1. Matthew had his “receipt of custom” at Capernaum, by the Lake of Galilee. And Capernaum in his time was famous for other things than its exquisite scenery and its thriving trade and its rapidly made fortunes. It was a city exalted to heaven in privilege, inasmuch as it was the second home of Jesus of Nazareth. Not that all the inhabitants of Capernaum knew what that meant. There were many Jews in that busy town whom the holy presence and the mighty works of Jesus did not lead to repentance; many who never understood their privilege or knew the day of their visitation-many, but not all. For the words and the deeds of Jesus soon began to make a profound impression upon the mind of Matthew the publican, reawakening his better nature and making him ashamed of his nefarious trade. Some of those sayings (logia) of our Lord which he afterwards recorded so faithfully were in the first instance sharp arrows piercing his own heart and conscience. We can easily imagine what were the winged words that came to him with convicting power, and so found him. They were the words which told him that the life is more than meat, that a man is not profited if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul, that a man's chief business is to lay up treasures for himself not on earth but in heaven, and that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. Words like these destroyed his peace.
Our veritable birth dates from the day when, for the first time, we feel at the deepest of us that there is something grave and unexpected in life.… We can be born thus more than once; and each birth brings us a little nearer to our God. But most of us are content to wait till an event, charged with almost irresistible radiance, intrudes itself violently upon our darkness, and enlightens us, in our own despite. We await I know not what happy coincidence, when it may so come about that the eyes of our soul shall be open at the very moment that something extraordinary takes place. But in everything that happens is there light; and the greatness of the greatest men has but consisted in that they had trained their eyes to be open to every ray of this light.1 [Note: M. Maeterlinck, The Treasure of the Humble, 173.]
We have been watching successive men following after the ideal, which, like some receding star, travelled before its pilgrims through the night. In Francis Thompson's Hound of Heaven, the ideal is no longer passive, a thing to be pursued. It halts for its pilgrims-“the star which chose to stoop and stay for us.” Nay, more, it turns upon them and pursues them.… The Hound of Heaven has for its idea the chase of man by the celestial huntsman. God is out after the soul, pursuing it up and down the universe-God,-but God incarnate in Jesus Christ, whose love and death are here the embodiment and revelation of the whole ideal world. The hunted one flees, as men so constantly flee from the Highest, and seeks refuge in every possible form of earthly experience.… The soul is never allowed, even in dream, to rest in lower things until satiety brings disillusion. The higher destiny is swift at her heels; and ever, just as she would nestle in some new covert, she is torn from it by the imperious Best of all that claims her for its own.… Thus has he compassed the length and breadth of the universe in the vain attempt to flee from God. Now at last he finds himself at bay. God has been too much for him. Against his will, and wearied out with the vain endeavour to escape, he must face the pursuing Love at last.…
Finally, we have the answer of Christ to the soul He has chased down after so long a following:
“Strange, piteous, futile thing
Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I makes much of naught” (He said),
“And human love needs human meriting:
How hast thou merited-
Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?
Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save Me, save only Me?
All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.
All which thy child's mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:
Rise, clasp My hand, and come!”
Halts by me that footfall:
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
“Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.”1 [Note: John Kelman, Among Famous Books, 302.]
2. The conversion which seems sudden, and which is indeed consummated by an instantaneous act of the will, is never without its antecedent and preparatory train of events. It is extremely probable that in Matthew's case, as in Paul's, there was a season in which he was “kicking against the goads.” Every time he saw Jesus pass his toll-booth, his heart felt a pang. Every time he stood on the edge of a crowd, listening to that thrilling and soul-awakening voice, he was conscious of a growing hatred of the life to which he was bound by interest and habit. Every time he heard the solemn call to repentance, he despised himself as a man lost to faith and honour. Until Jesus had come into his life, he had had the comfortable feeling that he was getting rich, that he was increased in goods and would soon have need of nothing; but now he knew that he was poor and miserable and blind and naked. For now he knew that a man's life does not consist in the abundance of the things which he possesses. Now that he began to look at life through Christ's eyes, he saw what a glorious thing it might be made, and what an inglorious thing he was making it. And his discontent with himself made him the most unhappy of men. Such a state of things could not last, and it was well for him that the kind but searching eyes of Jesus saw what was going on in the depths of his soul. And that was the gladdest day in his life when Jesus, once more passing the place of custom, where he was miserably and mechanically gathering in the taxes, said to him in a voice of irresistible authority, “Follow me.” And without a moment's hesitation, Matthew arose, left all, and followed Him. In doing so he began the new life. He came to himself. Stepping out of his toll-booth he stepped out of bondage into liberty and peace and joy.
While I was making myself acquainted with the work of the West London Mission I came across a man so much out of the common, and with so original a view of the religious life, that I turned aside from my researches to cultivate his sympathy and learn his story.… On the subject of conversion he had his own particular view. The narratives in Professor James's wonderful book moved him to no admiration. “The best model for a story of conversion,” he said, “is to be found in Matthew, nine, nine-He saith unto him, Follow Me. And he arose, and followed Him.”1 [Note: Harold Begbie, In the Hand of the Potter, 207.]
