St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

Good Shepherd

2004 Pass Rd, Biloxi, MS 39531

Draft Ezk 2:8—3:11; Eph 4:7–16; Mt 9:9–13; Ps 119:33–40; v. 35   –     9/21/25

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him. According to the Early Church, at some point during the first century St. Matthew traveled down into Africa to preach to the people there, but he was martyred when the Ethiopians impaled him on spears. The Gospel reading is many years before his death. This calling of Matthew is quite unlike that of the other disciples. So what is special about Jesus calling Matthew versus any of the other disciples?

Consider the meal to which St. Matthew, it seems, invited Jesus and the other disciples: And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” You all know that people back then hated tax collectors, just like many do today. You might consider the level of dislike to be the same as some have for lawyers and tax collectors alike. But the true depth of their hatred may not be clear.

In most of the Roman Empire, tax collectors were men Rome sent out to gather poll tax, income tax, transportation tax, harbor tax, bridge tax, and others which largely funded the local governments. But in the Middle East, tax collectors were locals who bid for the position to gather taxes for Rome, which I would remind you is a foreign power the Jews considered unclean and enslaving them. Thus, men like Matthew and Zacchaeus were not mere government employees, but race traitors working for the unclean, evil empire to suck up what little wealth their own brothers had. The Pharisees don’t simply label St. Matthew and his fellow tax collectors as sinners, they are their own category of sin. They are the obvious example of the damned.

What is the point of this? Peter, Andrew, James, and John were fishermen—fairly normal. Simon was a zealot, he used to be part of the liberation front trying to throw the Romans out. We don’t know the occupations of the rest. Matthew alone of all the disciples belonged to a universally hated class which were not even allowed into the temple, and likely not the synagogue either. The lesson is, then, that God who is Christ is not a respecter of persons. Jesus doesn’t care about where you work or how great your sin, but He does want to save everyone from his sin. Thus calling Matthew to learn from Him as a disciple shows that the forgiveness Jesus won for us on the cross is even for what society calls the worst of sinners. Of all the disciples, only Matthew was a social outcast, yet Jesus dined with him and his friends. So, no matter what sins you have committed in your life, Jesus also loves you and paid your debt.

Now remember, because you are forgiven your sins you must turn from your sins and commit them no more. Thus Zacchaeus restores what he stole, even up to four times the amount. Thus the harlots cease their harlotry. Liars cease lying. Thieves cease thieving. And misers give generously. But what of the Pharisees?

Jesus closes this event with a rather cutting command and comment to them: But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But as you all are going learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” That command, ‘learn’, derives from the Greek word for disciple, the very thing Jesus has just made St. Matthew. In effect, when Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6 and commands the Pharisees to ‘learn, He is slicing through their ignorance and reprimanding them for their ignorance of God’s Word and for their refusal to be disciples. They neither know God’s Word correctly nor study it rightly. Though they are supposed to be the preachers and teachers of God’s Word, they are woefully ignorant and ineffectual in that they even chase away those most in need of hearing the good news of sins forgiven. In their arrogance and belief in their own righteousness, they are blind to their sins and so cannot be disciples. They likely thought themselves faithful disciples of the prophets like Ezekiel, but rather than willing hearers of admonition, they have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart, so they remain in their sin. St. Matthew, like the other disciples, is quite unlike the Pharisees, he is repentant and forgiven.

(II) To what work did Jesus call St. Matthew? Initially, Jesus called him out of the sinful life of theft into that of a disciple, one who learns the Word of God about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But St. Matthew’s work, as that of the other ten disciples, changed. At the event of Christ’s Ascension they ceased being students and instead He places them into His own office, the Office of the Ministry, as we call it, and makes them Apostles. This is what St. Matthew records in the final chapters of the Gospel: Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. As you are going therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (28:18–20)

St. Paul tells us: And Jesus gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, so that the men filling these offices, Matthew in the case, first, would equip the saints. Equip them with what? Not the next two clauses, as the dunces ignorant of Greek grammar would argue, but with the faithful doctrine of God, that is, with God’s Word from the Bible, proclaiming it and explaining how it speaks of Jesus. In Large part the equipping which Matthew has done in writing this Gospel book was so that the common Christian would know the story and work of Christ well enough to make a defense of the Gospel to family, friends, strangers, and perhaps persecutors.

