Voices from the fringe: Matthew 12/24/17 RUMC

Voices from the fringe: Matthew

12/24/17

RUMC

Did you hear that story? I can’t believe I missed it! They were right there in front of me and I didn’t even realize it.

Every time I hear that story from Luke, I could kick myself. I was right there in Bethlehem. I saw the couple from Nazareth. I remember them because she looked like she could give birth about any minute. And when they came to the table to enroll and pay their taxes, they asked if there was anywhere they might stay because the inns were full. I felt sorry for them but just said, “No I don’t. Keep moving please.” 

It was my first assignment as a new tax collector. I was sent from my home territory of Galilee to learn from the best how to get just a little more money out of each person. The more I could get, the more I could keep. Even though we were hated by most of the people, it was profitable, IF you were an effective persuader. We called it “persuasion.” Others called it thievery, lying, or even extortion. They weren’t wrong and they hated us for it. No matter what we called it.

Getting back to the story. Had I known who they were, I would have gladly given them MY room. …Well, to tell the truth, I probably would still have sent them on their way because that is the kind of person I was. I’m not like that anymore. Now… I’m different. At that time, I had no idea who was right in front of me. Honestly, I didn’t put it all together until I heard Luke’s version of the gospel. Jesus didn’t talk about his birth, that’s why I didn’t record these events in my gospel that you call the gospel of Matthew. Now that I know the rest of the story as Luke tells it, I understand a lot better.

That is only one example of not seeing what was right in front of my eyes.

As I said, I was from Galilee and that is where I spent most of my career.  As it turns out Jesus’ path and my path crossed several times through the years. Still, I didn’t see anything special about him.

Then he started his ministry. I spent a lot of my time collecting tolls, some would say committing highway robbery, collecting fees from people as they came and went on the roads provided to them by the Holy Roman Empire. You see wherever there was a crowd, and a lot of people traveling; that was a good place for me to set up shop. Jesus tended to gather huge crowds. Therefore, I often set up my tollbooth near where Jesus was teaching in order to collect from his followers. I heard him day after day, but again I couldn’t see what was right before my eyes.

I’ll never forget the day he taught on that mountain. The day he taught the beatitudes. Yes, I was there. How else do you think I was able to record them word for word in my gospel?

I wasn’t paying much attention, but my ears really perked u when I heard Jesus say

·          “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely.

I started to listen

Soon Jesus said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; ²⁰ but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

I don’t remember if he was looking at me, but he was certainly talking to me. I knew it. But I had a job to do and I was still glad to relieve them of their earthly treasure.

Then he said, ^“No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth” Now, no matter what others thought, I considered myself as good a Jew as the next guy, and no one was going to tell me that I couldn’t be wealthy and serve God too. Well, I packed up and left. I had heard enough for that day. 

I heard enough that day, but for some reason, I kept going back.  After that, I started noticing his power to heal.  He healed lepers, people who were possessed, crippled, and blind. But even more notable, from my perspective, he healed Samaritans, slaves, Greeks, Romans, women, children, clean and unclean, unrighteous as well as the righteous. Those were my kind of people. Most folks would say that publicans, or tax collectors, fall somewhere below all those outsiders and maybe even below the stray dogs that roam the streets. But Jesus… he treated people differently.

Then it happened… one day… out of the clear blue sky, he walked past my booth and called me by name. “Matthew, come follow me.”

My first thought should have been to blow him off, but it wasn’t.

I can’t explain it, but suddenly all my priorities were turned upside down. The money I wanted so much didn’t seem as important. The three shiny new chariots on which I was making payments, suddenly that didn’t mean anything. I always dreamed of a big house in the best part of Jerusalem, suddenly I didn’t care where I lived. I didn’t even care if I got that big screen TV…. (I wasn’t sure what a TV was, but whatever it was, if no one else had one, I wanted it.)

When Jesus said, “follow me” all that I wanted was to get up and follow him. Maybe in part because I was so lonely. None of my fellow Jews would have anything to do with me. None of the guys from the synagogue would come hang out. None of the Pharisees or scribes wanted to be seen with me. I was really quite lonely. Could it be that Jesus, who accepted everybody else, would even accept a tax collector? I never thought it possible, but he made me see that Gods love for me had been there all the time. It was right in front of me and I didn’t see it.  

He opened my eyes to a world that was there all the time, but I just could not see it for my greed. I could not see it because I shut myself away so I wouldn’t have to hear the names they called me, or see the looks of hatred that shot through my heart.

Jesus was like that. One minute I was sitting at my tax booth, the next I was a disciple of the son of God. I saw it over and over, as I followed him. One minute a guy was a fisherman the next a head disciple of the Messiah. One minute a woman was a harlot on the street corner, the next she was washing Jesus feet wither hair. One day a man was a leper feared and rejected by everyone, the next he was healed eating at a table with God’s only son.

That is the way God works. God uses the most ordinary things to do extraordinary things. God uses the ugly to do beautiful things. God uses the lowly and despised to perform miracles. God used a tax collector for heaven’s sake, to write a gospel from which you still read today.

Don’t make the same mistake I did.  I wasted so much of my life looking meaning in all the wrong places when it lived just in the next town the whole time.

Don’t make the same mistake I did; searching for love or trying to buy love, when God’s love was available just for the accepting.

Don’t make the same mistake I did; trying to be so important, that I missed seeing what was really important.

Don’t make the same mistake I did; thinking that you don’t deserve love, or are never good enough because God’s love is not based on whether we deserve it.

God doesn’t come to the high and mighty, or the respectful, or the accepted.

God doesn’t come wrapped in shiny paper, or in a checkbook register.

God’s love came in a manger, in a baby, in a humble teacher, in a man on a cross.

Where is God coming to you? In the simple act of giving a gift to someone who didn’t expect it? In the prayers for peace contained on the Christmas cards you receive. In the music of the holidays? In church? Sitting by a hospital bed? God is in all those places.

Where is God coming to you? In the encouraging words of a coworker, in the helping hand of a neighbor, in the stranger who says Merry Christmas.

Where is God coming to you? In the hustle and bustle of life or in the quiet stillness of the night.

Where is God coming to you? In beautiful, shiny wrapping paper, or wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper.

How is God coming to you? In the messy craft project gift that you receive from a child. In friends laughing? In tears shed in the middle of the night? In the flickering of a single candle lighting a room?

How is God coming to you?  In a child’s excitement. A smelly guy on the street corner. In the black woman ringing the Salvation Army bell, in the grieving widower next door.

How is God coming to you, as a nosy neighbor, a lonely child, a depressed single mother?

Maybe, just maybe, God coming in the person sitting next to you right now… and you didn’t even notice it.

Just open your eyes and you just might find God in the most unexpected place.

In my day. God did not come just to the high and mighty, to kings and emperors, to captains of business and 1%ers, preachers, and Sunday school teachers. No, God came to a teenage mom, a carpenter, some shepherds, a Samaritan, and some Greeks. God came to the lame, the blind, the possessed… and God came to tax collectors. 

God comes to everyone who will open their hearts and their lives to receive the miracle of God’s love in Jesus Christ.

Slow down. Be quiet. Stop worrying. Stop searching high and low for God. Just open your eyes and look right in front of you, or beside you, or inside of you, and see the miracle of Christmas.