The Calling of Saint Matthew

"The Calling of Saint Matthew" Caravaggio 1599-1600

    This painting was in an article entitled "A Dramatic Enlightenment." A good friend pointed me to this online at The Wall Street Journal's Arts & Entertainment section of January 14, 2012. It was written by Willard Spiegelman, Hughes Professor of English at Southern Methodist University. I would like to share portions of what he wrote concerning this painting by Michelanelo Merisi da Caravaggio, painted around 1600, titled, "The Calling of Saint Matthew" as follows:

    "The Calling" dramatizes an interruption, an invitation or, more accurately, a command. Levi is "called" to a new life when he least expects it. ...Jesus catches Matthew off-guard, in the midst of four companions. He looks up as Jesus, his face illuminated but his body otherwise in shadow, extends his right arm in an action deliberately evoking God's to Adam on the Sistine Ceiling. In front of Jesus, slightly bending over and turning away from us, Peter repeats the gesture. The conversion has begun, although only Jesus seems to know it. ...Matthew sits to one side, huddling with his buddies. ...Like the other money counters, they are dressed in a cavalier modern style. Jesus and Peter, calling Levi to a new life, paradoxically wear traditional biblical garb. The surly, handsomest youth, bent over the table at the far left, looks uninterested in anything but his money. So does the older, bespectacled figure above him. ...Matthew seems to say, 'Who, me?' ...Jesus understands that he has accomplished his mission. Although a little hard to see, his bare feet turn away from the table and from his newest convert. He knows that it is time to go. Matthew's vocation has only just begun."

    Do you ever feel that you are being called to a life much different from what you are experiencing now? Does it seem that everyone around you, like Matthew's buddies, is oblivious to what you are hearing as an invitation? If your friends only knew that you are being called to something other than life of worldly pleasures like Matthew.

    Each one of us has within us a desire for fulfillment that can't be satisfied by what this world offers. Are you, as this author states, sitting there in your "cavalier modern style" while trying to ignore the one who beckons you to come? Jesus has done the work on our behalf to make it possible for anyone to follow Him. You're not likely to see Jesus standing at the end of your table with outstretched arm, but through His Spirit we are called. As the title of the article goes, your "Dramatic Enlightenment" may come through the words of a friend, something you read, or maybe God is using this painting to speak to you.

    God is very creative in reaching out to all of us. The important thing is to respond as Matthew did. Today is the day to accept the call of Him who beckons you to come. Today is the day of salvation.