Remember what St. Peter said about your lives even in times of suffering, as I also quoted last week: in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame (1 Pt 3:15–16). How will you be prepared? Through the teaching and preaching of the Office of the Ministry, as Christ also taught and preached to the twelve.

And I will bring up a second purpose for equipping you, St. James writes: Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world (1:27). Some of the good works God has prepared beforehand (Eph 2:10) for all believers are the care and comfort of the orphans and widows among us, i.e., those in the worst state, but not only by visiting them, but speaking of Jesus with them. Likewise all Christians have the work of resisting the temptations of the world. Careful hearing and study of the Bible equip you for that.

Second so that these men in that office would do the work of ministry. What is this work? Here are a few verses which explain the Office of Christ in which He placed Matthew and the other men: St. Luke records this as part St. Paul’s instruction to the pastors of Ephesus: Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood (Acts 20:28). And for further clarification of what St. Paul means by overseers, this is what the book of Hebrews tells you who are laity: Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you (3:17). Christ has given the Apostles, and now pastors, so that they may watch over God’s sheep, that their souls may be well fed with the Bible and well supplied by God’s gifts.

St. Paul says, This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful (1 Cor 4:1–2). What are the mysteries of God? The Early Church correctly used the term ‘mysteries’ to refer to Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Pastors are tasked with the faithful administration of both these Sacraments, so that all sinners, adults as well as infants, whom the Holy Spirit calls would be baptized into the church, and that pastors would administer the Body and Blood of Christ in the bread and wine only to the the faithful, so that the unbelieving and the unexamined would not eat and drink to their own harm, as 1 Corinthians 11:27–31 warns.

St. Paul also says, Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth (2 Tim 2:15). Pastors must be men without reproach, who teach the Law of God in its full harshness, and the Gospel of God in its full sweetness, so that confirmed sinners see their sin and despair of themselves and become contrite, and that those who are contrite would be comforted by the good news that the blood of Christ has purified them of their sins (Eph 2; Heb 9:11–14; Rev 1:5).

St. John records: Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” (20:21–23) The Office of the Ministry exists also to provide Absolution to all sinners who repent, thus pastors, as St. Matthew no doubt did, must warn sinners of the sin and if they are repentant offer them the comfort of God’s Word and God’s forgiveness in private confession and absolution, or, in such regrettable situations, baring the unrepentant from the Lord’s Supper because they will not admit their sins.

St. Peter writes to pastors, using the old term for the office: elders, So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, … shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory (1 Pt 5:1–4). St. Matthew and every pastor are to guide God’s flock to the green pastures of pure doctrine, to the waters of Baptism, and to restore them when their spirits falter because of sin (Ps 23), not as masters over the laity, but standing as protectors and shepherds in the place of Christ to them: comforting the hurting, admonishing the disobedient, and guiding the flock away from the world toward the Kingdom of Heaven.

for building up the body of Christ, this means the building up of the Church. Not that Apostles or pastors were or are able to cause the Church to grow, but it is through such work like St. Matthew preaching, teaching, dying a martyr’s death, and writing the Gospel that God causes His Church to grow in numbers. Remember St. Paul’s admonition: What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth (1 Cor 3:5–7). And Jesus Himself in Matthew 9, When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (36–38)

Matthew, the other Apostles, and the pastors since then whom God has invested into Christ’s Office are merely God’s laborers, spreading the Word of Christ crucified for the sinner, bringing the sheep who have heard and believed Jesus into the church, teaching them to defend the faith, delivering them God’s gifts of Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and Absolution, and guiding the sheep through the troubles of life: until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. That is, Jesus gave you, the Church, first Apostles and now pastors so that you would be equipped to face the devil, the world, and your sinful flesh, so that you would grow beyond the infancy of faith to the full manhood of the believers, ones who hear God’s Word gladly, believe the promises of God, trust their baptism, eagerly desire the Lord’s Supper, and who will, like the martyrs before them, like spear pierced St. Matthew, trust that in Baptism you are joined to the death and resurrection of Christ so that all the threats and persecution of the devil, the world, and any demon do not frighten you, for you like St. Matthew are forgiven in Christ. Amen.