The Different Disciple

Matthew – a name we today recognize as a righteous name; the name of the man who penned the first book of the New Testament, and a member of Jesus’ closest twelve. Yet his contemporaries probably knew him as a traitor and a thief.

How many of your friends have that reputation?

What do we know about this guy? Very little. We are introduced to him in the stories of Jesus called the Gospels. He was a Jewish tax collector working for the imperial Roman government which had overrun the Jewish state and all it’s neighbors. They now ruled over The region with a rod of iron, and extracted taxes from the working class in order to fund it’s marauding and oppressive army. Oh yeah, and they also used the taxes to fund an overfed noble class that thrived on orgies and debauchery.

The Romans just wanted everyone to get along. Vassal states were allowed to worship their own gods, as long as they worshipped the Roman gods too. This led to the pax Romana (Roman Peace). There was constrained peace everywhere but in Palestine where the stubborn monotheism of the Jews, working together with a muleheaded national disposition brought about constant unrest and rebellion.

In this historical backdrop, Matthew worked as a Jewish tax collector for the Romans. He was commanded to exact so much money from the common man, and anything above his invoice was his to keep. Many of his colleagues would add huge percentages to the already oppressive Roman taxes, thus making them into rich people at the hands of their countrymen.

Matthew was working as a tax collector when Jesus called him. The call is troubling, to say the least. Jesus walked by Matthew’s tax collecting kiosk, told him to follow him, and Matthew got up and left everything.

Can we get a little more detail here? Did Matthew already know Jesus? We don’t know. The Gospel writers just make it seem like Matthew got the call, and left everything. Nobody does that, do they?

It does imply that Matthew knew OF Jesus, and obviously wanted to follow him, but for some reason hadn’t done it. This suggests a spiritual hunger had begun to tug at ol’ Matt, and Jesus came along right at spiritual supper time. The story goes on to cause us religious people problems. Matthew held a party for Jesus, and Jesus did not decline.
The only people who attended were prostitutes, tax collectors, and other non flyers. They were comfortable with the Lord of creation, and what’s funny is, he was comfortable with them. This is the Messiah Matthew had to write about in his book, the book we will now jump into headlong.

One Fine Day

My first and greatest brush with fame occurred on the first day of classes at Baylor University in the autumn of 1979.  I went to the Baylor Stadium to convince the football coaches that they needed me to walk on the football team.  As they gave me an initial physical – looking with unimpressed eyes upon my 6’2″ 180 pound frame with dubious expressions, they began to explain rather matter-of- factly that I was wasting my time trying to play division I football as a 180 pound defensive end. As I was being shown the door, I spied an obvious scholarship player sitting at the trainer’s table waiting to get his ankles wrapped.  He was a human rock. His giant muscles seemed to move with a kind of grace that I had never seen or experienced.  My sizable pride in my own strength and athleticism bowed in reverence.  I was suddenly a broken man.   With mouth gawking and eyes bulging, I stared like an art critic looks upon a Rembrandt.  I could never look like that guy, nor could I ever play like him at my favorite sport.

Two weeks later, as I read a periodical about Baylor’s star Middle Linebacker, I saw pictures of  the man I had seen two weeks earlier… It was Mike Singletary.  Yeah, that’s right, the Singletary that led the Chicago Bears to Superbowl victories and now reigns as one of the greatest pro bowlers and hall of famers the sport has ever known.  And I saw him in his underwear!

My guess is that my experience can be compared (in a very small way) to that of a guy who lived a long time ago in a little place called, Galilee.  His name was Matthew, also known as Levi, and he was a despised, lowlife tax collector for the latest and greatest oppressor called, Rome.  Though he was a Jew, he collected taxes for Rome, and this made him a traitor in the locals’ eyes.  Not only that, but Rome gave tax collectors permission to take above and beyond the tax bill to line their own pockets – pushing them way below the level of just a “traitor”.  The New Testament reveals between the lines that tax collectors hung out with the only clientele who could stand them – prostitutes and “sinners,” who were the lowest of the low.   These were the veritable “non flyers” of the day.

As Matthew was sitting at his tax table one day, Jesus walked by and said two words, “Follow me.”  Matthew got up immediately and followed.  The text in Lukes Gospel chapter 5 goes like this:

(Luke 5:27-28)   After that He went out and noticed a tax collector named Levi sitting in the tax booth, and He said to him, “Follow Me.”  And he left everything behind, and got up and began to follow Him.

