matthew - Matthew 9:9, Luke, 5:27 mark 2:13-17
As far back as I can remember I was a bit of a misfit. I was very smart at school and could read both Hebrew and Greek easily by the time I was ten. I was also good with figures, but my sharp intellect made me unpopular with boys my own age. My parents, Alpheus and Magda, were older than most and I was an only child, which also singled me out as unusual amongst my peers. I tended to keep myself to myself and by the time I was a young man I found myself living alone and reasonably happily self sufficient. I had found employment initially with the temple money changers because I had no difficulty in doing the exchange rate calculations between Greek and Roman coinage and the temple shekles. But the work was uninteresting and after a couple of years I found myself itching to do something more challenging.
When the Roman prefect Pilate came to power when I was in my late teens, he appointed tax collectors to oversee the collection of temple and import taxes in Jerusalem. I was recruited for my experience and ability , but also because there were very few Jews who would even consider doing the job. My people disliked the Romans greatly, but they positively despised Pilate who was a provocative and vindictive ruler who seemed to take great delight in annoying the Jews. Twice he had deeply offended our religious rulers by placing graven images on shields around the temple precinct. He had announced that these were as a homage to Emperor Tiberius. But everyone believed that he had just done it to antagonise the people - which it did.
Suffice it to say that when I was recruited onto Pilate's payroll I became even less popular than I already was. I didnt mind too much what people thought. The job payed well and someone had to do it. I reasoned that if it wasn't me it would be someone else. And I enjoyed the lifestyle that my healthy pay packet afforded me. I was able to buy a large property in a good area of town, and despite the fact that my neighbours largely shunned me, I lived a comfortable and relatively stress free life. I socialised a little with the other tax collectors and some of the temple money changers but mostly I kept myself to myself. Most days of the week I would sit at my table near the harbour wall and collect taxes from the ships docking there - the Romans demanded both import and export tariffs on all goods ; most business owners complained that the rates were too high and therefore I had to deal daily with difficult customers trying to wriggle their way out of paying the proper rates.
I had little sympathy for those who were paying me. They were all able to pass on the costs to their customers, and if this inflated the price of goods in the local markets.....well, that was life. I didnt particularly agree with the methods adopted by some of my colleagues who demanded back-handers and sometimes resorted to extortion to allow certain shipments to enter the ports. But I wasnt one to be swayed by sob stories of supposed poverty and hardship. I had a job to do and I was good at it. My Roman paymasters treated me well and if my own people thought little of me I wasnt too worried.
The day I met Jesus was a day like any other. I was sitting at my table by the harbour writing in my ledger and checking off the goods which had arrived in that day against my lists. I was busy so I didnt look up when the group of men walked past me. But then they stopped and the one who appeared to be their leader sat on the harbour wall and started into some sort of lecture. At first I didnt pay much attention but after a while I found myself listening in to this man who was talking about a new Kingdom. I pricked up my ears, conscious that a regime change would almost certainly mean that I would lose my job. This Kingdom, he said, would be like a mustard seed, starting small and then growing into something enormous. It would be like a pearl lost in a field, it would be like a son who ran away from home and then came back to a waiting father. The more this man spoke and the more stories he told the more fascinated I became. I realised that I had been listening to him for quite a while when all of a sudden he looked right at me and said ' Levi ' ( nobody had called me Levi since my parents died, these days I was called by my Roman name, Matteus so I had no idea how he knew my name) why don't you come and follow me? I would love you to join our merry band'
I was stunned. I almost looked round to see if he was talking to someone else. This was a Jew, and clearly a prominent Rabbi or someone important. He must have known what I was doing sitting at my table at the docks, and yet here he was asking me if I would join his group. I could see that the suggestion wasnt going down terribly well with some of the other men there. They were looking at each other and muttering among themselves. But the main man was looking at me and smiling. He got up from the wall and waved to me to follow him as he set off down the road. And suddenly I found myself stepping out from behind my table, gathering my things, and starting off down the road after him. I had no idea why, but I was intrigued by what I had heard, and I realised that something deep inside me had jumped at the chance to be included, and invited and welcomed. If not by the rest of them then at least by him.
A couple of days later the whole group was gathered in my home. I had invited them all to dinner because I really wanted some of my tax collector friends to meet Jesus too. He was such an interesting man and the acceptance he showed to everyone he met was ..... well, it was sort of healing. It had been such a long time since I had done any entertaining that I was actually quite nervous. But Jesus put me at ease, complimenting me on my home, enjoying the wine, shaking hands with my friends and generally being super relaxed and friendly. Before long people were tucking into the food and laughing and chattering as if they had all been best friends forever. Later on I noticed how often Jesus was able to do this with a group of people. He seemed to have the ability to get folk from all sorts of different backgrounds and customs to relax together and have fun. He really was the life and soul of the party.
Of course the religious lot weren't particularly happy. I knew they were grumbling and complaining that this Rabbi was associating with tax collectors and other ' undesirables'. But as I later came to understand, Jesus wasnt really interested in the traditional religious people. He wanted to reach the outcast, the marginalised and those who didnt belong. His teaching was all about how God loved the least and the lost. How the poor people were as valuable to Him as lost pearls and that God was waiting for His people to return to him like sons who had strayed into sin but who had turned to come back home again. In meeting Jesus I started to see that I was one of those who was lost and that I desperately needed to hear that I was loved and accepted and had a place where I could belong. I started to believe again in the God of my early childhood, as did many of my money-changing friends. I never went back to collecting taxes for the Romans. The day I met Jesus I got a new job - and the first thing it involved was selling everything that I had and giving it to the poor.
