29 January 2024

Daily prayers during
Christmas and Epiphany:
36, 29 January 2024

The Triptych of Saint Matthew by Andrea di Cione (1343-1368), also known as Orcagna, in the Uffizi, Florence … Saint Matthew is also identified with Levi

Patrick Comerford

The celebrations of Epiphany-tide continue today, and the week began yesterday with the Fourth Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany IV, 28 January 2024).

Before this day begins, I am taking some time for reading, reflection and prayer.

Christmas is a season that lasts for 40 days that continues from Christmas Day (25 December) to Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation on Friday (2 February). The Gospel reading the previous Sunday (21 January, John 2: 1-11) told of the Wedding at Cana, one of the traditional Epiphany stories.

In keeping with the theme of last Sunday’s Gospel reading, I am continuing with last week’s thoughts in my reflections each morning until the Feast of the Presentation:

1, A reflection on one of seven meals Jesus has with family, friends or disciples;

2, the Gospel reading of the day;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Saint Matthew represented in a group of the Four Evangelists on columns at the porch in University Church, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

9, A banquet with Levi (Luke 5: 27-32):

The call or Levi is the second of three times where Saint Luke describes Jesus’ call of the Twelve (Luke 5: 1-11; 6: 12-16). Christ first calls fishers as first four disciples: Andrew and Peter, James and John. The next choice of a tax collector seems a bold move.

Tax collectors were typically local Jews who were employed by the Romans to collect taxes from the people. They extracted money from their neighbours and local people to cover the expenses of the foreign rulers and occupiers.

Some translations use the word publican instead of tax-collector. The word publican is a translation of the Greek word for tax-farmer, and we come across it again in the Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18: 9-14).

The Romans paid tax collectors well, and seemingly did not care if the collectors took more than the tax required. They were free to take as much as they could for themselves – once the Romans had been paid.

Rome collected three principal kinds of taxes: a land tax, a head tax, and a customs tax of 2% to 5% of the value on goods being moved around. A tax office or booth stood near a city gate or port to collect the custom tax from people engaged in commercial trade, such as fishers exporting dried fish or farmers sending surplus crops to a larger city.

Tax collectors were seen as collaborators and as greedy, and they were despised. This attitude was reflected in the words of Jesus when he said: ‘If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector’ (Matthew 18: 17).

The Greek terminology indicates Levi is a low-level tax collector. Unlike Zacchaeus later in Saint Luke’s Gospel (Luke 19: 2), he is not a chief tax collector. The words tax booth, or tax office translate the Greek τὸ τελώνιον to telōnion, ‘revenue or tax office’. Perhaps Levi’s booth indicates he collects tolls along the road along the west shore of the Sea of Galilee. He would have been seen as a state-sponsored thief who socialised on the fringes of respectable society.

When Jesus walks along the shore (Mark 2: 13-14), he sees Levi. But instead of passing by, ignoring Levi or showing contempt or disgust, he calls him to follow him. Levi becomes now the disciple of a rabbi who is well-respected, invited him into his home, and organises a welcoming banquet for Jesus, to which he invites other tax collectors.

But dining with Levi damages Jesus’ reputation in the eyes of the religious leaders, local Pharisees and teachers of the law (Luke 5: 30). To eat with a Gentile or tax collector was regarded by the strict Pharisees as rendering one spiritually or ceremonially unclean, to the point that even a house entered by a tax collector could be considered unclean.

The identity of Levi and his identity with Matthew are the subject of much speculation. Saint Mark also identifies Levi as the son of Alphaeus (Mark 2: 14). But he is also identified with Matthew in lists of the Twelve (see Luke 6: 14-16). Saint Matthew’s Gospel lists him specifically as Matthew the tax collector (see Matthew 10: 3), identified with the author of Saint Matthew’s Gospel.

Matthew is a Greek form of a Hebrew name, מַתִּתְיָהוּ‎ (Matityahu), meaning ‘Gift of God’ and transliterated into Greek as Ματταθίας (Mattathias). Many New Testament figures have two names: Simon becomes Cephas or Peter, Saul becomes Paul.

Mark and Luke name the tax collector as Levi, indicating he may have been a descendent of the tribe of Levi, which included the priests and Levites. But instead of a holy service in the Temple, this Levi is an unholy civil servant in his tax booth.

