St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

Matthew 9.9-13

September 21, 2025

St. Matthew’s Gospel ends with well-known words, the so-called Great Commission. Jesus says, “Therefore go and make disciples of all the nations.”

There’s been a tremendous tension in American Christianity for the last half-century or more about the purpose of the church. The tension is sometimes presented as “mission” versus “maintenance.” Some churches and pastors are “missional,” meaning they want to make disciples. “Maintenance” churches and pastors don’t care about that, they just want to exist for themselves. Those are the caricatures.

The mistake in this way of thinking is that being a disciple is a binary thing, either you are or you aren’t. The switch is on or off.

It’s more complicated than that. The words St. Matthew put at the end of his Gospel say a little more: “Therefore go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the close of the age.”

Baptism begins the life of the disciple, and it is accompanied by a continual teaching, an ongoing catechesis to observe everything Jesus commanded.

If you’re baptized, the journey of discipleship is begun. But the catechesis is ongoing. It happens when we study the Bible and pray, but the catechesis is also happening when your heart is broken, when you lose your job, when an assassination shocks you to the core, when your father dies, when a dear friend betrays you, when you struggle with lust and envy and anger, when your pastor lets you down, and on and on. Your Lord is repeatedly calling you to repentance.

We are tempted and tried on every side. Because being a disciple isn’t a status or a state of being. The English word disciple comes from the Latin Discipulus, “student.” The Greek word is Mathētēs, which is awfully close to Matthew. Did Jesus give Levi the name Matthew when He said to him, “Follow Me”?

Regardless, Jesus made Levi into a Matthew, into a disciple, a student, and in Christ’s school you don’t graduate until the casket lid closes and we put the white cloth on top to indicate there’s a baptized person inside the box.

That’s really what discipleship is: a death. “Take up your cross and follow Me,” Jesus says. “Be faithful until death,” Jesus says, “and I will give you the crown of life.”

Mission and maintenance are only a part of discipleship. Mission is the start, maintenance is not enough. “Enter by the narrow way,” Jesus says, speaking of a road we go down. St. Paul in Eph. 4 says that Apostles and prophets and pastors equip the saints for their edification – that’s a building word; think of construction projects; first there is a clearing of the land, everything gets leveled; the property is connected to the utilities, building materials get shipped in, a foundation is poured, the structure starts going up. But without maintenance and repairs, the finished structure starts to break down, leaking and crumbling.

After this St. Paul continues in Eph. 4, using words describing the growth of the human body - we are to grow up and stop being children. We are to come to maturity, to perfection. Maturity is particularly characterized by speaking the truth in love. The healthy church does both: speaks high-octane truth, always in the spirit of love.

When a couple gets married, the marriage rite doesn’t ask, “Do you love this person?” but, “Will you love?”

Likewise We should ask ourselves, “Am I a disciple, a student of Jesus now, today?” And then, “Am I going to grow as a disciple? Will I still be a disciple tonight and tomorrow and when the hour of trial and temptation and allurement comes?”

All of this is embedded in the words Jesus says to Levi the tax collector, “Follow Me.”

He says, “Come, Levi; leave the money behind. Come and be a Matthew, a Mathētēs, a disciple. Follow Me, walk behind Me, imitate Me.”

This radical summons changed everything for him. He went from being wealthy to unemployed. He loses his imperial protection, and is hated by both Jews and Romans.

But in losing his wealth, he gains a far greater treasure. Matthew is martyred, but in losing his life, he finds it. For he was a disciple of the One who holds the keys to life and death. He was a disciple of the One who is risen from the dead.

And so are you. You are a Matthew, a Mathētēs; you are a Discipulus, a disciple, a student of Jesus. And the words with which Matthew closes his gospel, the words of your Lord, are your light in the dark places: “Lo, I am with you always.” “I AM with you” is a reference to the way Matthew’s Gospel began, with the birth of Immanuel, “God with us.”

I like what we did here with the artwork, but my initial idea was to have Isaiah on the left panel and Matthew on the right, with the birth of Jesus in the middle. For it’s from Isaiah that the prophecy comes, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and give birth to a son, and He shall be called Immanuel.” And then when Jesus is born, Matthew reminds us that this is the Immanuel, which means in Hebrew, “God with us.”

That’s what’s going on when Jesus says at the end of Matthew, “I AM with you.” Jesus is the I AM, the God who was and is and ever shall be. And He is with us.

That’s what the eucharist is for. Your Jesus is here in the Supper, with you, with us, to edify us, to cause us to grow together as His disciples.

We’ve stumbled, we’ve fallen. Cracks have entered the facade, we need renewal, we need repairs - we need forgiveness, we need rescue, we need to be put back on track. Here in the Supper St. Matthew’s Lord says to you, “I forgive you. Your sins are gone. Now be strong, show yourself a man, and follow Me. I am with you to death. I will never leave you nor forsake you. Follow Me!”

+INJ+