The things we leave behind
“After these things He went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” Luke 5.27
When I read this encounter between Jesus and Matthew, I always think of Michael Card’s song “The things we leave behind.” In it, he reflects, “It’s hard to imagine the freedom we find from the things we leave behind.”
I’ve never really been keen on over-reflecting on the lives and personalities of the various characters in the Scriptures beyond what is recorded about them. But there are things we can guess about Matthew. First, we know that taxcollectors were despised by the Jews. Why? because they were Jews themselves, yet worked for the tyrannical Romans. Who better to know how much someone has with which to pay taxes than a “friend” – someone who is part of your community? Therefore, because he was a Jew and he collected taxes from those he knew, with the enforcement of the pagan Caesar on his side, a taxcollector was seen as a traitor to his own people. And it’s probably an accurate accusation.
Interestingly, Matthew’s … or “Levi’s” namesake is that of the priestly tribe – the ones who collected the tenth for God. I can’t help but thinking this is God’s ironic twist in Matthew’s life – a twist which God undoes by making Matthew a “collector” of the elect.
Matthew leaves all his greed, any corruption, everything he was, behind. And as he finds freedom from his old self by following Christ, he, de facto, sets those from whom he collected taxes free from his own oppression.
I still have this question, though. How did this work? Was this all there was to the exchange between Matthew and Jesus? Was this their first meeting, or one that occurred after Matthew had already built a relationship with Jesus? It just seems strange to me that this could be their first meeting. Sure, Jesus is the Son of God incarnate and whatever He commands happens. He commands nature, demons and men. Nothing stands against His will. He willed for Matthew to follow Him. I don’t suppose Matthew would (or could) want to choose anything different. Hard to say. Did Jesus see a longing in Matthew for the liberty that belongs to the sons of God?
Whatever we imagine about Matthew as a person, it’s a striking exchange. It’s “in your face.” And it makes us long for Jesus to say that to us. It makes us long to cast off all we were before to follow Him – to something greater, fuller, wherever the road goes… even to the cross, and beyond.