Follow Me

Jesus saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax office, and he said to him: Follow me.
“Matthew gave a banquet for the Lord at his earthly residence, but far more pleasing was the banquet set in his own heart which he provided through faith and love. Our Savior attests to this: Behold I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

On hearing Christ’s voice, we open the door to receive him, as it were, when we freely assent to his promptings and when we give ourselves over to doing what must be done.”
From a homily by Saint Bede, the Venerable, priest


An important 2-word title again today; perhaps this might be an indicator that my thoughts are becoming more precise, and my verbiage here less? Dream on, my friends, dream on!

Today is a feast day dedicated to St. Matthew, the apostle. We spoke yesterday of hearing the call of God to us, the small, still voice in our hearts. Here today we see another aspect of the call of God: it is precise. When he calls to us, he doesn’t use a paragraph, a long explanation of WHY he is calling us, or WHAT he wants us to do, trying to convince us to turn our hearts towards his will. He just tells us. He expects that our hearts are ALREADY turned towards his will. This example explains an important point about our relationship with God: if you want to hear him, you have to have a heart disposed to do what he tells you, first.

Matthew was a tax collector, a very public job where everyone expected him to cheat people, in order to get rich himself. He was a very public sinner against Jewish laws, and so although he may have had many rich friends, he was kind of like a mobster in society – a social outcast. I think, in his heart despite all his money, Matthew was not happy with this situation. He wanted to be closer to the God of his fathers, but -- then there was the money. The temptation of the world. If Matthew had been totally happy with his job and his money, I think he would have laughed off Jesus’ call with: I have more important things to do. But he didn’t.

In my last short-titled meditation, I mentioned the phone call the nun made to me. I think on that Saturday morning, her call was really Jesus in disguise saying to me: Follow me. And I, like Matthew, looked at my job and the money and thought that perhaps this call is a better use of my time, of my life. And as a result of answering that call, I found Joy in my life that I could not have found in any job, with any amount of money. Perhaps that’s why I value the words I later heard: Thanks, Mister. Perhaps they were a response to my answering his call, a thank you from God. I’ve done many difficult but right things in my life, and I did not need any thank you’s to feel satisfied in my heart – but it’s still nice to hear the words.

Matthew’s pre-disposition to hear God’s call is something we all need to work on. Unless we have said in our heart that we are willing to following the call of God, we will not hear it. We need to work on that continuously, to recognize that being focused on the things of this world makes us less likely to be able to focus on things of the next – which are so much more important.

I reached a bottom point in my life, where I literally gave my will to God. But you don’t have to find the ability to listen to God that way. You can start by listening less to the calls of this world, the calls to get all the things there to make you happy NOW: money, power, fame, sex, and ego. You might start by not going into work on that Saturday, like I did so often, and spending more time with that spouse and children you pledged to GIVE love to. You might start by not missing the opportunity, not requirement but opportunity, to go to church on Sunday. You might start by praying each day: Speak to me Lord, I want to listen to your will. My Jesus, I trust in you.

You might start.

And who knows, at some point you might hear a call, saying: Follow me. If you do, get up and go. It’s the start of a great journey.