Fifth Sunday Community Service
Trinity Baptist Church, Moultrie, GA
October 30, 2005
The Rev. Linda McCloud
Matthew 9:9-13
 

Vocation and a life of prayer 

Jesus said, “I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” 

            I am grateful for this invitation from the Colquitt County Ministerial Association to speak with you at this Fifth Sunday service.  I am grateful to Rev. Michael Helms for allowing me to preach here at Trinity Baptist Church.  And I heartily thank each of you for being here this evening. 

            As the only Episcopal priest in Colquitt County, I might be a curiosity to some of you.  Michael gave me a brief introduction, but I would like to give you a little background on how I came to be standing here.  I won’t go all the way back to Genesis.  I’ll begin by telling you that when I was twenty-one, I married Donald Eskew – the cutest twenty-year-old guy in Ashland, Kentucky.  At least, that’s what he told me.  I would have followed him anywhere, and I did.  One of the things that attracted me to him, besides his green eyes and big dimple on his left cheek, was the fact that Don wanted to be a pastor – sure ’nuf ordained.  Somewhere in the depths of my own soul, I too had a calling to serve God in some specific way, although I had not yet named it as such.  

            When we got married, Don was a junior in college.  After graduation he wanted to go on to The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.  We stayed there almost five years while he earned two Master’s degrees.  Then we went off on a pastoral adventure.  At our first church in Hubbard, Ohio, our work was underwritten by the Home Mission Board.  From Hubbard we moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where we served for five years.  Our next church was in Cobb County, Georgia for eight years.  Finally, we were in Owensboro, Kentucky for the last two years of Don’s life. 

            In all those years as a Pastor’s wife, I loved my role as a teacher, church musician and leader.  I taught several rounds of Master Life and Experiencing God.  I taught Sunday School classes to young adults and served for many years as Vacation Bible School Director.  But something was missing.  I wasn’t being totally true to my own calling.  In the process of praying more and more about this, and trying to find just what God wanted me to do, I discovered the Episcopal Church.   

The Cathedral of St. Philip in Atlanta was conveniently located near my place of work.  I could go there on my lunch hour and pray every day.  But even better than that, they celebrated Holy Communion every day.  As a baptized person I was welcome to come to the altar, stretch out my hands, offer myself to God and receive the bread and the wine.  This quiet time of prayer and worship each day enabled me to keep up the pace as a busy pastor’s wife over in Cobb County. 

            One day I was invited by one of Don’s minister friends to do some volunteer chaplaincy at a local hospital.  My first evening on the job – someone died in the Emergency Room.  I was paged over the intercom and went to pray with the family.  That experience sealed the deal for me.  God was calling me to be a pastor in my own right.  I could no longer go along for the ride on Don’s vocation and ordination. 

            I was in the middle of figuring all this out when Don died of a sudden heart attack.  Right in front of me.  He just up and died.  The shock was like surgery without anesthesia.  But the Episcopal Church was the net that caught me when the high wire broke.  I moved back to Atlanta and again started going to communion every day.  Little by little my sorrows were being healed.  I got back on track with listening for God’s call on my life.   

            My family and friends have quizzed me over the years – why would I insist on going through the five-year process to become a priest?  I could say that I have a deep desire to invite others into the joy I find in worshipping God within the framework of the Episcopal Church.  That would be very true.  But in the final analysis, I would simply have to say – it’s because I love Jesus.  I think Jesus is irresistible. 

            Christianity is a rather odd religion by the standards of other world religions.  Really – Christianity is basically a love affair with Jesus Christ.  Jesus’ followers organized a religion around Jesus so we could all worship together and share our stories of how we know Jesus. 

            What was it about the earthly Jesus that commanded attention?  The people who met Jesus either loved him or were jealous of his popularity and frightened by his power.  What was it about Jesus that when he walked by Matthew’s tax collection booth and said, “Follow me” that Matthew got up out of his seat, left his job and followed Jesus?  Matthew didn’t even tender a two-week notice. 

            There was something very magnetic about Jesus.  I’ve wondered if it was his eyes.  When he looked at those people and said, “Follow me,” I believe he looked right into their souls and they knew it.  I also believe that they had no idea what they were getting into.  But once they were caught up in the love of Jesus, everything else faded into the background.  Jesus was all that was important. 

