Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist – Readings

Commentary on Ephesians 4:1-7,11-13; Matthew 9:9-13

The Gospel reading tells Matthew’s version of Jesus calling a tax-collector to be a disciple. Tax collectors have a very poor reputation in the Gospel. They are numbered among the groups of outcasts with whom no decent person would have any contact. In Palestine, most of them would have been Jews, employed by the Roman colonial power to collect taxes from their own people. Roman citizens did not have to pay taxes; only the conquered peoples had to do this.

So tax collectors were seen both as renegades and traitors, and also as people who were in gross violation of their Jewish faith in working for Gentiles in this way. Even Jesus, when speaking of members of the Christian community who refuse to change their sinful ways in spite of every effort made to help them reform, said:

…let such a one be to you as a gentile and a tax collector. (Matt 18:17)

The Jewish tax collector was put on the same level as a Gentile, a person with whom no self-respecting Jew would have any relationship.

And here, in today’s reading, we see Jesus inviting such a person to be his disciple! This tells us a number of things about Jesus. It means that he does not look at stereotypes. He does not say, “He is a tax collector, so he must be a very sinful person with whom I should have no contact.” No, he looks at the person and sees the potential there. And in Matthew he sees the potential for him to be one of his followers, and indeed one of his Apostles, on whom the continuation of Jesus’ mission will depend. For Jesus, our past is not very important. What counts is where we are now and where we can be in the future.

After Jesus says to Matthew, “Follow me”, the tax collector gets up and goes after Jesus, leaving all the paraphernalia of his occupation behind him. It is very similar to Peter, Andrew, James and John leaving their boats, their nets and even their family to go with Jesus. It is an unconditional and total following.

Matthew then decides to celebrate his new calling. He invites Jesus and his disciples and also the only friends he has—other sinners and tax collectors. They all sit down together in ‘his’ house. Whose house? It could be the house where Jesus is staying, a house mentioned a number of times in the Gospels and which is a symbol of the Christian community, the place where Jesus gathers with his disciples.

Here, tax collectors and sinners are invited into the house to eat together with Jesus and his followers. This does not indicate that Jesus does not care about their behaviour, but rather that they are being brought under his influence; they are the ‘lost sheep’ being brought back to the Shepherd.

Or it could refer to Matthew’s house. In that case, we see Jesus and his disciples unhesitatingly going into the house of a sinner and accepting his hospitality. Of course, the Pharisees are scandalized:

Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?

As devout followers of the Law, they would never have contact with such people. How can Jesus as a rabbi behave like this?

Jesus answers them very bluntly:

Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

Matthew and his friends are people in need of healing. Jesus is there to give it to them. And Jesus quotes from the prophet Hosea:

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice. (Hosea 6:6)

Jesus and his true followers are measured by their compassion and care of those in real need. They are not measured by their observation of ritual laws.

In fact, says Jesus, he has come with a special interest in the sinner. Genuinely good people do not really need the services of Jesus. They are the sheep who stay with the flock and close to the Shepherd. Jesus is interested in the stray sheep. This reading has many lessons for us living our Christian life today.

The First Reading from the Letter to the Ephesians is a prayer for unity in a Church where there are many different responsibilities. The Church is the Body of the Risen Christ and, like any body, is a unified organism in which each of its parts has a role to play in contributing to the whole. The source of this unity is that:

…there is one body and one Spirit…one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all…

But unity is not uniformity. Unity is when different elements merge together in perfect harmony. So Paul goes on to say that there are different callings and responsibilities in the community. And he mentions a few of them—apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. But there are many others. The purpose of these ministries is to equip the members of the community for the work of service and for building up the Body of Christ. It is a beautiful picture of a Christian community—all deeply united in faith and love, and yet each one serving the community with a different responsibility.

We remember Matthew, of course, as an Apostle and also an Evangelist. It was through these charisms that he contributed to the building up of the Church as the Body of the Risen Christ.

Let each one of us recognise the charism in us by which we can serve and build up the Christian community. Let us work together for greater unity while celebrating our diversity so that God’s Word can find fertile root in as many of God’s children as possible.

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Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

Matthew, who is called Levi by Mark and Luke, was a tax collector, a Jew working for the Roman colonising power. It is not surprising that Jews who did this work were objects of contempt (especially as the Romans did not collect tax from their own citizens). As recorded in today’s Gospel reading, Matthew left his business to become a disciple of Jesus, and indeed one of the Twelve Apostles.

Matthew is spoken of five times in the New Testament; first in Matthew (9:9), when called by Jesus to follow Him, and then four times in the lists of the Apostles, where he is mentioned in the seventh (Luke 6:15 and Mark 3:18), or eighth place (Matthew 10:3 and Acts 1:13). As the account in the three Synoptics is identical, it is presumed that Matthew and Levi refer to the same person, although this is disputed. Levi could have been his original Jewish name. This is indicated by Matthew’s Gospel referring to the tax collector as someone “named Matthew”. It was quite common for Jews to have two names. He is not mentioned in John’s Gospel.

From very early times, Matthew has been traditionally regarded as the author of one of the four Gospels, to which both Irenaeus and Papias, early Christian writers, give witness. This Gospel was written late in the 1st century and, based on similarity of material, is presumed to be dependent on Mark which is believed to have been the first Gospel to be written. It is a very Jewish work and is clearly directed to Jewish converts. The original is thought to have been written in Aramaic or Hebrew although we now only have the Greek version. Matthew’s Gospel (in contrast with Mark’s) concentrates a good deal on the teaching of Jesus and for that reason was used widely in the Church for catechetical teaching.

Each of the four evangelists is represented by a symbol taken from the Old Testament. Matthew is represented as a man. This is because the genealogy he places at the beginning of his Gospel speaks of the human ancestry of Jesus.

One tradition says he went to Ethiopia and preached the Gospel there, confirming his teaching with many miracles. Because of one of his greatest miracles—that of bringing back to life the king’s daughter—the king and his wife, together with the whole country became Christians. When the king died, his successor Hirtacus wished to marry Iphigenia, the daughter of the former king. But she had vowed her virginity to God and would not change. Because the vow had been taken through Matthew’s influence, Hirtacus had Matthew killed. It was believed that this happened on 21 September, hence the date of his feast.

However, the Martyrology of Jerome says he died at Tarrium in Persia, while other sources say it was at Tarsuana, east of the Persian Gulf. What are claimed to be his relics were brought to Salerno in Italy by Robert Guiscard from Finisterre in Brittany where it is said they had been originally brought from Ethiopia. Later, under Pope Gregory VII, they were transferred to the church dedicated to St Matthew.

In art, Matthew is represented as either an evangelist or an Apostle. As an evangelist he sits at a desk, writing his Gospel with an angel guiding his hand or holding an inkwell. As an Apostle he is shown with the emblem of martyrdom—a spear or sword or lance. He may also be shown holding a money-bag, representing his original profession. In the later Middle Ages he may even be shown wearing glasses, to help read his accounts!

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