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.
