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Morning Meditation
September 22, 2025
St. Matthew
Reading: Matthew 9:9-13
As Jesus was walking along, 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.
And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax-collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?’ But when he heard this, he said, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’
Meditation by Jeremy O’Neill
Today is the feast of St. Matthew, and the text for today includes the very simple story of Jesus calling Matthew to be a disciple. I am always struck by how brief this interaction is, as Matthew doesn’t ask who Jesus is, where they are going, or any other questions for that matter. If we are to believe the story happened as described, it is fair to say that Matthew both really trusted Jesus and really trusted his own intuition to get up and follow Jesus so readily.
Though this may seem strange to us. people sometimes do have moments where they make quick decisions which change the course of their lives. You hear stories of people saying “I turned my life around” as if making a sudden change of direction. In reality we might be better off trying to consider our options and avoiding rash decisions, this act of faith and trusting one’s heart is commendable. Planning can only get us so far, and our hearts must kick in at some point.
The significance of the place from which Matthew is called helps explain the next portion of the passage. Matthew, a man who went on to become one of the most well-known Saints of the church and has had thousands of grand structures named after him, started life as a tax collector. His career and the social status associated with it would be very different from our impressions of present day financial workers, and would have made him an outcast. On tax collectors, James Kiefer writes:
Devout Jews avoided them because they were usually dishonest (the job carried no salary, and they were expected to make their profits by cheating the people from whom they collected taxes). Patriotic and nationalistic Jews hated them because they were agents of the Roman government, the conquerors, and hated them with a double hatred if (like Matthew) they were Jews, because they had gone over to the enemy, had betrayed their own people for money.
So Jesus picks someone who was disliked by society and held a job that was associated with stealing and dishonesty. Therefore, Jesus was able to see past the expectations society placed on Matthew because of his job and see him for his humanity. This is a helpful reminder to us in a society that frequently disrespects people based on their occupation and undervalues the labor of those in “less desirable” ways of supporting themselves. If we say someone is “just a {insert occupation}” we are not recognizing the fullness of their humanity and are reducing them to all of our expectations of that profession. This is the opposite of what Jesus does.
Jesus is later criticized for eating with tax collectors and sinners. He seems unbothered by this comment, and would hope that we would respond in similar ways if the comment were directed at us. If Jesus were around today, he would not follow the social conventions wherein we think some individuals are more important than others. His table is open to all, and there are no qualifications required to break bread with Jesus no matter who you are.
This leads to the last line of the passage: I have come to call not the righteous but sinners. That means all of us. That means the people we don’t like or the people we pretend not to see or the people we look down upon, knowingly and unknowingly. We are all called to be a part of this Good News, and we are all welcomed to the table no matter who we are.
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