Matthew saw something in Jesus that struck him with such awe that he left all his money behind when He was invited to follow.  As we read the story, we declare, “Why surely Jesus did something more, or said something more than that to challenge Matthew in such a way!”  People don’t just drop everything and follow a carpenter turned Rabbi on a wim… or do they?  Matthew saw with physical and spiritual eyes that day.  He saw something awesome!

I saw something awesome myself, but was briskly shown the door. I didn’t measure up to the group of guys around that great athlete I saw.    The tax collector didn’t measure up either.   Matthew saw the Lord of Glory, and was invited to come along. He was even asked by the King himself.  Somehow, the Holy, the Perfect, the Unattainable – stooped… and looked someone who should not be on the team in the eye, and asked him to come along.    I think that’s why Matthew was so changed by that experience, and why  I just came home with a fun story about seeing a great athlete.

Later, Matthew would write what became the first book of the New Testament.  I’d like to spend some time with you talking about Matthew’s “Gospel” about Jesus, the guy who changed his life from day one. 

My Cross Cultural Childhood

I grew up a suburban boy from Golden Colorado.  Our motto was, “Golden, where the West remains!”  Although our neighbors had horses that lived in a pasture behind our backyard – that’s the most I ever saw of the old west in my town.  I was a child of the 60′s.  And though that may mean civil rights marches, Vietnam, rock and roll and hippies to you; the 60′s were a time of playing outside with the neighbor kids, running to catch the ice cream man, and looking out the window and dreaming I was a cowboy.   I know now that we were genuine suburbanites.  We knew nothing of “the hood” that so many of our urban friends grew up in, and we certainly knew nothing about country living… That is, except for the trips of wonder and magic we took  to visit my relatives.

For the first ten years of my life, most summer weekends became journeys through time and space to my great aunt’s house in Delta, Colorado.  My parents would load up all three boys (the 4th boy came later) in the green ’66 Rambler stationwagon and drive through the Colorado mountains to what I now know as “the western slope.”  There were no freeways then, no I-70, and for sure no I-25.   No sir, we drove over mountain passes with two wheel drive cars with one kid – me – in the far back sleeping on top of suitcases without a thought of a seat belt.

As we drove along the Colorado River, our stomachs beginning to ache for hunger, I would look for the mountains tinted with red dirt across the river from Glennwood Springs.  The red mountains meant one thing to us three boys… Charcoal Broiler Drive In Burger Joint!  Dad and Mom always liked taking us to the wonderful place that served grilled burgers wrapped in paper, tidied up with a swashbuckling sword/toothpick.  Once the burger was gone, a little boy could entertain himself the rest of the way to Delta with that little sword.  The restaurant also served the most amazing milk shakes ever created.  It was here that I began my lifelong addiction to chocolate shakes… But little did I know that I was descending into another world… A veritable little boy’s wonderland called Aunt Anna’s house.

Aunt Anna was a unique woman who was ahead of her time.  She had grown up in the early 20th century and had become a woman doctor, something quite rare in those days.  She had an amazing place on the western slope that was part house, part hospital, and part farm. Everything about Anna was warm.  Her skin was kind and wrinkly, her smile welcoming.  Her whole house smelled of kindness and nurture.  The lighting of the house was dark yet comforting.  Aunt Anna was one of those real country doctors who, although she lived in the later 20th century, would trade chickens for treatment, and pig feed for penicillin.  Each day at her house was like living in heaven for a little boy.  It was here that I got my first taste of the life that awaits us beyond the grave.  God quietly and invisibly gave me Anna, a brilliant woman who lived alone in a big house to model for me the love of God.  Anna relished the sight of me!  Of me – a silly freckle faced little boy.  Cooking over her warm, coal fueled stove, Anna would fry up some fresh country eggs blackened by bacon greese.  Then she would sit down and smile at me with a twinkle in her eye, and tell me a story or two.   Aunt Anna helped me cross over from suburbia to the country.  She reminds me of my kind Master – Jesus.  Each day with Him helps me move from this blackened place to a place of righteousness and light.  My plan is to spend enough time with Him now, so that it’s not such a big transition when I cross over for good.

Pastor Randy’s Blog

Welcome to the blog of Pastor Randy Kroening from Mountain Life Church in Fort Collins, Colorado!  The “Great Adventure” awaits any who will follow Jesus Christ and be led by Him on a daily basis!  This is a casual place to talk about the adventure and to pursue Him together.

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