The Feast of Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist
I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to walk worthily of the calling with which you were called, With all lowliness and humility, with patience, bearing with one another in love, Being eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, even as you also were called in one hope of your calling, One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in us all. But to each one of us, the grace was given according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, shepherds and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, to the work of serving, to the building up of the body of Christ, Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a full grown man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Day after day they pour out speech, And night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech nor language Where their voice is not heard.
Their voice has gone out through all the earth, Their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his room, Like a strong man rejoicing to run his course.
As Jesus passed by from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax collection office. He said to him, "Follow me."He got up and followed him. As he sat in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw it, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"
When Jesus heard it, he said to them, "Those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are sick do. But you go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,' for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
Matthew was a tax collector — which in first-century Judea meant something specific and ugly. Tax collectors worked for the Roman occupiers, extracting money from their own people, often skimming extra for themselves. They were considered traitors and ritual outcasts, barred from the synagogue, their testimony inadmissible in court. When Jesus walks past Matthew's booth, he's walking past someone everyone else has written off.
And then: *Follow me.* Two words. Matthew gets up.
Notice how the Gospel doesn't give us Matthew's inner monologue. There's no crisis of conscience, no long discernment process. Just the call and the response. That directness is worth sitting with, because we tend to assume transformation requires elaborate preparation. Matthew's story suggests otherwise — that sometimes the grace arrives before we feel ready, and the only question is whether we move toward it or stay seated.
Paul's letter to the Ephesians adds a layer to this. Each of us receives grace "according to the measure of the gift of Christ" — not identical gifts, but particular ones. Matthew's gift turned out to be an eye for detail, a record-keeper's precision, a storyteller's instinct. The very skills that made him useful to Rome became instruments of the Gospel. What we've used for lesser things, God can redirect.
The Psalm hums underneath all of this: *their voice has gone out through all the earth.* The heavens themselves are in constant proclamation. Creation doesn't wait for the right moment to speak. It simply pours out what it is.
So here we are, ordinary people with complicated histories, sitting at our own versions of the tax collector's booth.
What has Jesus already called us away from that we're still lingering near? Where are we waiting to feel worthy before we follow? And what skills or experiences — even ones we're not proud of — might God be quietly repurposing right now?