“If we had to choose one out of all the books in the Bible for a prison or desert friend the Gospel according to St. Matthew would be the one we should keep.” So remarks Ruskin in speaking of Carpaccio's picture of the calling of Matthew; and the great art critic adds, “We do not enough think how much the leaving the receipt of custom meant as a sign of the man's nature who was to leave us such a notable piece of literature.… Matthew's call from receipt of custom, Carpaccio takes for the symbol of the universal call to leave all that we have, and are doing. ‘Whosoever forsaketh not all that he hath, cannot be my disciple.' For the other calls were easily obeyed in comparison of this. To leave one's often empty nets and nightly toil on sea, and become fishers of men, probably you might find pescatori enough on the Riva there, within a hundred paces of you, who would take the chance at once, if any gentle person offered it them. James and Jude-Christ's cousins-no thanks to them for following Him; their own home conceivably no richer than His. Thomas and Philip, I suppose, somewhat thoughtful persons on spiritual matters, questioning of them long since; going out to hear St. John preach, and to see whom he had seen. But this man, busy in the place of business-engaged in the interests of foreign governments-thinking no more of an Israelite Messiah than Mr. Goschen, but only of Egyptian finance, and the like”-[at the time Ruskin wrote, Mr. (afterwards Lord) Goschen had gone to Cairo to reorganize the public debt of Egypt]-“suddenly the Messiah, passing by, says, ‘Follow me!' and he rises up, gives Him his hand. ‘Yea! to the death;' and absconds from his desk in that electric manner on the instant, leaving his cash-box unlocked, and his books for whoso list to balance-a very remarkable kind of person indeed, it seems to me.”1 [Note: Ruskin, St. Mark's Rest, § 173 (Works, xxiv. 344).]
So Matthew left his golden gains,
At the great Master's call;
His soul the love of Christ constrains
Freely to give up all.
The tide of life was at its flow,
Rose higher day by day;
But he a higher life would know
Than that which round him lay.
Nor Fortune, bright with fav'ring smile,
Can tempt him with her store;
Too long she did his heart beguile,
He will be hers no more.
To one sweet Voice his soul doth list,
And, at its “Follow Me,”
Apostle, and Evangelist
Henceforth for Christ is he.
O Saviour! when prosperity
Makes this world hard to leave,
And all its pomps and vanity
Their meshes round us weave:
Oh grant us grace that to Thy call
We may obedient be;
And, cheerfully forsaking all,
May follow only Thee.2 [Note: J. S. B. Monsell.]
3. Forthwith Jesus made Matthew the publican one of His disciples. In doing so He set every consideration of worldly prudence at defiance. He outraged public opinion, and earned for Himself the scornful title, “a friend of publicans and sinners.” But no title ever bestowed on Him on earth or in heaven, by adoring saints and angels, proclaiming His eternal power and honour and glory, ever gave Him greater joy than that name which was first flung at Him in mockery, by jibing and jeering enemies. For that name told exactly what He was; it indicated the whole end and aim of His life on earth. Of Him more truly than of any other teacher it might have been said, “He was a man, and nothing human was alien to Him.” He knew best what was in man-all the weakness and all the sin-yet He was the greatest of all optimists. He saw infinite possibilities in those whom the official teachers of the time-the scribes and the Pharisees-had given up in despair. And He was able to awaken in the publicans and sinners a twofold faith-faith in Himself as the Saviour and Friend of mankind, the Physician of all sick souls, and faith in themselves, which they needed no less. And to the end of their lives they never for a moment imagined that what was high and pure and good in them had come there through their own efforts or achievements; they knew that it had all come through the love of God revealed to them in the friendship of Jesus of Nazareth. Among them was Matthew the publican, drawn by the love of Christ into the Kingdom of God. And it was because he wished to make his own conversion an object-lesson which might help to convince his readers of the freeness and richness of Divine grace, and so assure the most doubting and despairing of a welcome into the same Kingdom, that he persisted in calling himself, even after many years of Christian apostleship, “Matthew the publican.”
“I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” After long conscientious serving of God, refreshed by little feeling of joy or comfort, there are moments when the soul seems suddenly made aware of its own happiness.… Such moments are surely more to us than a passing comfort. Do they not teach us something of the depth of those words, “We love him because he first loved us”? For is not this also of the Lord-this tender attraction, this warmth, at which the frozen waters of the heart break up and flow forth as at the breath of spring? And does not this seeking of our love on Christ's part convince us that He is ever loving us in our colder as well as more fervent seasons, and that in being drawn by His lovingkindness we have laid hold on His everlasting love-a chain which runs backwards and forwards through all eternity?1 [Note: Dora Greenwell, The Patience of Hope, 120.]
