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For several
years in the late-1970’s and early-1980’s, I assisted at St. Thomas the
Apostle Church in Chicago which is the Catholic parish serving
University of Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park. Built in the
1920’s, the church is a national historical landmark because it is the
first building constructed that is as long as it is wide with no
supporting columns. The exterior walls provide support to the roof
while structural steel beams—newly invented several years earlier—are
what support the ornate ceiling.
The architect of
the church, Barry Byrne, conceived of it according to the principles of
Frank Lloyd Wright’s “prairie school” of architecture while, at the same
time, ridding the interior of accretions to church architecture having
their origins with the Renaissance. The result is a wide open and
very modern looking church with a warm and inviting interior.
Byrne placed the congregation almost right up against the altar to
encourage participation in the Eucharist, as St. Pius X had begun
recommending as early as 1904. [Remember that prior to Vatican II
and its liturgical reforms, architects placed the congregation at a
distance from the altar, separated from the sanctuary by an altar rail.]
For me, one of the
most noteworthy aspects of St. Thomas the Apostle Church is its stained
glass windows. Studying them a bit, one will find the Fathers of
the Eastern Church enshrined in the western windows gazing eastward and
the Fathers of the Western Church enshrined in the eastern windows
gazing westward. Probing a bit further, the faces of the Fathers
of the Church are some rather familiar faces. The face of Woodrow
Wilson, the very face found on the Woodrow Wilson dime, is one of
Fathers. The face of George Washington found on the dollar bill
provides the face for another one of the Fathers. I have been told
that the architect’s
daughter is another face. And, the face of St. Thomas the Apostle
is none other than that of the founding pastor.
Not just at St.
Thomas the Apostle Church but at churches both nationally and
internationally, architects and artists have enshrined visages of family
members, friends, political figures, foes, and the like in stained glass
windows. It’s
a way of memorializing people throughout the centuries.
Today’s
gospel offers something similar, that is, an autobiographical note.
In it, Matthew describes the day Jesus passed by Matthew’s customs
post and said, “Follow me.” Amazingly, Matthew’s response to these two
words is immediate. He gets up and leaves his post―the source
of his sizeable income and quite comfortable lifestyle―to follow Jesus.
Thinking about
this autobiographical note, if this were the image Matthew desired the
readers of his gospel to have upon reading about this scene, it’d be
quite a self-serving if not prideful rendition, wouldn’t it? Imagine
the chutzpah it would take if one of us was to insert our story into
the gospel of Jesus Christ―depicting oneself as the paragon of
selflessness by leaving everything behind―suggesting to others this is
what they must do to become disciples. Promoting oneself as the “poster
boy” of responding to Jesus’ call to discipleship...that’s pretty
self-serving and prideful, isn’t it?
Likewise, if this
were the image Matthew desired his readers to have upon reading his
autobiographical note, he’d also have set the standard for discipleship
so high―the requirement being that those who wish to follow Jesus must leave
everything behind―only
a very few people likely would respond in the affirmative if Jesus was to pass
by and say, “Follow me.” And for those few who did respond, they’d better
be careful because―like the Pharisees―they might become deluded, having
a false sense of security believing that God is indebted to them.
After all, these few―those “called” and “chosen”―might think, “I responded when all of those
others didn’t. God owes me something for that!”
I sincerely doubt
that Matthew
intended to convey either impression. I suspect the evangelist’s
intentions were quite the opposite.
Matthew―whose
name in Hebrew means “one who follows” (or, in English, “disciple”
coming from the Latin, discipulus, or “student of the discipline”)―tells
his readers that he was
a tax collector. In the eyes of his fellow Jews, there was no more
despicable of a person in the Jewish community than a tax collector. Not
simply because he determined the amount of tax each person had to pay
and collected those taxes. But more so because he collected taxes for
the Roman occupying government adding on, of course, a surcharge for
himself. How else would a tax collector like Matthew earn such a
sizeable income and be able to afford all of life’s luxuries?
Furthermore, if a Jew didn’t pay his taxes plus the surcharge, the tax
collector called out members of the local Roman legion to visit this
individual’s home to persuade him―brandishing swords and clubs if
necessary―of the benefits
of paying up plus and, of course, an additional surcharge to reimburse the legionnaires
for their efforts. It was the ancient equivalent of being audited by the
IRS and having IRS agents drive up to your home in a van in order to seize your
assets to pay back taxes.
For the Jewish
people, a tax collector was despicable―viewed by many as perhaps the
worst of sinners―not only because he was a traitor to the Jewish people
and their national aspirations but also because he practiced extortion
upon his own people.
This is the
rather unflattering story Matthew relates in his autobiographical note.
Jesus called what other people regarded as the most despicable of sinners, not
the most pious and fervent people to follow him. Moreover, Jesus did so
not by asking, inviting, or pleading. No, Jesus walked right up to
Matthew’s “den of iniquity” where he plied his awful trade and said:
“Follow me.” There were no if’s, and’s, or but’s, nor does Matthew note
that there was there any discussion, haggling, or negotiating like
parents who experience troubles with getting their teenaged children to
attend Mass on Sunday. “Just do it,” as the Nike ad, states is
what Jesus said.
