As a fan, it is exciting. We are all asking ourselves, “Will my team pick the right combination of talent that will propel them to the a championship or at least a playoff berth? Will the college players I came to love get the chance to play on Sunday?”
From the player’s standpoint, it’s much more personal. Each year several hundred college athletes from around the country go through a series of combines designed to allow scouts from professional football teams to evaluate their athletic ability and understanding of the game. They may schedule private workouts with teams, attend interviews, and watch film with pro scouts. Then those same players wait for a phone call, hoping against hope that one of those teams will select them to become a professional football player.
For an elite few, a lifelong dream will come true.
For many others though, there won’t be a call, just silence and then the realization that they were passed over. I can only imagine the immense feeling of disappointment in those players.
I think most of us can understand the feeling of disappointment to some extent or another. We all know what it’s like to not be good enough, or to have just missed out on something. We all know what loss is. We know what it is to miss the call that could change our lives.
The story of the call of the disciples, and particularly of Matthew reminds me of the draft.
Peter and Andrew, James and John, were lowly fisherman. Perhaps at one time they might have had the opportunity to apply to become the disciples of a Pharisaic rabbi, which at the time was kind of the equivalent of being a university professor, pastor, and lawyer all in one. But that opportunity passed them by. They weren’t smart enough, they didn’t have the talent , they didn’t have the right pedigree, or maybe they just weren’t very good guys. For whatever reason, the call passed them by.
Matthew’s life was perhaps even more disappointing. Just like Peter and Andrew, James and John, the call had passed Matthew by. But Matthew sank even further. Matthew became a tax collector. To the Jews in First Century Judea, tax collectors were the lowest of the low. They were collaborators with a foreign occupier. They took the hard earned money of their fellow Jews to send on to a Roman government that suppressed them. On top of that, tax collectors didn’t draw a salary. In order to make a living they were expected to fleece their fellow Jews in order to make a commission from the taxes owed to Caesar. Tax collectors were considered inherently immoral, they were shunned and hated. We have a word for guys like this today. We call them Scum.
So there sits Matthew in a booth in Capernaum, probably exacting taxes from guys like Peter, Andrew, James, and John. Maybe he has grown accustomed to being shunned, the dirty looks from other Jews, perhaps even being spit on occasionally. And all of a sudden, this man walks up to him, this rabbi named Jesus. Jesus is a famous man, he’s a Holy man, he’s someone who is rumored to be close enough to God to heal the sick and dying. This man walks up to Matthew ignoring the stares and says, “Follow me.”
That evening, Matthew invites Jesus and people who are described as tax collectors and sinners to his home to have dinner with Jesus. Bear in mind that this is a group that is so universally disliked that the Pharisees ask Jesus, “Why do you eat with tax collectors and sinners?” It’s like Jesus, do you really want to be associated with people like this?
To put things in perspective, the Pharisees were the guys who got the call. They were the first round draft picks, the superstars.
Jesus turns to these guys and says, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. . . For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Jesus is building a championship team with the leftovers.
Can you imagine that moment? Can you imagine how Matthew must have felt? Suddenly, he was no longer the guy who got left out of the party. Matthew makes a decision then and there to answer the call. He takes that second chance and runs with it.
Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all champagne and roses from there forward. Matthew was there when Jesus was arrested. He tucked tail and ran. He saw Jesus brutally beaten and crucified in public. He knew what it was to be afraid that he would be next. But he was also there in that upper room when Jesus appeared alive, risen from the grave. And it changed his life.
Matthew went on to preach the good news. We aren’t sure exactly where. Some say he traveled from Judea to Ethiopia, or perhaps to Parthia. We know that it is from his testimony that we have the Gospel of Matthew, a letter that has continued to change lives the way his was changed for almost two thousand years. This man who was shunned and left out became the player who would stand the test of time because of what he experienced of the grace of God.
Maybe you’re feeling like one of the people who missed the call. Maybe you are struggling with not being good enough, with not making the cut. I know that struggle. I am one of the “not good enoughs.” I know the things I’ve done, the ways I have failed. But no matter what I’ve done, or said, not done, or not said, there is someone who reaches out their hand when no one else will and says, “Follow me.”
The phone is ringing. Will you answer the call to hear the good news?
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