes.

And into this, he says, came Jesus. ‘He saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.’

It’s interesting to look for a moment at where this fits into the whole story as Matthew tells it. He tells us about his call to follow Jesus in the middle of a string of accounts of healing miracles. In the middle of stories about lepers cleansed, a centurion’s servant healed at a distance, Peter’s mother-in-law cured of fever, crowds coming to be healed and to have demons driven out - with stories of a storm stilled by a word of command, a paralysed man walking, chronic illness wiped away and a girl raised from death to life, blind men seeing and a mute given a voice; in with all of this drama and miracle, a despised sinner is accepted, loved, forgiven and called to a new way of living.

Because that, too, is a healing. Knowing that you, just as you are, are accepted, loved, forgiven and called to a new way of living. And for people who know you to see, even in small ways, that this remarkable thing has happened in your life, can be a real sign of the reality of God who loves them as he loves you. Perhaps if he can meet you this way, he can meet me that way too.

Treasure in clay jars

Maybe St Paul had something of the same idea in mind when he wrote to the Corinthians. He spoke of how the good news of God’s love is both hidden in ordinary, flawed human lives like yours and mine and at the same time seen through those ordinary, flawed human lives. He reminds his readers that we’re not called to show the world how holy, loving and good we are but how holy, loving and good Jesus is. It’s his glory that we proclaim, not our own. He compares us to clay jars, with precious treasure hidden inside.

If you’re willing to share that treasure, to help others to see God’s love through you, then you’ll do it best, they’ll see God most clearly, when you’re brave enough to be yourself. When you let people see that God is at work in you but he’s not finished yet, but that you’re glad to be on his workbench, then they might decide there’s some work he could do in their lives too.

Of course, that assumes that you’re letting him work in you; that you’ve heard his invitation to follow him and taken the first step of getting up to join him; and then that you’re working with him to let him make you more like Jesus. That you’re willing to change, and to speak of what God is doing in your life.

If you wait until God has finished work in your life, until you’re perfect, before you take the step of witnessing, showing and speaking your faith, it’ll never happen in this life. If you speak about God, but pretend that you’re perfect, then people may see the version of you that you’re trying to show them, but they won’t see God through you. Your words won’t ring true if they’re not coming from the reality of your life.

Dare to be you - for God.

I don’t think St Matthew had any idea what was going to happen next when he got up from his tax booth to follow Jesus. He just knew that it was the right thing to do right then. But Jesus doesn’t just call us to leave old things behind, he calls us on to new things. Matthew travelled with Jesus; he learned from him, he became more like him, he told others about him. And then he wrote his gospel, which has inspired and guided millions of people for almost 2,000 years.

God has things ahead of you that you don’t know about yet. And discovering them begins with hearing and answering his call to you, just as you are, ‘Follow me.’

I’m going to pray in a moment, and I’d like to invite you to hear Jesus’ words to Matthew afresh, spoken to you. Especially if you’ve never consciously decided to follow him, please do pray for his strength to get up from the tax booth and discover your new calling. Let’s be still for a moment.