Dear Friends,
It’s been weighing on me that I don’t do more for the people who so generously support this ministry. I feel a real debt of gratitude to each of you who helps bring Message From the Margins to life, and today I wanted to give you something extra.
You’ve already received today’s reflection, and another will arrive tomorrow. But today is also the Feast of Saint Matthew. Around here, we quote his Gospel more than all the others combined. I couldn’t let his feast pass without spending some time with him.
Most of us have heard that Matthew was a tax collector, that tax collectors were despised, and that Jesus called him anyway. We can become so familiar with that story that we stop asking what it meant.
What did his work cost the neighbors who paid him? What might it have meant for the other disciples to welcome him? And how did the witness of this man become part of the faith you and I practice today?
That’s where we’re going in this special edition, from the customs post into the Gospel that has taught so many of us how to recognize Christ in another person. Along the way, we’ll meet some of the surprising traditions surrounding Matthew, and I’ll share a hope for this ministry’s future that bears his name.
My hope is that you’ll come away knowing Matthew as a friend, and hearing the Gospel you thought you knew with fresh ears.
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To those who have already raised your hand to say, “We’re going to make this special community last for decades to come,” this is my thanks. You help me believe that future is possible.
Your Brother in Christ,
Getting to Know Matthew
The man at the customs post, the Gospel we love, and the calling that still reaches us.
I was at the DMV yesterday, thinking about Saint Matthew. I was literally praying that I would not have to pay an excessive tax to register my car in New York, so the joke just writes itself. I didn’t give the poor worker a lecture on today’s Feast day, however. They have suffered enough.
Today is his feast, and I didn’t want to let it pass. We love Matthew here at Message From the Margins. We quote his Gospel more than all the others combined. If you have been reading along for any length of time, you have spent quite a bit of time in his company, whether you realized it or not.
He is there when we talk about the Beatitudes. He is there when we pray the Our Father. And whenever Father gets going about feeding hungry people, welcoming strangers, or visiting someone everyone else has forgotten, you can reasonably suspect Matthew is somewhere nearby, encouraging the behavior.
But how well do we know him?
Most of us can supply the basics. Tax collector. Apostle. Evangelist. Jesus called him, he followed, and eventually somebody gave him a feast day. We have heard that account often enough to stop being surprised by it.
I want to slow it down today. Because once we understand what Matthew was doing when Jesus found him, the calling becomes considerably more uncomfortable. And once we spend some time with the witness preserved under his name, we begin to recognize how much this man has already helped shape our lives.