If someone came to you one day and told you to follow him, would you do it?

I did.

But I had studied the person carefully before he chose me.

This was not just an ordinary person, this was the Christ, our coming king.  At least, I wasn’t quite sure of that at the time, but I am now.  Our scriptures told of an anointed one who was coming, so he had to come some time.

Some time out of all the time in history had to be the right time.

And he came in my time.

And he lived in my town.

And he preached in my neighbourhood.

And his teaching made sense.

And then he said two simple words to me: “Follow me.”  So I did.

My wife thought I was crazy.  My friends, the other tax collectors from all over Galilee, they thought I was mad too.  Myself?  Well, I thought it was an opportunity.  An opportunity to get away from the love of money that had dragged me down into a spiritual dungeon.  I had always loved the Hebrew scriptures: the law; the prophets; the Psalms.  But life is busy, and married life makes more demands on one’s time and money.  And I always wanted to present a well-off face to the world too, I wanted to show people that I was above the poor people amongst whom I had grown up.  I suppose it was simply a love of money more than God, really.  It didn’t start out that way, but Jesus is right when he says that money is deceptive.  Originally, I was just seeking enough to live on, since even that isn’t very easy in this corner of the Roman Empire.  I worked hard doing any work I could get and we scrimped and tried to save, but actually ended up in debt.

And then I had this opportunity to become a tax collector.  Now don’t get me wrong, I knew that being a tax collector wasn’t the best sort of job I could find, and I didn’t really want to do it.  I knew it wouldn’t put me in a good position for winning a popularity contest, either!  But it did promise enough money to live on, and even a little bit more, so that we could pay off all of our debts and maybe get ahead in the world.  When I explain it that way, it sounds quite reasonable, but that just shows what my priorities were.  Jesus says that if we look for the kingdom of heaven first, all the things we need will be given to us by our loving father in heaven.  But I didn’t trust that then.  I do now, and so I know that it works – but back to my story.

The chief tax collector for the area was looking for more tax collectors.  For various reasons, he had found this a surprisingly difficult task.  Despite the stigma attached to being a tax collector, there were plenty of people who were willing to do the job, but mostly they were cheats and liars who would have sold their own mother into slavery if they could, and did their very best to cheat the chief tax collector and everyone else.  People who would be more reliable were generally less willing to pay the social cost of being ostracised by their community for cooperating with the Romans.  I’m not sure how he heard of me, but he came to visit me at a time when money was particularly tight.  My wife had been sick and, of course, doctors aren’t cheap.  Our house needed work and the money I had borrowed to pay for the work was costing us a lot each month, just for the interest.  And then, there was also the failure of the fish supply business that I had worked so hard to start.  Debts, debts and more debts.  It was a worrying time, really.

But then came the visit of the chief tax collector.  The opportunity he offered was too good to refuse.  I suppressed my twinges of conscience and signed the papers.

It was easy to justify what I had done.  When my neighbours condemned me as a traitor, I replied that it was really their fault – after all, they hadn’t been willing to pay my debts!  What choice had they left me?  Better me as a trustworthy collector, I argued, than most of the rest of the collectors, who cheated any way they could.  Naturally, my neighbours weren’t convinced, and after a while we moved to a different neighbourhood.

My wife was an orphan, and her brothers lived in other parts of the country – she felt that she had little to lose and that the comfort, fine clothes and jewellery would be a fair compensation.  Maybe it was, for a while.

The income was good, and I paid off my debts and gradually started to accumulate money.  My wife wore better clothes and we started to move in different circles.  After a while, we moved to a larger house in a better area and things looked good for us – money always manages to look good.

But life had lost something.  Our old friends didn’t want to know us any more.  My parents were ashamed of me, although they tried to hide it.  And I never seemed to find time to spend in prayer or meditating on God’s laws.  All too often, I couldn’t even find the time to go to the synagogue.

Extra furniture, help around the house, fine clothes, special food and the friends that money buys so easily were all very well, but, of course, money needs more money to keep it company.  A large house must be followed by a larger house.  A servant needs other servants to supervise, and you can’t wear the same fine clothes very often or your friends will start to think that you can’t afford new ones.

Frequent parties, the obsequious attitude of servants and the admiration of our new friends all felt good, and the niggling of my conscience could be quieted when necessary.

But deep down inside I wasn’t happy.

