As he passed by, he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus,
sitting at the customs post.
If Matthew had been asked the day before about the possibility of leaving his current life to follow a teacher and healer such as Jesus he probably would have considered it an impossibility. He would likely have assumed he would be unable to leave the customs post to which he was so accustomed. In many ways it wasn't an ideal situation. But it was what he knew. It would be hard to even conceive of a situation which would make him radically upend his status quo. Remaining was safe. Any other option that was different and new was fraught with the danger of a thousand different possibilities for failure. That would have been true even without his reputation as a tax collector, which of itself seemed to close almost any open door of possibility. His friends were all tax collectors and sinners. They certainly weren't offering him any drastically new paths. Both his own self-image and his social standing made it impossible for him to imagine any change in his life, even if a part of him might have sometimes wished for it. And yet.
Jesus said to him, “Follow me.”
And he got up and followed Jesus.
When Matthew accepted the invitation from Jesus he implicitly chose to believe Jesus about the possibility of a new and different future. Up to that moment he envisioned a future that would not admit of doubt or change. But when Jesus invited him it really did open up a whole new world. Someone other than Jesus inviting Matthew to come along for whatever reason could potentially reassure him, that he was wanted, but he would still have had to say no, since the conditions of his reality were fundamentally unaltered. But with the invitation of Jesus his past no longer needed to determine his future. It was something that only Jesus could offer. He didn't need to spell it out. It was all implicit in the invitation.
While he was at table in his house,
many tax collectors and sinners sat with Jesus and his disciples;
for there were many who followed him.
The invitation of Jesus had the effect of inverting Matthew's whole life. Previously society and his friends were the ones who determined his identity. Now influence flowed in the other direction, from Jesus, through Matthew, to his friends and the world around him. In choosing to be conformed to Jesus he was no longer conformed to the world around him. He was free in a way he never imagined possible.
“Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
Where are we this morning? Are we sitting at a customs post that we that we believe we cannot abandon? Or are we rather like the Pharisees who refused to acknowledge that their lives needed to change, unwilling to accept that there was something better than the level for which they had settled? We get free from such things, not by analyzing our strengths and weaknesses and determining our own action plan, but by listening to the call of Jesus, to sharing a feast with him, and by being willing to taste and see the goodness of the promises he offers.
Newsboys - I Am Free (Who The Son Sets Free)
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