            Or maybe it was Jesus’ voice that was so magnetic.  When he called each one by name, they knew that he knew their innermost thoughts and feelings.  They knew that they would never be the same again -- once Jesus called their name.  In the Gospel passage I just read, we hear that this is what happened to Matthew the Tax Collector. 

            There is something within us – who have been created in the image of the creator God – that longs to be reconnected with God.  Matthew saw Jesus as that reconnection.  That’s because Jesus is the purest revelation of God that ever was or ever will be.  Jesus is the way we know God.  Jesus Christ is God – the second person of the Holy and undivided Trinity – one God.  Jesus knew that tax collectors need love, too.  Those who seem loveless and unlovable need God’s love, too. 

            Jesus sees something in us that we might not see in ourselves.  Jesus sees the image of God reflecting back at him.  Thomas Merton put it like this:  “There is no way to tell people they are walking around shining like the sun.”  Jesus looked at Matthew and saw a family resemblance – something of God’s own self that needed to be reconnected to God. 

            I recently met a family whose baby daughter looked just like the dad.  Their friends commented that they did not know the dad was pretty until that little girl was born.  Our knowing God is something like that.  Jesus is the “spitting image” of God.  We didn’t know God was so beautiful until we saw Jesus.  We didn’t know God was so merciful and kind, until we met Jesus.  Other people might not know God is so merciful and kind, until they meet us.   

            But back to our story about Matthew -- what did it mean for Matthew to follow Jesus?  As a collector of taxes, Matthew was seen as a traitor to his fellow citizens.  In order to have the job in the first place, Matthew, or his boss, had bought the job.  In the Palestine of Jesus, a set amount of tax was levied on each region.  One person could pay the Roman government the entire amount, and then recover his or her investment by collecting taxes from travelers and local citizens.   

Like all other business people, they were in business to make a profit.  So, either Matthew or his boss had paid all the taxes in advance, and now they were setting their own prices and collecting whatever the market could bear. 

            For obvious reasons, tax collectors, also called Publicans, were not popular in Jesus’ day.  They had to bear the slings and arrows of their fellow citizens.  They were not even allowed to be admitted as witnesses in a court of law.  They were outcasts from society and probably would not have gone to synagogue or to the Temple.  As a Jewish man, this must have made Matthew heart sick.  So when Matthew rose up out of his seat to follow Jesus, it was as if he had been raised from the dead. 

            Matthew considered this to be one of Jesus’ greatest miracles – that Jesus could take a universally despised Publican and make him into an Apostle of the Good News about the love of God. 

            Of course it was natural for this miracle to be followed up by a dinner party.  God loves a good celebration.  There is always rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents.  And there is usually grumbling on earth that God could forgive and allow such people as this Tax Collector to have another chance to be in God’s good graces.  It’s human nature for us to try to keep other people in their categories, and not let them grow and change beyond that.  It’s so convenient for us.  That’s one way we know where everyone fits into the puzzle of life.  

But the Good News about Jesus Christ is that his love, mercy and forgiveness upset that status quo.  Matthew wanted everyone to be invited to the party with Jesus.  If Jesus let Matthew into the Kingdom of Heaven, Matthew was sure that Jesus would invite everyone else in.  This is what it meant for Matthew to follow Jesus. 

What does it mean for us to follow Jesus?  First we need to keep in mind that Jesus died on the cross and rose again so that everyone could be invited into his love.  This was hard for me to get used to, but Jesus has absolutely no discriminating taste when it comes to people.  Jesus loves everybody.  When we’re following Jesus, there is just one picky little thing that Jesus asks.  We need to be willing to invite everyone else into the party with him, or at least be willing to become willing.  Not everyone is going to follow Jesus, but our job is to invite and let God the Holy Spirit do the rest. 

Matthew followed Jesus and never looked back.  In my quest to become a priest, I did not look back, either.  Fulfilling God’s call is the joy of my life.  I have to agree with Frederick Buechner’s definition of vocation.  He said, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”  

May it be so with each of us.