Oftentimes, I’ve
heard preachers at religious professions and ordinations use this gospel
to describe what is taking place in the solemn ritual as women and men
vow themselves to live in religious community as sisters and brothers or
as men dedicate themselves to serve the People of God as priests.
I’ve also heard many preachers use this particular gospel to challenge
young people to consider how Jesus may be calling them, like Matthew, to
follow him along the pathway of a religious vocation.
While homilies
like these are inspirational, I think the homilists have missed the
point Matthew is making in order to make their point. Jesus didn’t call
those whose lives gave any evidence of a superior standard of holiness
or perfection; nor did Jesus call models of religious piety and fervor
to follow him.
Quite the opposite! By telling Matthew―a tax collector―to follow him,
Jesus called the very person most pious and fervent Jews not only knew
was least qualified to be a disciple, but someone most pious and fervent
Jews detested because that person’s career and lifestyle gave de
facto proof that he was deserving of public condemnation. No truly
pious or fervent Jew would every associate with the likes of Matthew.
But, this is the person to whom Jesus said: “Follow me.”
Jesus did not
call paragons of holiness to discipleship because, as Matthew learned
from Jesus in his very first lesson at the dinner meal following that
life-changing meeting, God desires mercy not
sacrifice and Jesus came to call sinners not the righteous.
“Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do,” Jesus
taught.
So what’s the
lesson in Matthew’s autobiographical note for us?
Jesus calls
sinners―people who do evil things by disobeying God’s commands―to be his
disciples not the righteous who spend their time fulfilling all
of the laws and prescriptions associated with God’s commandments. Jesus calls
sinners―people who have trusted in themselves not in God and who have
first-hand experience in what it’s like to wander very far away from
God―to be his disciples not those who use their piety and
religious fervor as the standard for judging others. Jesus calls
sinners―people who need God’s mercy because of the awful choices they’ve
made and for all of the hurt they’ve inflicted upon themselves and
others―to be his disciples not those who busy themselves wagging
their fingers at and gossiping about the sinful deeds of others.
It’s to these
people―to the most despicable of sinners like Matthew―that Jesus says: “Follow me.” Leave all
of that behind and put it in your past, Jesus says, and learn that God desires mercy not
sacrifice and that I have come to call sinners not the
righteous. “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick
do,” Jesus said.
Who are those
people?
Well, it’s you
and me, to be sure because, after all, every one of us has sinned and
stands in need of God’s mercy. The question is: Do we desire to experience God’s
mercy? Those who do are the people, like Matthew, to whom Jesus says
“Follow me.”
But it’s also all
of those people who you and me look down upon and judge harshly because they
don’t meet the high standards we have set for them. You and I know who
they are. They’re the people we condemn for their shortcomings,
failures, and sins as well as for all of those things they’ve done that we
don’t like or who have hurt us and we believe we’re fully and
completely justified in holding grudges against. These are the
people who need God’s mercy, like Matthew’s detractors, to whom Jesus
also says “Follow me.”
Matthew is not
suggesting that the practice of faith and its rituals is not important.
What Matthew is suggesting is that God desires something more than
“going through the motions” and fulfilling the letter of the law in
order to justify ourselves before God. What, then, is it that God desires?
God desires only that we offer all of those sinners the same gift that God
has already given us in his Son, namely, the gift of mercy…of not
holding their past against them and using it as a club to beat them into
submission. Mercy is not something we believe. No, it’s something we
freely give to sinners, just as Jesus did with Matthew.
Contemplating
this very challenging spiritual lesson, isn’t it really much easier to
fulfill the letter of the law than to live the spirit of the law?
Conforming to external rules and participating in formal religious
ceremonies and activities are things we can count and verify, as if we
need to prove to God that we are holy. But, if we just stop to
think for a moment, all of these things—as good as they are—can also
provide a false sense of security as we deceive ourselves into believing
that God is indebted to us for following the rules and participating in
religious ceremonies and activities. In today’s first reading, the
prophet Hosea told us differently, namely, that God desires human beings
to know and love God not to manipulate God’s through external religious
practices like sacrifices and holocausts of animals. “I desire mercy and
not sacrifice” is what Hosea said that God truly desires.
When Jesus said
“Follow me” to Matthew, these two words undoubtedly changed his life.
Matthew left his everything behind―the evidence of his sinful past―and
began a journey in discipleship where his first lessons concerned how
God desires mercy not sacrifice and how Jesus came to call
sinners not the righteous. “Those who are well do not need a
physician, but the sick do,” Jesus said. Matthew’s autobiographical
note isn’t a self-serving and prideful rendition setting an impossible
standard and enshrining himself in his gospel as a paragon of holiness, but an exquisite lesson about the humility
all of us need if we are
to experience God’s mercy by responding wholeheartedly to Jesus command
to “Follow me.” |
HOMILY
