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He said to him, "Follow me."
And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him.
We, as much as Matthew, have been called by Jesus. But Matthew was successful in making a break with his past life more profoundly than most of us. Was this all because he found his own situation so distasteful that it was easy to grasp at any sliver of hope? Was he so isolated that any acceptance would do? It couldn't have been that simple. He had become a tax collector for a reason in spite of it making him a pariah. He depended on that income, having been unable to find another way to live. There had to have been something more compelling about Jesus' offer than it being a mere unlikely chance. There must have been something more desirable about his acceptance than that of others, given that Matthew at least already had friends who were tax collectors. He must have heard the call of Jesus more clearly and more for what it really was than most of us seem to have done.
When we are called by Jesus it is not like being called by anyone else. In his call we experience being chosen in a way that no mere mortal could ever choose us. He sees all of our liabilities and is no less insistent because of them. He is far more certain of our potential than we are. If we came to Jesus on the basis of self-evaluation no one would come. We would either see ourselves as too sinful or too perfect. We could easily believe that we have too little potential or ability to benefit Jesus, that there would be literally millions that would be more effective disciples than ourselves. Or we our potential is so great and our current work so important that we ignore the need that both we and the world have for salvation.
"Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?"
Jesus said to them in reply,
"Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.
I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners."
We have to understand how much we need Jesus in order to receive all that he has for us. And we also have to believe in his ability to heal us in order to entrust ourselves to him. This is why faith is the gateway to new life. As with Matthew it isn't really the case that we come to faith through rigorous preparation. Even those of us who start out as seekers don't find the answer merely as the result of searching it out. God was in fact already seeking us before we started. Therefore being found by him is always a surprise, because it is unearned, and even unimaginable. It is the gaze of Jesus that finds us at our own customs posts where we have been frittering away the hours of our days and awakens faith in our hearts.
Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house,
and a large crowd of tax collectors
and others were at table with them.
Matthew probably wouldn't have predicted Jesus would want to have a banquet with his old friends, many of whom were tax collectors. Before being chosen he would have suspected that it was only on the basis of his conversion that Jesus would choose to fellowship with him. But Jesus demonstrated his love for people even before they were able to make any change on their own. Just his very presence was an invitation. Part of his call of Matthew, which Matthew would never have predicted, was precisely that he could be a way for Jesus to reach out to his friends, many of whom were in similar situations, and might respond in the same way as Matthew had.
When we hear the call of Jesus we recognize all of the promise and potential spoken of by the prophet Isaiah:
He will renew your strength,
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring whose water never fails.
The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt for your sake,
and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up;
""Repairer of the breach,"" they shall call you,
""Restorer of ruined homesteads.""
Matthew needed this renewal, but so do we. He had ruins that needed to be rebuilt. But so does our world, and so do we. Let us become more aware of the gaze of Jesus so that we too come to believe that this is possible and desirable. We tend to think it impossible because for humans it is. But not for God.
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