Money couldn’t buy peace with God, and that’s what I wanted most.

It was at that time that I heard of a new prophet called John who was baptising people in the Jordan River.  I travelled to the place to watch and see what it was all about.

I saw many people baptised and met some of my fellow tax collectors there as well.  Most of us were baptised by John, and then we asked him what we should do.  His answer was simple: “Collect no more than you are authorised to do.”[1]  That was something definite to work on, so I did.

From that time on, I did not charge anyone more than a tax was meant to be.  One of the common tricks of the trade was to take a man’s goods if he didn’t have enough cash and then put a low value on the goods.  Sell them for a higher price, and the difference goes in your pocket.  Simple and effective.  But no more.

While I was watching John the Baptist, I saw another man being baptised.  I noticed it because it started with a bit of an argument: John didn’t want to baptise him.  Ah, you might be thinking, he must have been too bad – but it was quite the opposite.  John said he was too good and didn’t need baptising.  He certainly didn’t say that about me!  But this man convinced John to baptise him, and then an amazing thing happened; the spirit of God came down like a dove and rested on him.  I saw it happen.  And I heard a voice as well, saying that this was God’s beloved son[2].  That definitely convinced that he was something special, and quite a few of us gathered around him and wanted to talk to him, but he was in a hurry to be gone.  All I could find out about him was that his name was Jesus.

I didn’t see him again for a while, but then he moved to Capernaum and started teaching.  The Pharisees seemed to hate him, mostly because he tried to help poor people, sinners, lepers and even tax collectors.  I was still working as a tax collector, albeit a somewhat more ethical one at John’s direction, and I knew they hated me too, so I thought that maybe I should go and listen to him.  After all, peace with God wouldn’t come if I kept doing the same things that had taken away my peace.

I went to listen and heard his teaching.  I heard his words about what should come first in life, and I knew it didn’t come first in my life.  On other occasions he taught about prayer, and I started trying to pray again.  It was frustrating but funny to notice how easy it was to get close to Jesus.  Lots of people would press around him, until they saw me, the tax collector, coming!  Then they sort of melted away and disappeared in the crowd, allowing me to walk up to Jesus and listen to what he was saying.  He never turned me away.  His looks at me were encouraging, but he never pulled his punches.  “You cannot serve God and money,”[3] he told me once.  Well, I wasn’t the only one he was speaking too, but he looked at me when he said it, and the cap fitted.

I went and listened and spoke to Jesus on many occasions, and everything he said made sense, if you took the time to think about it.  It fitted with the scriptures of old.  Tax collecting got less of my attention and prayer got more.  I made sure that I went to the synagogue every week and my wife started to ask questions about what I was doing.  I told her a little of what I was feeling, and she said I should leave religion to the Pharisees, after all, they wouldn’t welcome me in the synagogue, would they?  It was true.  They hadn’t welcomed me.  Not at all.  Instead there was a deliberate turning of their backs to me and sneering remarks about collaborators and traitors.  But it couldn’t stop me.  If Jesus went to the synagogue every week, shouldn’t I too?  I was becoming a disciple.

But there was still the blockage: money.

As I sat in my little booth one day, trying to catch up on paperwork, with papers strewn all over the table and coins in neat little piles, Jesus came and told me to follow him.  Then he stood and waited for my answer.

By that time, I knew what I wanted to do, but… what about the money, the lists of people who had paid their taxes, the amounts that were to be paid tomorrow?  Was it just the money that was speaking when I thought of how much trouble it would cause if I just left everything and didn’t come back?  If another tax collector took over my work, he would demand tax from many who had already paid.  It wouldn’t be fair.  I looked at the money.  Jesus had said that anyone who wouldn’t renounce all that he had could not be his disciple[4].  I thought of the two bags of money that I had hidden in the wall of this very booth.  Could I leave them?  And it wouldn’t stop there, as more words of Jesus came flooding into my mind: “Sell your possessions and give to the needy[5].”  My wife was certainly not going to like this.  All that expensive furniture… but I couldn’t really justify keeping it.  After all, Jesus had left everything himself.  

It took a bit of courage at the time, but I have never regretted it: I followed him.

PS: It was about two weeks later that I was able go back and tidy up the loose ends.  I finished the bookwork to make sure that the list of people who had paid tax was complete and up to date.  It seemed only fair.  The money I left.  My boss and my successor could decide what to do with it.  I was free.