Matthew 9:9-13

Chapter 36

Prayer

Almighty God, we have heard of thine anger, but we have not felt it; surely thou hast shown unto us only thy love, and made thy goodness to touch us with its gentle hand. We have heard of thy fire, but it hath not scorched us; we have been warmed by thy summer sun. Thou hast been to us a God of love and tenderness, thine eyes have been full of the tears of pity, in thine heart has been the yearning of a great compassion. Truly thou hast now and again given us one night of weeping, but the tears endured but for the night; they vanished in the morning; then thou didst come to us with renewed tenderness, gentler than ever, as if thou wouldst make the night of trouble the beginning of a better and brighter time.

We will speak of the goodness of the Lord, and our memory concerning his mercy shall be vivid, and we will sing unto the Lord of mercy and of judgment, for thy ways concerning us have been ways of compassion, and thy righteousness has been attempered to our weakness. Wherein we have desired to be better, thou hast not scourged us with reproach; when tears of pity have risen to thine eyes, we have been encouraged to draw nearer to thee. Behold thou dost welcome us at the cross, on the cross we see the manifestation of thy tenderest heart-love, and there we meet thee, having broken thy law, having insulted thy Spirit, and there, by looking away from ourselves to the slain Lamb, the one sacrifice, the infinite atonement, we receive thy pardon, and into our hearts there comes the hush of an infinite peace.

We bless thee for all these revelations of thyself; they startle us, yet afterwards they give unto us the utterest comfort. For a moment they amaze and confound us, and gradually they settle down into the guests of our heart that enlighten and warm and cheer it. Evermore do thou grow upon the vision of our love, fill the whole horizon of our life, shut out every other figure, and destroy the light of every other attraction.

Abide with us, loving Father, loving Son: abide with us, thou Spirit of life and Spirit of fire. We mourn our sin; it is the tale we tell to every sunset, and it is the tragedy we renew with every sunrise. Our very breathing is sin, our every look is a blasphemy, our every thought is stained with evil or imprisoned within the compass of the mean earth. We are wanting in purity and in nobleness and spiritual freedom, we are the slaves of sin if the chain be broken in the morning it is riveted anew at night. God be merciful unto us sinners. Thou art still making us, thou art still making man, thou art still redeeming us whilst the cross stands the great redemption proceeds. Thou wilt have us in thy holy keeping; thou hast not brought us to this hour of life that thou mightest put a knife through our heart and cast us away as worthless ones: thou hast not extended the miracles of thy grace upon us that we might be trodden under foot and forgotten of the universe; thy purposes towards us are good; thy meaning is inspired by love; thou hast called us and sealed us and inspired us with holiest hope, and thou wilt not at the last let us drop from the height of the very heavens.

We commend one another always to thy gentle care. When we are weakest, then do thou love us most; when we are furthest away, then do thou hasten with quickened speed after us, lest we pass the final line and can no more be found. The Lord make our infirmity the ground of his kindness, then shall his mercy endure for ever. Pity us in our littleness, for we are still in the dust; regard our infirmities with tender compassion, for we are still far from home. Show us thy wonders in the wilderness and shape the stones of the desert into a temple. Give us holy desires after thyself, create in every heart a mighty prayer, let every soul go out after thee like a bird that would find the sun.

Remember all for whom we ought to pray our sick ones at home, the old man dying, the tender mother pining, the little child all but passing away from the earth it hardly knows, the prodigal, lost of men, beyond every eye but the piercing mercy of thy love, the soldier, the sailor, the traveller on the sea and on the land let thy mercy go out after all these and thy blessing be upon them according to their several necessities. Omit none from thy benediction.

