Feast of St. Matthew

By Fr. Rick

This morning I want to engage your imagination. I want you to imagine a United States different from the one in which we currently live. Imagine our country as having been overrun by another world power and we live in subjection to that world power. It is an oppressive situation for us especially with regard to something I daresay we all treasure – freedom of speech.

This world power demands of us considerable taxes which are not generally spent on services and programs for our benefit as a people. And there is no explanation given to us of how the monies are spent – transparency is not the practice of this oppressive world power. Now let’s say that there are some American citizens who, oddly enough, benefit from this oppression we feel as a people. Certainly there are collaborators at a governing level – citizens in leadership positions appointed by this foreign power to ensure no one rocks the boat. In the best practice of political-ease, they encourage us to see the benefit of the situation by saying it could be worse.

But there are others who are not at this high level of leadership, yet they still benefit from our oppression. These people collect the taxes that the world power requires of us. Not only do they collect the taxes, they add a service charge for their own salary because the world power doesn’t pay them. Some of these people live in very, very nice houses and drive the most elegant upper-end automobiles. How would you feel towards these opportunist collaborators?

If you think that you would be angry toward them, see them as traitors, or treat them as outcasts, then you would understand what people in first-century Israel felt toward their fellow countrymen who were tax collectors. Like them, you may be like some of the first-century pious and not allow your family members to marry into a family that had a tax collector as a member.

Today, we celebrate the memory of first-century tax collector, or I should say, former tax collector St. Matthew the Apostle, our church’s patron . In the reading, we hear of passing the booth where Matthew sat collecting taxes. Jesus invites him to follow Him; Matthew gets up, leaves his booth and joins the itinerant Preacher. The next we know, Jesus is in the home of a tax collector with others who are that society’s outcasts, and eats with them. Some strong people of religion are aghast. Jesus tells them simply that He has come to call not the righteous but sinners.

Matthew follows Jesus through the rest of Jesus’ ministry as do the other close disciples of Jesus. When the resurrected appears in the upper room, Matthew is there. When the resurrected Christ sends the disciples out to continue proclaiming the reign of God is at hand, Matthew is there. Although we do not have historical records of just what Matthew did, we have a tradition that tells us that Matthew preached and converted many people to Christianity in and then travelled to the East, where he was eventually martyred.

We have a Gospel named after him that was probably not written by him, but could contain some of sayings and stories of Jesus that he heard and witnessed. More than likely, he shared with a community of Christians, one which he may have founded, these sayings and stories. Eventually they were written down to form the Gospel named after him.

On June 18, 1964, a successor of the Apostles through many generations of , Harte approved the founding of a new church in the diocese of Arizona, the Episcopal Church of St. Matthew. The Rev. Stewart Barr was appointed its Vicar, and then later when the mission became a parish, he became Rector. Today sitting and standing in worship in this house of prayer is the Episcopal Church of St. Matthew. You are the Episcopal Church of St. Matthew. The church is not this building. This is the church’s house of prayer where we meet to pray as a people of God united in spite of our various differences. I do not know how St. Matthew the Apostle was chosen as our , but we are fortunate to have been named after him. Why? Matthew was a person who knew that his profession carried with it a constant temptation to cheat people, take advantage of them and report them to the occupying power for punishment if they did not pay their taxes. He also knew he was despised by his fellow countrymen. He knew he was a sinner. To what extent did he practice extortion on them? We don’t know, but we can say there must have been some ill ease within him to respond to the wandering healer, Jesus, as he did.

Within the Gospel bearing Matthew’s name are countless insights given to us to strengthen our trust in God and in the One who reveals God’s nature as love, Jesus. Within this spiritual treasury are the exhortations to love one another including people who are opposed to us, to forgive one another every time we are wronged, to treat people in need as the presence of Christ. For Matthew to hear these exhortations from Jesus after living the life of a tax collector must have been exhilarating. He became awakened to seeing the value in himself and others God sees in each of us as children of God.

Today, October 5, 2014, the message of Jesus that Matthew shared with his community remains the same he shares with this community named after him. We may not see ourselves as the sinner that Matthew saw himself to be. But we know who we are through our personal histories and our present situations. We are not perfect. But we can learn from Matthew that God is with us and that how we live our lives helps grow that presence in our interactions with others. We the Episcopal Church of St. Matthew are a loving and serving people. And it is our goal to become even more loving and more serving, to reflect Christ in our lives.

Today, we celebrate 50 years of being the Episcopal Church of St. Matthew, along with our fellow members who have moved from us to be closer to God after having lived their lives, along with those who will come after us once we have lived our lives. We owe it to God, to Jesus who reveals God’s nature, to the Episcopal Church of St. Matthew who gave of themselves so that we can be here today, and to those who will be the Episcopal Church of St. Matthew of tomorrow who will benefit from what we leave them through our own lives and sacrifices, to be the children of God active in extending ourselves for others and being a people who seek and serve Christ in one another.

Living our identity is not easy but we can be encouraged by a man who almost 2,000 years ago responded to the itinerant Preacher, Healer and Child of God, Jesus. Matthew, like his Teacher, gave of himself so others may live the message of God’s love. We are to give of ourselves for that same reason.

God grant you strength! Happy Anniversary!