Second Sunday after Pentecost A; 06.07.26; Dr Matthew (Matteo) Carter, Seminary Intern
Genesis 12:1-9; Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
When Christians invoke Abraham as the beginning of a line that will, eventually, include Jesus, our reasons for mentioning him vary. In genealogical terms, Abraham is the progenitor and we are the progeny, Not in terms of our DNA, but in terms of a human chain of events that begins when Abraham says yes to God: not just the people who can trace their own lineage back to these early desert wanderings, but the even larger number of people who joined those communities and helped them survive.
We also invoke Abraham as the exemplar, the paragon, of faith–for his willingness to start a nomadic life at age 75, as Genesis mentions; for his good works, building altars to God, and for his beautiful trust that the future will be a blessed one no matter how uncertain the present. I certainly admire that beautiful trust, here in 2026. It’s the trust of Mary the mother of Jesus, who gives the big Yes to a destiny far beyond her control. And, as we read in the Gospel of Luke, in the portion we have come to call the Magnificat, Mary too feels a deep connection to Abraham as her ancestor.
In our Gospel, the story of the calling of St Matthew, we don’t get much detail about Matthew’s psychology. We don’t get to know whether Matthew partook of that same beautiful trust; we don’t get to know what future Matthew was dreaming of. He just accepts the call. Accepts it, we may note, without being promised any future honor.
The Gospel is silent on so much about this scene, but very clear on the idea that Matthew’s discipleship was a huge problem for a lot of people. How could a Rabbi bring a government agent into his inner circle? Part of the scandal was that many tax collectors worked on the Sabbath rather than observing the Sabbath, but that can’t be the whole story, because the author of our Gospel is almost certainly Jewish and pious.
Let me put on my Classics professor hat for a second, because to understand the audacity of Jesus calling Matthew, I think we need to understand the brutal system of tax farming:
“The Galilean peasantry to whom Christ first brought his good tidings had suffered for years under the taxes exacted by Herod the Great; many whose taxes had fallen into arrears had been reduced from freeholders to bound tenants by expropriations of their already meager estates, or by securing loans they could not repay with their lands and goods. The tax collectors, the creditors, and the courts had long conspired to make rural peoples and the disenfranchised of the towns and cities into captives of their debts. And at times, of course, the only way those debts could be resolved was by the sale of debtor families into slavery.”
No wonder then, that so many of Jesus’ teachings are about creditors and debtors, because his audience would have known, firsthand, just how dangerous it all was.
And it was dangerous for Matthew, too. Jesus understood that his new way of life could be a gift to the oppressor and the oppressed alike. In modern terms, Jesus was audaciously willing to break bread with predatory payday lenders, mafiosos, violent ICE agents, and politicians on the take. Repentance is available to everyone. Mercy and forgiveness are available to everyone. No exceptions. And it’s the no exceptions clause that drives us crazy, isn’t it? Sweet, taxpaying, churchgoing folks with no criminal record become like the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son. “Lord!” we cry out. “Where is our reward for good behavior? We have kept your commandments. It’s unfair that you are lavishing so much love and attention on these sinners!”
And we would be right, it is unfair. The wideness of God’s mercy is gloriously unfair, extending, as it does, the hand of salvation to even the most maleficent and murderous. It melts my brain to think too deeply about this tsunami of grace. But even though Matthew may have participated in–I’ll say it again–the literal enslavement of whole families who could not pay what they owed, God didn’t give up on him. And God won’t give up on any of us, either.
A final word about Abraham. In the book of Isaiah, Abraham is described (41:8) as “God’s friend”. What does it mean to be God’s friend? To be a friend of Jesus is easier to understand: we know what that looks like from the Gospel stories and from our whole cultural emphasis on a personal relationship with the savior. We can think of Louis Armstrong singing “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen.” But you can’t invite God over for dinner or poker. This is just one point of view, but it seems to me that being God’s friend is about saying yes–even in old age, even in poverty, even in the desert–to something that will benefit others even if we can’t exactly tell how it will benefit us. That beautiful trust, again.
Our collect today begins “O God, from whom all good proceeds”: that same good proceeds from God but through us. Let us honor that motion, that procession, by continuing to listen for God’s call.
Amen.