Bless the land we love the most, and our rightful sovereign the Queen. Guide our legislators and direct our leaders; teach our judges judgment and give them the spirit of wisdom and of mercy. Prosper all honest commerce, help every honourable man to gain his bread in plentifulness with a clean heart and a spotless hand. The Lord look upon all our educational institutions; sanctify the efforts that are made there to enlarge, enlighten, and cultivate the human mind; hasten the time when every one who can sing shall sing thy praise with a loud and cordial voice, when all who are practised in high arts shall turn every beauty and every grandeur towards thy heavens as an offering of love.

The Lord hear us: we shall be gone to-morrow: we have already seen those who have gone before waving their farewells and telling us to come. Keep us back from evil thoughts, evil words, and evil deeds, establish us in a course of righteousness and nobleness, and bring us in thine own time the sooner the better, the longer, so must be thy will done and not ours to the green country, the verdant land, the sweet Paradise, the eternal summer. Amen.

Mat 9:9-13

9. And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew (Hebrew name Levi), sitting at the receipt of custom (at Capernaum), and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him.

10. And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat (called by Luke "a great feast") in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.

11. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?

12. But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.

13. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous ("an ironical admission"), but sinners to repentance.

Calling to Discipleship

"And as Jesus passed from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew." This is a man's account of himself. Matthew is the writer of these words. Surely he was most modest, for I know not how his self-description could have been shortened. He simply describes himself as "a man named Matthew," and he says that Jesus saw him as such. There he understated the case. Imagination turns these sweet and modest words into great and noble enlargements of meaning. Jesus saw a man. Was he a registrar, numbering the people in ones and twos was he a mere statistician, putting down the human family in arithmetical figures? He saw a man he saw more than we mean by that term, he saw that term in all the fulness shall I say in all the tragedy? of its meaning. He saw the ideal man, he saw the possible man, he saw the undeveloped acorn, he saw the germ out of which might come whole Bashans and Lebanons of strong growths.

How easy to pass a man and how readily it comes to our tongue to call some persons nobodies. We are given to the black art of contempt, we take pride in it, we say, "This man is little, and that man is contemptible, and yonder man is nobody," and we hurl our depreciatory adjectives at all and sundry whom we do not care for. Therein we show the little side of our nature. Every man is of some account, every man is somebody; it takes a Christ to warm us into our best consciousness, it takes a look from those eyes in which the summer shone to warm us into encouragement. Some are soon snubbed, they are easily put down a frown will send them away backward for a whole week: they can only live in approbation, in the sunshine of kind judgment. When Jesus Christ looks upon a man, he looks him into a nobler manhood. He wants to look at you why do you avert your face? Turn ye, let your faces meet, and you will never forget his look.

He was a man named Matthew: that name is the only foothold which the writer of this gospel claims for himself in human history. We cannot tell what we write when we write a man's name; it is nothing to us but something to go by, a mere handle or convenience, a sound that is an identity, pointing to a particular individual. But the giving of that name took a whole day in the family long since: it was canvassed, it was made matter of reference, it was carefully balanced with other possible appellations, it was prayed over, it was something snatched from the grave that superior excellence might be remembered, that kind memories might be vivified through the generations to come. Yet how foolishly people name their children, and with what utter ignorance they send them forth with appellations the most misleading, and sometimes involving the most cruel irony or the most laughable burlesque!

It would be an interesting study to collect the Bible names and to go into the reasons why those names were given, and then to show the contrasts and discrepancies between the names and the characters of those who bore them. Our mother Eve said, "I have gotten a man from the Lord: call him Cain." He was gotten from the Lord, but did he ever go back to the Lord? and it is difficult to think that the Lord ever had anything to do with some men. Who can tell? The times are sadly out of joint: there certainly be ironies in our individuality that would seem to exclude the hand of providence from our formation and direction. Yet the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. We are lost: he is in quest of us can we help him to find us?

