It was just another day at work.
Business as usual.
Cue the Dolly Parton:
Tumble out of bed. Stumble to the kitchen. Pour out the first century Judean equivalent of a cup of ambition.
Then off Matthew went to the tax booth, using his gifts for communication to extract wealth from his own people, to pay for their own occupation under the caligae of the Romans.
Those caligae—the metal studded boots worn by Roman soldiers that clicked against the stone of paved roads—created a drumbeat across the Mediterranean world signaling what passed for peace and prosperity…but only if you could pay the demanded price.
That might demand a sacrifice.
To pay the taxes demanded of them by the Romans, thousands of Judean families who had been farming the same land for as long as there was memory were dispossessed of their homes and livelihoods. In modern geopolitical terms we would call them “internally displaced.”
The socioeconomic impact of this disruption was profound… and then, as now, the churn of anxiety and trauma drove people to seek some kind of meaning and security.
“Perhaps— if we just follow the rules— go along to get along— offer the appointed sacrifices—we’ll be okay…”
Then, just as now, folks looked for someone to blame… to work out our anxieties on.
Now, some powerful man thousands of miles away is too distant— too abstract, and so is the concept of “worldly power” itself…but look! There are others! More proximal! Sinners, whose misconduct against God’s law surely must have something to do with why everything is such a dumpster fire— and tax collectors, who may not lick the caligae of the foreigners disrupting everything, but whose labor certainly contributed to the outfitting of those occupying troops. Here are ready scapegoats…people we’re willing to sacrifice as a pressure valve for our discontent.
And there is Matthew in his tax booth.
We don’t know what led him there or why.
We don’t know how he felt about any of it.
We can try to construct meaning around him, but even the gospel attributed to him tells us precious little directly about him…and given that modern scholarship generally agrees that Matthew didn’t have authorship of the book named for him, even those inferences we could make through the text are flimsy at best.
But we’re told he was in his booth.
Business as usual.
Another day, another drachmae.
And then Jesus shows up.
And Jesus calls him away from business as usual.
“And he got up and followed him.”
We’re all here, thousands of years later in a church on the edge of a business district on swindled Anishinaabe land because another Matthew got up from his business as usual to follow Jesus when he called. For our Matthew—For Father Matt— that call is to the priesthood. It’s a call to be what the late Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey describes as being:
A man of theology—of preaching and teaching.
A man of prayer—for and with and on behalf of everybody and everything.
A man of the Eucharist—as Ramsey puts it: “By his office as celebrant he symbolizes the focusing of the Eucharist in the givenness of the historic Gospel and in the continuing life of the Church rooted in that gospel.”
and finally:
A minister of reconciliation.
In accounting terms, to reconcile the books is to compare records to ensure everything is in alignment. When we’re wrestling with two or more contradictory ideas, we are trying to “reconcile” them. When people who have been out of healthy relationship for a long time come back together to try and patch things up, we say they have “reconciled.”
Theologically speaking, reconciliation is often couched in terms of sin—
If sin is that which “distorts our relationship with God, with other people, and with all creation,” then reconciliation is that which restores our relationship with God, with other people, and with all creation.
Father Matt: this is the ministry to which you’re called…to be a minister of reconciliation. You are called by Christ, through your prayer, your preaching, your teaching, your celebration of the Eucharist, and your pastoral presence, to be a minister of reconciliation.
Now, Ramsey discusses this mainly in light of the literal Rite of Reconciliation, and the very real and too often minimized existence of sin. But by my reading of not just scripture, but of our present day, this is the charism of the priest— indeed, of the church itself— which is so desperately needed.
Notice: Ramsey does not describe this charism in the same language as he does those other charisms of the priest…
(Sorry, ladies and gentlethems, but he was writing in 1972, so the gendered language is there.)
A priest is to be:
A man of theology
A man of prayer
A man of the Eucharist
But a priest is a minister of reconciliation.
Prayer, theology, even the Eucharist, are all things we can enact in the presence of God. We have far more unilateral agency there. Father Matt, you can choose to pray or not—to teach or not— to preach or not— even to celebrate or not. But you cannot enact a change of heart, a recognition of sin, or a commitment to change in others.
No matter how dearly you may wish it to be so.
No matter how death dealing the sin.
Only the Holy Spirit can do that, and only that person can choose to accept it.
So, in some way, this is a ministry of patience, of forbearance, and of— well, we’re getting there.
In the law of Moses, the way sin was reconciled was through sacrifice. If you violated God’s law, you offered the appointed sacrifice. In that way, reconciliation was something that could be enacted unilaterally, indeed, could only be achieved once the appointed sacrifice was paid.
But when God entered our own flesh and blood, when Jesus Christ came into this world, what did he do? He ate with sinners. And when questioned, what did he say?
“Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’”
Mercy, not sacrifice, is at the heart of reconciliation. Mercy is deeply rooted in empathy and solidarity.
Mercy says, “I see that you are hungry; let me feed you.”
Mercy says, “I see that you are afraid; let me encourage you.”
Mercy says, “I see that you are mourning; let me comfort you.”
When Mercy encounters a contrite heart, it doesn’t dole out shame— it offers absolution.
What God desires is not sacrifice, though we may freely offer it. What God desires is reconciliation—realignment—the laying aside of business as usual to enter into a real and abiding relationship.
And that requires mercy.
That is what Jesus calls all of us to— real, heartfelt, reconciled relationship, grounded in that very grace and mercy God extends to us.
Our brother in Christ, Father Matt, is called to this particular ministry, for his part.
Trinity Church is called to carry out this mission in this place.
But all of us as baptized members of the body of Christ are called to this same work.
Jesus calls us away from business as usual, from transactional ways of living, to follow him, and in so doing, to participate in the healing, the restoration, and the reconciliation of relationship with God, with other people, and with all Creation.
Matt, my friend:
God has equipped you with everything you need to do this work in Jesus’ name.
Though there are some things which you will have to bear that can make you feel isolated in your ministry, when those moments come, I want you to remember that you have been called by Jesus—just like Matthew the Evangelist—to share the gospel.
And I want you to remember the faces of all your colleagues here tonight at a mid-week evening service in a far off corner of the diocese. I want you to remember all the people tuning into this livestream to witness this moment in the life of God’s church.
But most of all, I want you to remember that the very God who chose to live a very human life—
to live and die as a colonized day laborer turned street preacher
on the edge of an empire,
who suffered and endured pain and torture at the hands of the powerful
and still offered forgiveness and comfort
til the end that defeated all ends—
that God of grace and mercy is with you.
And is with all of us. World without end.
Amen.
To watch/listen to the Gospel proclamation and sermon, click here.