Matthew’s Conversion
Before he was an Apostle and Evangelist, Matthew was a publican, a tax collector, despised by all rightthinking patriotic Jews for squeezing the poor and collaborating with the Romans. Yet it was this most unsuitable person, “sitting at the receipt of custom”, whom Jesus saw and called with the words, “follow me”. Matthew did not choose Jesus: it is Jesus who chose him. Surprising as we may find Jesus’ choice of Matthew as a disciple, let alone an apostle, Matthew’s ready response is even more surprising: “he rose, and followed him” – leaving behind his old way of life to embrace a new, as a disciple of Jesus. His rising to follow Jesus is the spiritual resurrection of one dead in sins, and just as the dead do not cause themselves to rise, both call and response are the act of God’s unmerited good will toward us by Jesus Christ.
The example of Matthew makes clear that conversion is not a response to material inducements, or the prospect of personal gain. We are not promised earthly riches, nor worldly glory. It is the glory of God, revealed in his incarnate Son, which arrests Matthew’s attention and changes his life. As the Apostle Paul explains says in the epistle lesson for this feast (2 Cor. 4:1-6) “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”. For this light, shining forth in the person, the words, and the works of Christ, proclaimed in the gospel, that penetrates into the very heart of man. What causes our conversion, our turning away from an old life, our embrace of the new, is something not we have invented, imagined, or devised but what has been revealed, for us to received. It is the light of “the truth that is in Jesus”.
Therefore the apostolic and evangelistic mission of the Church, supremely in its worship, its ministry of word and sacrament, is to show forth in the world “the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God”. Preachers are tempted to offer something else to scratch us where we itch – emotional catharsis or psychological wellbeing, material prosperity, marital happiness, social justice, political ambition, motivational training, even entertainment. Such approaches to preaching can have wide appeal – but they are not preaching the gospel. At the core of the church’s proclamation must always be the person and work of Jesus Christ: “we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord: and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake”. And in that preaching, Paul says, we “have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God”. The gospel’s appeal is to the conscience – the place in us where the conviction takes hold about truth and falsehood, not by human judgment alone, but “in the sight of God”.
Despite the fact that the gospel of Christ is not “hid” (for the light shines on all) not all believe, not all are converted. “Many are called but few chosen”. Like the carping Pharisees who grumble about Jesus’ willingness to keep table fellowship with publicans and sinners like Matthew, it seems that we can shut our eyes to the light of glory. Paul offers this explanation: “if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the god of this world” – the lying spirit of the world, whom the Scripture calls the Devil or Satan – “hath blinded the minds of them that believe not”. It is entirely possible for us to be so distracted, deluded, demoralized, deceived, that we fail to respond to the call of Jesus. We can be so intent on some vain worldly ambition – the gratifying of some grudge or greed – that we close our minds to the light that shines in Christ. Like the Pharisees, in selfjustifying pride, we may find such fault with Christ’s kindness to sinners, heedless of how much we may need it ourselves. Not in pride but in humility do we hear and receive the grace declared by the Word of God.
The words of this familiar Charles Wesley hymn are a prayer for deliverance from blindness to vision, from ignorance and delusion to truth:
Christ, whose glory fills the skies
Christ, the true, the only Light,
Sun of Righteousness, arise,
Triumph o’er the shades of night;
Dayspring from on high, be near,
Daystar, in my heart appear.
Dark and cheerless is the morn
Unaccompanied by Thee;
Joyless is the day’s return,
Till Thy mercy’s beams I see,
Till Thou inward light impart,
Glad my eyes, and warm my heart.
Visit then this soul of mine,
Pierce the gloom of sin and grief;
Fill me, Radiancy divine,
Scatter all my unbelief;
More and more Thyself display,
Shining to the perfect day.