I am sure I can say without much contradiction that when any of us receives a letter from HM Revenue and Customs we experience a slight lowering of spirits or a feeling of unease. That is unless we are expecting a refund of overpaid tax! No one likes paying tax and we do not really care for the tax man either. Of all Her Majesty’s departments, the Inland Revenue is probably the least favourite. It was much the same in biblical times. The kingdom of Israel was part of the vast Roman Empire and as such it had to pay its dues to Rome. This was not popular, as can be well imagined, and what was even worse, it was believed that the men on the ground who collected the taxes ‘creamed off’ a little to line their own pockets. Tax collectors made quite a good living and, as tools of Rome, they were hated and despised by the communities in which they lived. The Pharisees and the Scribes labelled them as publicans and sinners.

One such publican was a Jew named Levi. One day, while sitting working in his office, he was visited by Jesus who simply said to him, "Follow me". From this point, his life changes completely. The Bible simply gives us the facts; "Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting in his office. Jesus said to him "Follow me". Levi got up, left everything and followed him". However, something momentous must have taken place in that dusty office in Galilee to cause a worldly-wise servant of the state to give up his comfortable way of life and follow Jesus into an uncertain future..

Luke goes on to tell us that Levi held a huge feast at his house to which he invited Jesus; among the guests were several of his fellow tax collectors. The Pharisees, incensed by this behaviour, demanded to know why Jesus associated with sinners and outcasts. The answer; "People who are well do not need a doctor, but only those who are sick. I have not come to call respectable people to repent, but outcasts". Levi the tax collector became Matthew and is listed in the other Gospels and in Acts as one of the twelve apostles.

There is no information in the Bible about his life as an apostle and there is doubt about the place and his form of martyrdom. Both Ethiopia and Persia have been suggested and his supposed relics were transferred to Salerno from Ethiopia by one Robert Guiscard, a Breton. Matthew is represented in art sitting at his desk, writing his Gospel or holding a weapon as a symbol of his martyrdom. He is recognised as a saint in the Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican churches and his feast day is September 21^st.

He has his memorial in the Gospel that bears his name, believed to have been written in the second half of the first century AD. It is described in the Oxford Book of Saints as being written in a correct, concise style, suitable for public reading. As a servant of the state, Matthew would have been both literate and numerate. His Gospel could have been written in Hebrew or Aramaic (which was the language of commerce) or even Greek.

He has become the patron saint of civil servants, in particular of those who follow his original profession. Those amongst us who earn their living as tax collectors are individually as fine, upstanding, God-fearing, law-abiding folk as the rest, but collectively they are not loved. St. Matthew would certainly sympathise with their plight! For the rest of us, when we receive one of ‘those’ letters, telling us somewhat tersely that we owe X amount in unpaid tax and we should pay it promptly (or else!) I would suggest that, painful as it is, we remember the words of Jesus (albeit in a different context) "Render to Caesar etc."