Well glory-be! Halleluyer! Praise da Lort! Last week there was a resurrection in the kitchen! Friends, the ficus tree that the pastor husband and I (almost) murdered is coming back to life.
Maybe it lost all its leaves because it was winter. Or maybe because there was a tiny white bug infestation. Who knows? Not I. Lest we not tarry at the cause of death, my comrades, but instead at the sweet, sweet fact that I no longer will drag the ugly thing into the laundry room when the guests come over. #praiseGodfromwhomallblessingsflow,people.
The ficus will most likely live to see another season. And at the risk of over-spiritualizing this miraculous resurrection, it truly is a reminder that nothing is beyond redemption. When it’s full of leaves again, I won’t tell people of the three months it spent looking like a broomstick, and I sure won’t hide it in the laundry room when you come to visit. No need to, I guess. The tree is a tree once again. No shame in that tree’s game (anymore).
About the same time the tree made its comeback, I was reading through Matthew. I love reading through Matthew.
This is how Matthew (the person, not the book) came to be:
God was in heaven looking down on His creation and was deeply grieved about being apart from us. We loved other things more than we loved Him and generally made a mess of this, that, and the other. But God wasn’t concerned with the concept of “guilt by association,” so after 400 years of silence, He left His throne and came to earth to be with us. Jesus grew up and one day He went to a tax collector named Levi sitting all alone at his tax collector’s booth. Still not giving a flying flip about “guilt by association,” Jesus went up to lonely and outcast Levi and said, “Follow me.” Levi left everything and followed Jesus and Jesus gave him a new name, Matthew.
Jews hated the tax collectors because they were perceived as working for Rome, the enemy. They were notorious for taxing too much; for example if Rome wanted them to take $20, they’d charge $40 and pocket the rest. When Peter, Andrew, James, and John came in from fishing everyday, chances are they had to pass by Levi and pay his tax. Jews didn’t like tax collectors, but Levi himself was most likely a Jew. He was ripping off his own people.
One could say that Levi was an outcast, but he did it to himself.
And Matthew (formerly Levi) followed Jesus for the rest of his life. Matthew knew what it was like to be lonely and outcast and now he knew what it felt like to belong. Matthew, of all people, relates to us when we don’t feel like we deserve to show up. He relates to us when we don’t fit in and are without true community. He sees himself in the shadows of our shady pasts and when we aren’t sure anyone is in our corner. That was his story, until Jesus called Levi Matthew.
And we don’t get much more about his conversion other than that.
In the Gospel of Matthew, he doesn’t even tell us that His name used to be Levi. We just know that Jesus called Matthew away from his booth. If he were my ficus, he would have been the resurrected ficus who wouldn’t stand another moment of shame in the laundry room. He would be full of leaves and standing proud. He wouldn’t even let on that he knows the location of the laundry room or that it’s painted yellow.
So how do we know that Matthew is Levi?
Mark 2:14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Levi got up and followed him.
Luke 5: 27-28 Later, as Jesus left the town, he saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. 28 So Levi got up, left everything, and followed him.
The other gospels don’t call him Matthew, they call him Levi. Mark (who most likely got the account from Peter) and Luke (who most likely got the account from Paul) tell us exactly who this tax collector is, and Mark goes as far to tell us who his dad is.
Maybe we are guilty of this too.
People have moved on from a previous way of life but we still remember what they were before. They remembered him as he was and not as he is.
Who is in our context who desperately needs a second chance, an second opportunity, a friend, or a wise woman to follow? Who does Jesus call Matthew but you still call Levi? Who are we wary to be around because we don’t want to be guilty by association?
God give us eyes to see people as you see them. Give us eyes to see ourselves as you see us. Wanting to want you, maybe missing the mark, but wholly and relentlessly loved and made new. Give us eyes to notice the Levis and call them Matthew. And may we never forget that we were Levis, too.
I never really thought about the disciples’ relationship to each other. I guess I always pictured the disciples getting along well and seeing each other as equals. Jesus calls his first five disciples, Simon (who was renamed Peter), Andrew, James, John, and Philip from the beaches in Galilee. In chapter 9 he calls Matthew from his booth in Capernaum. We know that there was also a Thomas (the doubter), James, Simon, Thaddeus, and Judas although we know very little about when and where Jesus called on them to follow Him. So who wrote the gospels of Mark and Luke? How’d they know about Levi? Mark was most likely Peter’s friend and maybe he penned it as Peter was in prison, awaiting his death. Peter the fisherman who was taxed by Matthew (formerly Levi). Luke was a doctor who Paul met when he was a missionary. Paul, the Jewish leader, who was with both the fishermen and the tax collector. Photo credit: Eastlyn Bright