Sermon for St. Matthew's Day – September 21, 2008
“But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord . ”
TWELVE MEN chosen by Jesus walked into town after town, two by two, proclaiming the kingdom of God, driving out devils, healing diseases, the lame, the deaf and the blind, telling of the coming King. Carrying nothing but the clothes on their backs, they were fed, housed and praised by fellow countrymen, the lost sheep of Israel. But they didn't go in their own names, by their own wisdom, with their own message. All that they did for those marvelous weeks on mission they did in the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Son of David, Israel's Messiah.
Among them was Matthew, an ex-tax collector, formerly named Levi. Here was an unlikely representative of God's Holy One. He had worked for the Romans, extracting cash from his fellow Jews for their overlords, likely overcharging to pocket the extra, as publicans did. But the day Jesus walked by his tax booth, his heart was ready for a radical change. Jesus said one thing and Matthew abandoned his station, leaving it all behind for someone else to figure out. Jesus said to Matthew, “Follow me.”
Matthew invited Jesus to dine with him that night. “And there were a great number of tax collectors and others who sat down with them. And their scribes and the Pharisees complained against His disciples, saying, ‘Why do You eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?' Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.'” Luke 5:27-32 In time, this sinner not only repented, but became one of the most trusted and devoted disciples to our Lord. At one point, Jesus named these closest ones Apostles and sent them out to proclaim the good news before Him: Peter, Andrew, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Cananite, Judas Iscariot, and Matthew the tax collector.
Apostle means one sent out . Ambassador , it could be to us, Agent or Representative . The idea of Apostleship was to project the Gospel as far and wide as possible. Jesus, in all His earthy life, was only given Israel and its closest neighbors as His scope of mission, the lands He walked personally. But the mission of the Gospel that He brought was worldwide. One man could never live long enough nor travel that far and have that effect, not if His primary mission was to die for the sins of the world. So He chose twelve men, specially trained them, explained all His teachings to them, showed them what no one else saw, committed His Body and Blood to them at the Last Supper, and at His Resurrection came to them to show them His wounds and His Everlasting Life. Finally He commissioned them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matt 28:16-20 This command to go into all nations was the final assignment for them as Apostles. They had received the maximum grace and training, He had breathed on them, giving them spiritual authority to forgive sin, and the sacramental gifts of the Church, built on the Rock of their faith in Him.
Apostle : in time, this title would change. The world would have been told, and the Church established. These with all authority would replicate, and assign cities and states to the oversight of the new apostles, now called bishops . The same authority was given them, the same great charge as Peter, James, John, and Matthew, and now it was to spread from a metropolis to the outlying cities and towns. But stationary or traveling, an apostle-bishop does not come in his own name. It is not his own wisdom, his own message, his own power, his own light that enlightens the folk around him. An ambassador is a messenger for another. A Bishop tells the story that was given to him from above. A priest, or deacon, may not tell his own story, but the story of Christ—a story all the more urgent, all the more hopeful, all the more joyous because it is true.
A priest is not a bishop. A deacon is not an Apostle. Not to all of us is given this weighty office and commission. I spoke to my fellow pastors in Chico at our luncheon of the doctrine of the Priesthood of All Believers, that all Christians are priests, and that therefore there are no priests in the Church. This idea responds to scriptural statements that the church is made of a royal priesthood, that we are all kings and priests to God, but enlarged in the Reformation to invalidate the catholic priesthood. I told them this had been a challenge to me once, but I find that I can embrace the priesthood of all believers, because it's true that we are all priests. But what is a priest? When I ask this, no one knows.
A priest is specially called by God, trained and prepared for the office, inducted by ceremony into priesthood, then must offer the prescribed sacrifice. When accepted, the sacrifice is transformed by God and returned to the priest, who then must turn around and give that gift to others. As a nation of priests, we all are called by God, trained in the faith, Baptized into His kingdom, then must offer the sacrifice of ourselves, all we have and all we are, to Him. He receives us, transforms our lives, gives us His Spirit, and then returns us to give ourselves to everyone we meet. As Christians, then, we are all priests in this one dimension. Among us then, some men are called to offer the sacrifice of the Mass, to administer grace through certain channels and authorities, and these we call priests . But no priest—not any layman, nor any official priest nor deacon—may exercise this office outside the structure and authority given by Jesus Christ, our King. This structure is headed by an Apostle, even today. Your bishop is your head, and he is not his own head, but the agent, the ambassador of Jesus Christ. If he cannot come in his own name, then even less may a priest, a deacon or a lay person come in his or her own name. This is a kingdom, not a democracy. And while we may accept a shared priesthood, in that we may all offer our lives as sacrifices to our Lord, it is the highest treason to assert by any terms or conditions the “episcopacy of all believers.”
St. Matthew, honored today, would have you look not at him, but at Jesus. He wrote his account of the Gospel out of love for his fellow Jews, and in excitement for the many ways Christ fulfilled the scriptures they all treasured. In so many ways every condition was met, starting at the genealogical lines from Abraham, and quoting those very lines of David's Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me,” from the cross. In every line, Matthew hoped to convince his readers to accept their Messiah and finally enter the King's realm by faith in Him. Quite begrudgingly, I believe, would Matthew have wanted the account to be associated with himself by name. We are wrong, therefore, to give this scripture the shorthand name, Matthew . It is The Holy Gospel of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, according to St. Matthew . Even Jesus does not come in his own name.
Some sons of the reformation might complain that we bestow too much honor to the saints in giving an apostle this feast day. Perhaps. But giving the Gospel the mere name Matthew does more to distort the purpose of Matthew's greatest achievement than having a feast day named for him. Matthew is believed to have died a martyr, but the place is unknown and the lands he traveled in his apostolate were possibly Ethiopia, or Persia.
St. Paul, the apostle born out of time, understood the office of Apostle well and describes it in our Epistle today, from 2 nd Corinthians. “Seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not; but 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.” This ministry is not our own, but was given to us. We don't shrink from the task, but go boldly to proclaim the truth, expose lies, plainly show what is and not use clever deceits. It is up to each man's conscience to believe what we set before him. “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” To some our message will still seem foolish, but that is because the devil has blinded their minds, who fears this glorious light of Jesus might shine in them, as it does in us. “For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.” We don't come in our own name, nor with our own message. It is Christ Jesus that we proclaim, and make sure that all will know that we are only His servants, His ambassadors with His word on it. “For 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.” In the beginning, God said “Let there be light,” and light shone out of the eternal darkness. Just so, did that same God speak into our hearts His eternal light, and with that light came the knowledge that God's glory shines in the face of His Son, Jesus Christ.
If we bring any message, let it be this: I am not important. My life, my experiences, my knowledge, my looks, my pains, my hopes and disappointments are not important, and I need never mention them to anyone unless and only when these things verify, signify, magnify and authenticate the Savior of my life, Jesus Christ, our high priest and king. In my Church, I acknowledge the sacramental leadership, but only under the Apostle given to us, who bestows on our priest, and all this royal priesthood, the extension of God's mercy to all mankind first commissioned to eleven men on Mount Olivet.
Apostle : one sent out to proclaim the kingdom of God. When you arise from the Communion rail today, carry Him within you, the light that lit the world and started it all, Who by word to mind and heart, Hand to head, Apostle to Bishop, San Francisco to Chico, commissions you to let this light shine in you into our darkened world.
PFH+