Monday is the feast day of St. Matthew, who I am named after. The story of his calling has always stuck with me. Christ approaches him and says, “follow me.” Matthew gets up, leaves everything behind (according to St. Luke), and follows him. There is no hesitation.
St. Matthew was a tax collector. His job was to take people’s money until he had enough to pay the Roman government. Anything extra he took was his to keep. He would have had his own band of thugs to enforce collections. On top of this, tax collectors colluded with the Roman government who had conquered Israel and Judah. To the Jewish people Matthew was considered a traitor and a sinner. They would have hated and shunned him.
To the people, it would be shocking that Christ would have called him to be an apostle. But God sees things differently. “Let the scoundrel forsake his way, and the wicked his thoughts; let him turn to the LORD for mercy; to our God, who is generous in forgiving. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.” (Isaiah 55:7-8)
Matthew, rejected by all and caught up in sin, probably saw no way out of the emptiness of his life. Then a man came and “saw” him. St. Luke uses a word that means more than seeing him physically with his eyes. It means that Jesus looked at Matthew intently, with recognition. It was a look that transformed Matthew, because, I suspect, it was the first time in a long time someone looked at Matthew with something other than hatred. How could Matthew not get up and follow him?
At some point in our lives, God looked at us the way he looked at St. Matthew. The experience is different now that Christ has ascended, but it is just as transformative. One such moment for me was when I was in the Adoration Chapel at All Saints during my 2 a.m. hour, trying to figure out what God wanted me to do with my life. The only part of it that I can describe is that I knew God was with me and that he loved me.
God wants us to love him, but he always takes the first step. He always looks at us and loves us first. We just miss it sometimes. If you haven’t ever thought about this idea, I encourage you to take some time to think and to pray with it.
Fr. Matt