"I will," said the daughter of Pharaoh, "call him Moses, because I drew him out of the water." So are our names given: they are monumental names or memorial names: they represent affection, interest, kindness. No child was ever purposely called by the name of a bad man. The wicked have no real friends: there be many eagles that pluck them, there are no angels that bless them. Did you call your child by his name because it was the name of a drunkard? Did you reason thus with yourself, saying, "My little girl shall bear the name of a woman who was notoriously bad and because she was notoriously bad "? Have I not heard you reasoning just contrariwise and saying, "We will call this child after his good old grandfather, we will call this little girl after her sweet mother, we will call this boy after the name of some illustrious character in history"? When did any man ever go up to the upas tree and pluck one of its deadly twigs and put it into his child's hand to be known by through the handful of his days? O bad man, nobody likes you: they may smile upon you because they have not yet got the last shilling out of your pocket: they may give you guest room in the house because they cannot decently thrust you into the appropriate kennel but nobody loves you. The memory of the wicked shall rot, the candle of the wicked shall be put out. Only goodness would we immortalise. There is still left in this poor nature of ours that strange instinct to preserve the beautiful; we would crush the poisonous adder; who would willingly slay the singing bird, so blithe, so modest?

"Saul, who is also called Paul." Thus men like to shuffle off the old name, because they have put away the old character. It is in our power, under the blessing and special call of God, to put away our old names. It is the prerogative of God to give each of us a new name, not the name that was sprinkled upon our brow in the baptismal drops, but a name written on the forehead by an invisible finger, and visible to none but the Giver. Have we received the new name? Do we carry the new white stone? Is our brow sanctified and ennobled by a writing not to be read by vulgar eyes, but to be seen by every angel flying in the midst of heaven? is a solemn question. Every man must give his own reply.

"And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom." In other words he was going about his daily business. He was found, he was sought out, he represents a special class of the Christian elect, of the Christian believer and worker. He was following a despised occupation. There are despised occupations now, there are occupations which never can be forgiven, and that can be said in free England, and in republican France, and in democratic America. There are some trades we recoil from, and yet we are Christian professors and citizens of no mean city. But there are some occupations we would not mention if we could help it. A man who is a chimney-sweeper; who would like to be a relative of his?

There are some of you who do not like to see your brothers when they are in their working clothes. You can do with them on a Sunday, when they have got their best garments on, but to think of your walking with some fine person, and to see your brother come up with his fustian jacket on, what an outlook you take upon the universe, what an inquiry flames into your face as if you were most astronomically disposed! There are no mean occupations, but there are some very mean occupants! I do not say that this occupation or that is the best possible in the world. I am not called upon to give any opinion as to the conflicting merits of occupations and professions, but I want to see the man through all the circumstances, as Jesus Christ never failed to do. The Pharisees called Matthew a publican, a tax-gatherer, a sinner, an alien. So was called Zaccheus, but when the turn came of Jesus Christ to speak about Zaccheus, he said, "He is a son of Abraham," and the little man stood up a king. It is so he talks about every one of us. When he sees the very least and meanest of us give a homeward look, he says, concerning such a looker towards the heavens, "He also is a son of Abraham."

"And he saith unto him, Follow me." Is that all? That is all. Is it not imperative? It is most absolute. When do kings say, "If you please "? Who ever goes to see the Queen by her special and humble desire? I have always noticed that when the Queen sends for any one, she commands them. Why, Jesus Christ seemed to have caught the trick of that high royalty. "Follow me," said he. Abolishing every mood and tense fancied and projected by the fertile brains of grammarians, he shut up human speech into the imperative mood. I like to hear his commands: they were softly spoken, but they were commands at the root and core of them.

He commands you and me just as absolutely today. "Follow me, come unto me." That is his gentle command, his imperial but compassionate edict. He never says, "Follow me, to do me any service that I cannot do without." He uttered the word, "Follow," with a tone which meant, "and you shall have all heaven for the following." The very imperativeness of the tone hides a gracious intent. This is no scourging tone that would drive men before it, it is the tone of a complete assurance and a sublime and indestructible purpose, an assurance of his own sufficiency to meet the need, and his purpose to cover all human necessity with the infinite fulness of his unutterable grace. Will you come?

