Nationalism and the Kingdom of Heaven: a sermon for St Matthew’s Day
Nationalism and the Kingdom of Heaven: a sermon for St Matthew’s Day
Sunday 21 September 2025
Sermon preached by The Revd Kenneth Padley, Canon Treasurer
It has been a long hot summer and, as often happens in long hot summers, emotions have risen in line with the thermometer. Against a backdrop of record small boat crossings of the English Channel, hotels used to house migrants have become a focus for fear and demonstration. Elsewhere, as the Dean commented last Sunday, a movement known as ‘Operation Raise the Colours’ has festooned lampposts with the Union Jack and flag of St George – and even run red cloth across the White Horse of Westbury. To their advocates, such decorations are an eruption of national pride and joy. For others, they are carriers of less comfortable connotations.
Expressions of national identity and loyalty are manifold and complex. Local authorities which condemn the painting of roundabouts as vandalism may still fly the Union flag above their town halls. And there is nothing new in this complexity. Some of you may have heard Jonathan Freedland’s excellent Long View on Radio 4 at the start of the month, exploring this summer’s flag-raising in the light of peaceful protests in the late eighteenth century which evolved into the Gordon Riots.[1]
Parallels are to be found in other places down the centuries. One of these was the Palestine into which a man called Matthew was born two thousand years ago. His homeland was occupied by the forces of Rome. Imperial control had grown as the power of Jewish client kings became circumscribed. In this context, nationalist longing fomented messianic expectations. There was a yearning for a saviour, someone who might embody liberation and embed a programme of radical change.
Matthew met one of these messianic figures, a hero who would hold and reshape his fears and desires. And in this process, Matthew came to realise that the transformation which Jesus proclaimed did not result in violence, nor resolve in a political ideal, but was to be found in a kingdom without borders that finds both expression on earth and fulfilment beyond it.
The character of St Matthew is intricate. The man whom we met in today’s gospel was a collaborator. As a tax collector, Matthew would have made his living through raising taxes which were used by the Romans to support their Empire and further their stranglehold on Palestine. He would have been much hated for doing this.
Matthew would have been hated all the more because his profession was inherently corrupt. He was not employed by the Romans on a salary. Rather he was a tax farmer. He held a franchise to tax a particular area and this meant that his own income came from the excess which he extorted over and above what he paid to the Romans. It was in his interest to tax hard and in full.
The social tension created by such tax farming is evidenced on several occasions in the New Testament, especially the Gospel of Luke where John the Baptist instructs tax collectors to gather no more than a fair amount and, later, when a repentant tax collector named Zaccheus promises to repay all whom he had defrauded.
Given this, it is not surprising to find today’s scene at the toll booth eliding into an account of Jesus at dinner with ‘tax collectors and sinners’. Tax collectors were widely regarded as sinful because of the nature of their profession. The Pharisees enthusiastically attacked Jesus for besmirching himself with their company. Jesus responded by asserting the universality of God’s call.
It is worth noting here that the word ‘Pharisee’ probably comes from Hebraic roots meaning ‘separate’ or ‘divided’. The Pharisees were not necessarily political separatists, but their ethical standards resulted in a high degree of religious exclusivity. Only those who were very holy could be in their gang. The actions and community of Jesus, however, drew in people like Matthew whom ‘the separate’, the Pharisees rebuffed.
However, as I said, the character of ‘Matthew’ is intricate. This is because the tax collector described in today’s reading was long assumed by Christian history to be the writer of the gospel in which it is set – a gospel which suggests its author was not someone who put financial self-interest before religious traditions but, rather, was a person of pious Jewish sentiment.
For example, Matthew’s gospel portrays Jesus as a new Moses, the greatest teacher of Israel, having him travel to and from Egypt like the Hebrew Exodus, having him dispense God’s message from a mountain like the commandments at Sinai, and even crafting Jesus’ teaching into five sections like the Jewish Torah, the so-called Books of Moses which open our Old Testament.
All this could have led Matthew the evangelist down a road of narrow sectarianism, lending his weight to the simmering nationalistic calls for Jewish independence. But Matthew does not weld religion and nationalism so closely. His gospel opens with a genealogy of Jesus, a list which links the Lord into the great figures of the Jewish past – but which also emphasises the role of politically incorrect characters such as Rahab the sex worker and Ruth the foreigner. And his gospel ends with Jesus sending out followers to make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. You and I would not be here today were it not for the inclusiveness of that commission.
So Matthew’s Christianity was not fulfilled in the tax collector’s collaboration with Rome, nor in a reactionary zeal for Jewish nationalism. Rather, he followed Jesus in redefining nation and nationhood through membership of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Now is a good time to find out more about the character and message of Matthew. This is because next year our Sunday morning readings will be mainly taken from the first gospel. I will be leading an Introduction to Matthew here in the cathedral on the evening of November 12th. Please book in via the Cathedral website or front desk. And Canon Mark Pryce of Birmingham diocese will be leading what looks a very promising day on ‘Poetry for Matthew’s Gospel in Advent, Christmas and Epiphany’ in Sarum College on November 6th – please book in for this via the Sarum College website.
Matthew learned that nation and nationhood were redefined through Christian faith and membership of the Kingdom of Heaven. His priorities, ideas and identity were changed by hopes so great that they could not be fully realised in his lifetime nor in a kingdom on earth. This is not to deny the Church a voice in bread and butter politics, nor is it to deny a role for an Established Church to inform and support the systems and structures of our nation. What it is saying is that those who pour all their energy into earthly nationalism will find themselves disappointed – and disappointing. Whatever Matthew’s political ambitions after becoming a follower of Jesus, his vision was fixed on something higher. Maybe it is providence as much as coincidence that today the United Nations is marking its 80th anniversary with an International Day of Peace.
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002httm; Patriotism without the dog whistles