So now, the game is over, and no amount of complaining or whining is going to change that. I'm already thinking about what I'm going to do at school on Monday. I'm thinking about my grandfather, still in the final stages on Alzheimers, whom I saw for the first time in over a year today. Real life is starting to set in again, as the intensity of sports begins to fade.
And yeah, as I think about my atrocious behavior during the game, it makes me ashamed. It makes me hope that those who know me, and who know I claim to follow Jesus, never see me during a UK basketball game. Actually, scratch that: It makes me hope they've never seen me during a UK basketball game, AND it makes me hope I'll be able to keep myself under control for the next game.
For someone who claims to follow Christ, I find myself having a lot of "I hope no one I go to church with saw that" moments. But at least I find myself in good company. Even those who followed Jesus full-time, in the flesh had things in their life they'd hope people not see. Not because it reflects badly on them, because it reflects badly on their Master.
Unfortunately, we're not treated to much of their personal stories. All these men where human, just like me. They lost their cool, sometimes. They got frustrated. They felt cheated. Did they struggle, like I struggle?
I can' help but feel short-changed as I read the stories of some of the most significant characters in scripture. Even people who played a huge role in the ministry of Jesus, who were in his innermost circle of friends, are maddeningly glossed over in biblical history.
Take Matthew, for instance.
We know next to nothing about Matthew except that he was a tax collector, and that he was a Jew. To a certain extent this is enough, because so much is implied. As Jewish collector of Roman taxes, Matthew is a traitor. A pariah. Probably enviable only to the lepers, social outcasts themselves. But there is still so much of the author missing from the Gospel that bears his name.
What was Matthew's life like before Jesus called him to leave everything and follow Him? Had he been looking for an excuse to quit his job? I like to believe he had been, because I can't imagine the taunts and ridicule he dealt with from his fellow Jews when they had to come to him, one of their people, and pay taxed to the foreign force occupying their holy city. And the tax collectors had a reputation of being crooks; was Matthew included in them? Did he have days where he resisted skimming a little off the top, trying to show his countrymen that he was still one of them? Where there days, after he could no longer take the jeering, that he stole an extra portion for himself, feeling he deserved it for having to put up with such torment?
Did he worship God? Could he even show his face in the Temple?
In my experience, Jesus rarely sends only one person to work on the heart of someone He wishes to save. How many other people had tried to soften Matthew's heart? How many times had he been invited to return to the Temple, only to refuse because he was afraid of the cries of 'hypocrite' and 'sell-out' and 'traitor'?
What did he see in the face of Jesus that awakened his soul? No one simply gets up and leaves a job, especially one for which the government could bring down the full force of the law upon you for abandoning your post. Yet he saw something, heard something, in Jesus' simple phrase of, "Follow me," that set his heart afire, telling him:
"This is the moment you've been waiting for. Now is the time."
After Matthew started following Jesus, did he have doubts? Regrets? Moments when he did something, or said something that cast Jesus in a bad light? Did Jesus ever have to pull him aside and say, "Look, if you're going to say you're my follower, you have to stop saying things like that."
Did he still see the same spark in the face of Jesus that caused him to want to follow him in the first place, even months and years later?
Yeah, this seems like a lot of questions to ask, this late on a Saturday night, after such an emotionally exhausting basketball game. But this is sort of what happens when I come down from a "sports high." Reality becomes so much more stark and bright. I have to face the words I yelled at the television, my cell phone, which was thrown across the room right before halftime, and re-read my tweets and Facebook posts to make sure I didn't actually type all the expletives that were going through my head.
I wonder how it was so easy for Matthew to leave behind everything - his old self, his old job, his old preconceived notions about God and faith and religion - and boldly go forth and follow Christ. And I wonder why my vocabulary from my 'old self' always seems to come out when a basketball game's officiating is less than fair. All it took was one phrase from Jesus, and Matthew leaves behind his oldness for Jesus' newness. How did he do it?
Seeking answers, I opened my Bible. Almost immediately, I found a page of commentary from Dietrich Bonhoeffer regarding the calling of Matthew and Jesus' simple phrase of "Follow me."
This encounter is a testimony to the absolute, direct and accountable authority of Jesus. There is no need of any preliminaries, and no other consequence but obedience to the call. Because JESUS IS THE CHRIST, He has authority to call and demand obedience to His word. Jesus summons men to follow him, not as a teacher or a pattern of a good life, but as the CHRIST, the SON OF GOD.
In this short text Jesus Christ and his claim are proclaimed to men. Not a word of praise is given to the disciple for his decision to follow Christ. We are not expected to contemplate Matthew, but only HE WHO CALLS, and his absolute authority
According to our text, there is no road to faith and discipleship, no other road; only the call of Jesus.
After reading that, I realized that my focus was on the wrong person. Matthew's life isn't explained in painstaking detail because it simply doesn't matter, in the grand scheme of things. It doesn't matter if he had doubts or fears or wanted to quit. What mattered was that he chose to follow Jesus. He was willing to open his heart to the call for Someone greater than himself, and Jesus spoke straight to that.
If I find myself wondering how Matthew so easily ditched his old life and started following, I need to change my focus: from Matthew, to the One who called Matthew.
Because to a heart attuned with Christ, open to His call, no matter where it may lead, nothing else really matters. Not why the other disciples started following. Not basketball scores, now committed to collecting dust in history books. Not fears or doubts or worries or slipping into old habits.
All that matters is obedience to the One who calls us, and to His word. Because with that, everything else that matters slips right into place. And everything that doesn't matter simply disappears.
If I can't understand why Matthew chose to follow Jesus at that simple phrase, the fault lies with me, not him.
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