He did not go to Matthew and raise him from the seat; he did not employ any mechanical powers for the purpose of drawing Matthew: he launched his word. It is an old way of his, it began with, "Let there be light, and there was light," as if light had been standing behind the chaotic mass, waiting for the word and could not move until that word was spoken. The Bible is full of commandments, but the commandments are not grievous, they are not the utterances of an arbitary will, but the subtle pleadings of a heart that lives for us, and that would seem to be unable to live without us.

"And he arose and followed him." How easy it is for some men to rise and follow Christ, as compared with others. They seem to fall into the way of faith: it is like bringing the sun to bear upon a bud that wants to open, and that is just waiting for light in order that it might unfold its deep and sacred beauty. It is so easy for some men to pray: they seem to be walking up a gentle green slope to meet God at the height of it. When other men try to pray it is like climbing up a rugged steep rock, some of the stones loose, and if you put your foot upon them you will fall. It is so easy for some men to do the act of benevolence: there are some persons to whom I dare not state a case of necessity, because while I am stating it they are putting forth the hand to relieve it, and others need long pleading and much pressure and detail, the utterance of which becomes a sheer cruelty to the man who has to speak it, before they can advance the smallest testimony of their regard for human suffering.

It is so easy for some people to go to church: they like it, they wait for Sunday; when they open their eyes upon the Sabbatic light they say, "Thank God, this is the King's day."

"And it came to pass as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples." It was probably in Matthew's house. Matthew was, by all historical accounts, not a poor man, but one who could show hospitality of the kind indicated in this passage. The publicans and sinners came and sat down with Jesus: that was an unconscious tribute. How is it that we are drawn to some people, how is it that we know certain persons whom we never saw before in our lives, what is that singular mystery of kith and kin which we all realize when we have spoken to certain persons five minutes? I have watched the eye of poverty and the eye of grief and want, and I have done so this very morning. A poor creature was waylaying a few travellers, and one after another passed, and her keen and hungry eye saw nothing in them to which she could appeal. Then one I saw pass, and she said, "Pardon me, sir do not be offended------" How did she know to whom to speak? Is there a masonry of hearts? Are there signs in the face, are there gleamings in the eye, is there something in the walk, are we revelations to one another? Did any poor soul ever stop you to tell a tale of grief? Yes. Thank God for that interruption: it meant a great deal, such woe, hunger, pain and want as stopped you have eyes that can read the heart.

The publicans and sinners got round him as cold people get round a fire. They need no welcome in words: they are cold and here is the fire. If you felt the cold you would draw near to the great fire of Christ's love, and until you do feel it I can do nothing with you or for you but declare in ardent speech the excellence of One who would do you good if you would allow him.

"When the Pharisees saw it, they said, Why doth your Master eat with publicans and sinners?" This is a narrow criticism: it abounds in every time. All men have at least got thus far in the tormenting art of criticism they are able to find fault. He is indeed a remarkable imbecile who cannot find fault with somebody; he is indeed much neglected in his education who cannot find fault with any sermon he ever heard or with any person he ever saw. "Of all the cants that ever were canted in this canting world, though the cant of hypocrisy be the worst, the cant of criticism is the most tormenting."

How did Jesus reply to this narrow criticism? When Jesus heard that, he said, "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice I will have the reality and not the sham, I will have the thing meant and not mere words and tricks about it. God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." So Jesus Christ lived in great principles, and so he lived above public opinion: he never lived in defiance of it. It is a poor criticism of our Lord's habit and manner amongst men to say that he defied public sentiment The true criticism would be that he lived above it, he dwelt in the sanctuary of great principles, he worshipped in the temple of universal benevolence. Any fanatic can defy public opinion, it requires the divinest of saints to enthrone himself above it and to move in his sublime course, impelled by divine inspirations and undegraded by human tempers or social flatteries.