Matthew is one of the four evangelists in the Christian Testament. “Evangelist” is a word that means “one who proclaims the Good News.” Each of the four Gospels are proclamations of the Good News by a particular community, not just one person, let alone a definitely male person. (Was the beloved disciple in John, the first-hand witness to the life of Jesus for John’s Gospel, actually a woman? Maybe! Some scholars suspect that to be true.) As for Matthew, was he the same Matthew the tax collector we met last week, the man who sat in his tax booth until Jesus called him to join the movement? Maybe. We’ll never be sure. And it may not matter too much. It’s more helpful for us to remember that in all of these accounts of the Good News, a particular community stands behind the text. Matthew’s Good News looks at Jesus through the lens of a particular community.
And more than the other three, the community that gave us Matthew’s Good News seems to enjoy lists. Matthew opens with a big list, the genealogy of Jesus. Now, Luke has a genealogy, too, but in Matthew the family tree of Jesus enjoys pride of place. We are meant to understand that Jesus is the fulfillment of the messianic hopes of God’s people. And even though all four Gospels give us a list of disciples, it seems particularly fitting that Matthew includes such a list, and that the list is given pride of place in today’s Good News.
The four evangelists differ on a couple of names in the list. Matthew lists Thaddeus, about whom we know nothing; and in his place other evangelists list Judas son of James, or Judas, “not Iscariot”. John excludes Simon the Cananean, calls Bartholomew “Nathanael,” and doesn’t seem fussed about who’s who, never giving us a full list of twelve names. (Again, John isn’t into lists; Matthew is.)
We could favor John and disregard these lists of names. On one level, who cares? What’s the message Jesus is proclaiming? That seems more important than a list of his first male followers, especially since it was the women – none of whom made the list – who first witnessed the resurrection, in all four Gospels. But If we sit with Matthew, that lover of lists, for a little while, I think we might start to appreciate their enthusiasm about these followers of Jesus. We can wonder where we might land on the list, too, if we had been there; or better yet, we can wonder where we do land on the list, today, as those who either follow Jesus or at least have heard the invitation to do so.
And so, let us wonder: where are we on the list? Here are some guidelines:
This is not just a list of good guys. Judas the son of Simon Iscariot appears on all four versions of the list. Am I Stephen Iscariot, the one who betrayed him? Sometimes I am. I learned as a couples therapist that 100% of the couples on planet Earth experience several betrayals over the course of the marriage, betrayals large and small. The little white lie, the lesser self cutting corners, the simple act of turning away from your partner: we can and we do betray one another, and God, and God in Jesus. This is why we routinely confess our sins – not because we are a glum lot, but because we readily acknowledge that whoever Simon Iscariot was, he is the ancestor of countless human children.
There are siblings on the list. Do you follow Jesus as a sibling, real or metaphorical? Maybe you take your cue from your sibling or friend, for good and ill (Peter and Andrew, James and John: they were siblings but they were not saints, at least at first). Maybe you’re like me, and you have never known a moment in your life when you did not have siblings, peers, tons of people around you. Maybe this is how you find your identity: you compare and contrast yourself with others in the circle.
There are “Cananaeans” on the list, that is, people whose ethnic identity is different from the rest. Maybe you follow Jesus from a unique social location in the community, and maybe that’s often enough a hard road.
There are tradespeople on the list: fisherfolk, government employees. The list is not filled with wealthy scholars, though perhaps some among them were people of means. Maybe your socioeconomic class informs your spiritual practice, and so when you follow Jesus, you can’t help but see everything through the lens of economic justice. I hope so: people like that are invaluable to have on the list, because the Gospel is deeply prophetic, and often upends everything we think we know about the haves and the have-nots.
And then there is a catch-all group of people about whom we know nothing other than their names. Bartholomew, Thaddeus, James son of Alphaeus: we can only guess who they were, what they did, what they were interested in, why they mattered. An Episcopal church in California calls itself “Thad’s” for this very reason: their patron is Thaddeus, a nobody, so anyone who thinks they’re nobody is intentionally welcome there. Being a nobody who is not known for any accomplishment: this is a time-honored way to follow Jesus.
I invite your reflections on what it means, for you, for you in particular, to follow Jesus. What light do you shed on our movement? What do you add to the color and nuance of this endless and ever-growing list of sinners and saints?
***
Preached as a shared homily, a shorter reflection that invites responses from the congregation, on the Third Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 6A), June 18, 2023, 5:00pm, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington.
Genesis 18:1-15
Psalm 116:1, 10-17
Romans 5:1-8
Matthew 9:35-10:8