The Call—Oh, It’s for You!

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him [Matthew 9:9]

Some years ago, a physician in a mid-sized Southern town, then in his late thirties, silently assessed his situation. The Rubicon lay before him. He and his partners had just finished their regular quarterly financial meeting. They had discussed the health of their practice; it was on solid ground. They’d discussed a few minor staffing issues. Most of their talk, however, had been about indigent care. It was far from their first discussion of the topic. Several in the group thought they were doing too much of it. It took as much time—sometimes more—to see a Medicaid patient as it did to examine one who had good, third-party insurance coverage. At the conclusion of their discussion, the consensus was that the group should pare back its Medicaid work, with a view to eliminating it entirely if possible. The physician thought hard; he was the outlier. He saw the retreat from indigent patients as a retreat from his core values, but alas, what could he do?

He and his wife prayed about it that night—they’d done so numerous times before.

They agreed that his path into medicine had been less of a careful, planned decision and instead, more of a call. Now, could he be true to that “call” by cutting back on the number of Medicaid patients he saw?

Leaving the practice would mean leaving a lot behind. They’d likely need to relocate to another town. Solo practice in a new town—there were many bridges he’d need to cross. In fact, most of those bridges were yet to be constructed. Moving to another town meant selling the house, leaving their church, as well as many friends. The kids would have to leave friends behind as well. There were financial risks. Taking on some debt seemed assured; you don’t open a small medical practice overnight in a new town without funding.

And they prayed some more, for they also knew that for every question that they could currently identify, there would be others that they would be unable to anticipate. Severing the umbilicus and following the call—did they have the wisdom? Did they have the courage? Did they have the faith? Within their prayers, they heard a deep and resounding truth: “When you answer the call of Christ, you have to leave something—sometimes lots of things—behind.”

As we encounter the Old Testament reading for this upcoming Sunday [Genesis 12:1-9, the Second Sunday after Pentecost, RCL, Year A], we see that in calling Father Abram to be (along with Sarai) to be the vessels through which many nations would be blessed, Yahweh told Abram that he would be giving up three things: his country, his kinspeople, and father’s house [Genesis 12:1]. “When you answer the call of God, you have to leave something—sometimes lots of things—behind.”

When we come to the Gospel reading appointed for this week [Matthew 9:9-13, 18-36], we see not an aging old man from Haran, whose wife is barren, nor a physician on the cusp of change, but rather a tax collector. He’s sitting at a desk in a sheltered booth that was likely positioned strategically along the route that the Galilean fisherman took to transport their catch to the market. As they pass, they must pay this man—his name is Matthew—a tax on their prospective earnings. Rumor has it that Matthew was one of about 85,000 new tax agents recently hired by Roman authorities to keep track of self-employed folks like the Galilean fisherman. Ah, but I digress.

A few chapters earlier in what we know as the Gospel written by this tax collector [Matthew 4:18-22], Jesus had come down to the sea to call Peter and Andrew, and then James and John, to follow Him. Answering the call of Christ, they’d left their nets behind. “When you answer the call of Christ ….”

Now it was Matthew’s turn. Just when he thought it was safe to go to work, this Jesus, this man that everyone was talking about, walked over to his tax booth, and said, “Follow me” [Matthew 9:9]. If you remember anything about the story, remember that Matthew did not choose Jesus; Jesus chose Matthew (and Peter, Andrew, James, John, and all the others). Jesus didn’t ask Matthew if he’d follow. Jesus didn’t tell Matthew that it was a big decision, and that Jesus would give him some time within which to mull over the costs and benefits. Jesus spoke in the imperative. Something within Matthew must have sensed that with this Jesus, it was binary. You either said, “Yes,” or you said, “No.” And Matthew said, “Yes.”

Matthew had to face the important truth, “When you answer the call of Christ, you have to leave something—sometimes lots of things—behind.” Matthew no doubt earned a good living collecting taxes. We don’t know if he followed the common practice of skimming some for himself. We know that because he dealt with outsiders, he was an outcast. He could follow Jesus, but his reputation would likely follow after him as well. Something nagged away at Matthew, I think. Despite his status within the community, Jesus had approached him, seen something in him worth saving, and had invited him to follow after the one whom some said might be the Messiah.

Nineteen hundred or so years later, Dietrich Bonhoeffer struggled with his call. A German Lutheran pastor, Bonhoeffer was a skilled writer and theologian in the 1930s. He had such gifts! He had been offered positions at theological schools in both the U.S. and England that would have afforded him safety. He felt a call, however, to oppose Hitler. He helped organize the Confessing Church, which actively spoke out against the Nazis and Hitler himself.

Imprisoned for obeying his call, Bonhoeffer was hung on April 9, 1045, as Allied soldiers were about to gain control over the area where he was imprisoned. Like his Lord, Bonhoeffer was stripped of his clothes just before his execution. His magnificent book, The Cost of Discipleship, reiterates the point so well understood by Abram, the physician in the Southern town, and by Peter, Matthew, and the others, “When you answer the call of Christ ….”

There are some who can never say yes to Christ’s call. For them, it’s just too costly. In the tax collector’s Gospel, within the chapter that we number 19 [Matthew 19:16-22], the story is told of the rich young man (other Gospels would call him a “ruler”). Jesus invites the man to do the one thing that the man finds impossible, to sell his possessions and follow Jesus [Matthew 19:21]. The man went away said, for he had many possessions.

Some say it’s a matter of obedience. While there may be some element of that in our response to Christ, I think it’s really more a matter of trust. One has to trust that the Holy Trinity knows more and better than we do. As a friend taught me many years ago, you will never get to the next thing that God has planned for you, until you let go of where you are and just follow him.