The roles of the Levites include washing the hands, and sometimes the feet of the kohanim after they remove their shoes and before they ascend the platform to give the priestly blessing to the congregation. As this custom developed, the association of the Levites with this washing led to iconographic depictions of pitchers, ewers, and bowls on the tombstones of Levite families.

Levi abandons his lucrative business as a tax collector, and is called too to be a new form of Levite, to minister to Christ the great high priest.

In accepting Jesus’ invitation, Levi extends his own invitation: he holds a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others eat with them in his large house, suited to a wealthy man. Yet those who are invited are seen as thieves, unbelievers, open sinners and social pariahs.

Did the guests also include Peter and Andrew, James and John, who once despised Levi who extracted tolls on their fish exports. When they see Jesus warmly accepting Levi, did they too accept him? Or did it take time?

Were they hurt to hear their new fellow disciple put down with the question put not to Jesus but to them: ‘Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?’ (Luke 5: 30).

I imagine Levi’s banquet included sumptuous food and excellent wines. When Jesus accepts Levi’s invitation to a great feast, the Greek phrase used for this meal is δοχὴν μεγάλην (dochēn megálen), a ‘great reception’ or ‘great banquet.’

The very same phrase is used in Daniel 5 in the Septuagint to describe Belshazzar’s great banquet at which 1,000 of his nobles drank wine from the gold and silver goblets that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the Temple in Jerusalem so that the king, his nobles, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. This is no intimate dinner party for a few guests.

At Belshazzar’s great banquet, the writing is on the wall (Daniel 5: 5-6), the king becomes terrified and pale, his nobles are baffled and unable to answer his question despite the offer and of great rewards. But the queen also reminds the king that there ‘is a man in your kingdom who has the spirit of the holy gods in him. In the time of your father he was found to have insight and intelligence and wisdom like that of the gods’ … with ‘a keen mind and knowledge and understanding’ (Daniel 5: 11, 12).

The religious people present may have realised the parallels and wondered whether Levi’s ‘great banquet’ also points to the presence of someone like God, filled with the Holy Spirit.

The gravestone of a Levite family in the Jewish cemetery in the Lido, Venice … hand-washing and foot-washing are part of the ministry of Levites (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 5: 1-20 (NRSVA):

1 They came to the other side of the lake, to the country of the Gerasenes. 2 And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. 3 He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; 4 for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. 6 When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; 7 and he shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.’ 8 For he had said to him, ‘Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!’ 9 Then Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He replied, ‘My name is Legion; for we are many.’ 10 He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11 Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; 12 and the unclean spirits begged him, ‘Send us into the swine; let us enter them.’ 13 So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the lake, and were drowned in the lake.

14 The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened. 15 They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. 16 Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it. 17 Then they began to beg Jesus to leave their neighbourhood. 18 As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might be with him. 19 But Jesus refused, and said to him, ‘Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.’ 20 And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.

Saint Matthew the Evangelist represented in a carving on the choir stalls in the Church of Saint Michael and All Angels, Penkridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 29 January 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is: ‘Welcoming the Stranger – A Candlemas Reflection.’ This theme was introduced yesterday by the Revd Annie Bolger of the Pro-Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Brussels.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (29 January 2024) invites us to pray in these words:

We pray for all people and families who are displaced from their homelands. May we always be mindful of the humanity and dignity of each displaced person.

The Collect:

God our creator,
who in the beginning
commanded the light to shine out of darkness:
we pray that the light of the glorious gospel of Christ
may dispel the darkness of ignorance and unbelief,
shine into the hearts of all your people,
and reveal the knowledge of your glory
in the face of Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Generous Lord,
in word and eucharist we have proclaimed the mystery of your love:
help us so to live out our days
that we may be signs of your wonders in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Additional Collect:

God of heaven,
you send the gospel to the ends of the earth
and your messengers to every nation:
send your Holy Spirit to transform us
by the good news of everlasting life
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection (Breakfast by the shore, John 21: 1-17)

Continued tomorrow (The Wedding Banquet, Matthew 22: 1-14)

Two evangelists, Saint Matthew and Saint Mark, depicted in a window in All Saints’ Church, Calverton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org