When the Roman prefect Pilate came to power when I was in my late teens, he appointed tax collectors to oversee the collection of temple and import taxes in Jerusalem. I was recruited for my experience and ability , but also because there were very few Jews who would even consider doing the job. My people disliked the Romans greatly, but they positively despised Pilate who was a provocative and vindictive ruler who seemed to take great delight in annoying the Jews. Twice he had deeply offended our religious rulers by placing graven images on shields around the temple precinct. He had announced that these were as a homage to Emperor Tiberius. But everyone believed that he had just done it to antagonise the people - which it did.
Suffice it to say that when I was recruited onto Pilate's payroll I became even less popular than I already was. I didnt mind too much what people thought. The job payed well and someone had to do it. I reasoned that if it wasn't me it would be someone else. And I enjoyed the lifestyle that my healthy pay packet afforded me. I was able to buy a large property in a good area of town, and despite the fact that my neighbours largely shunned me, I lived a comfortable and relatively stress free life. I socialised a little with the other tax collectors and some of the temple money changers but mostly I kept myself to myself. Most days of the week I would sit at my table near the harbour wall and collect taxes from the ships docking there - the Romans demanded both import and export tariffs on all goods ; most business owners complained that the rates were too high and therefore I had to deal daily with difficult customers trying to wriggle their way out of paying the proper rates.
I had little sympathy for those who were paying me. They were all able to pass on the costs to their customers, and if this inflated the price of goods in the local markets.....well, that was life. I didnt particularly agree with the methods adopted by some of my colleagues who demanded back-handers and sometimes resorted to extortion to allow certain shipments to enter the ports. But I wasnt one to be swayed by sob stories of supposed poverty and hardship. I had a job to do and I was good at it. My Roman paymasters treated me well and if my own people thought little of me I wasnt too worried.
The day I met Jesus was a day like any other. I was sitting at my table by the harbour writing in my ledger and checking off the goods which had arrived in that day against my lists. I was busy so I didnt look up when the group of men walked past me. But then they stopped and the one who appeared to be their leader sat on the harbour wall and started into some sort of lecture. At first I didnt pay much attention but after a while I found myself listening in to this man who was talking about a new Kingdom. I pricked up my ears, conscious that a regime change would almost certainly mean that I would lose my job. This Kingdom, he said, would be like a mustard seed, starting small and then growing into something enormous. It would be like a pearl lost in a field, it would be like a son who ran away from home and then came back to a waiting father. The more this man spoke and the more stories he told the more fascinated I became. I realised that I had been listening to him for quite a while when all of a sudden he looked right at me and said ' Levi ' ( nobody had called me Levi since my parents died, these days I was called by my Roman name, Matteus so I had no idea how he knew my name) why don't you come and follow me? I would love you to join our merry band'
I was stunned. I almost looked round to see if he was talking to someone else. This was a Jew, and clearly a prominent Rabbi or someone important. He must have known what I was doing sitting at my table at the docks, and yet here he was asking me if I would join his group. I could see that the suggestion wasnt going down terribly well with some of the other men there. They were looking at each other and muttering among themselves. But the main man was looking at me and smiling. He got up from the wall and waved to me to follow him as he set off down the road. And suddenly I found myself stepping out from behind my table, gathering my things, and starting off down the road after him. I had no idea why, but I was intrigued by what I had heard, and I realised that something deep inside me had jumped at the chance to be included, and invited and welcomed. If not by the rest of them then at least by him.
A couple of days later the whole group was gathered in my home. I had invited them all to dinner because I really wanted some of my tax collector friends to meet Jesus too. He was such an interesting man and the acceptance he showed to everyone he met was ..... well, it was sort of healing. It had been such a long time since I had done any entertaining that I was actually quite nervous. But Jesus put me at ease, complimenting me on my home, enjoying the wine, shaking hands with my friends and generally being super relaxed and friendly. Before long people were tucking into the food and laughing and chattering as if they had all been best friends forever. Later on I noticed how often Jesus was able to do this with a group of people. He seemed to have the ability to get folk from all sorts of different backgrounds and customs to relax together and have fun. He really was the life and soul of the party.
Of course the religious lot weren't particularly happy. I knew they were grumbling and complaining that this Rabbi was associating with tax collectors and other ' undesirables'. But as I later came to understand, Jesus wasnt really interested in the traditional religious people. He wanted to reach the outcast, the marginalised and those who didnt belong. His teaching was all about how God loved the least and the lost. How the poor people were as valuable to Him as lost pearls and that God was waiting for His people to return to him like sons who had strayed into sin but who had turned to come back home again. In meeting Jesus I started to see that I was one of those who was lost and that I desperately needed to hear that I was loved and accepted and had a place where I could belong. I started to believe again in the God of my early childhood, as did many of my money-changing friends. I never went back to collecting taxes for the Romans. The day I met Jesus I got a new job - and the first thing it involved was selling everything that I had and giving it to the poor.
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