Back in the old-timey Bible days, the Romans ruled everywhere pretty much. They didn't come in and crush a place and burn it down and carry the population off into slavery. They just came in with their own governors and their own set of rules and expected everyone to follow them.

 

Every empire that ever came along eventually got around to conquering Israel, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, and I'm even pretty sure when I read all those freaky books about how aliens visited earth a long time ago that it's not true, because I'm pretty sure even they would have conquered Israel. Around the time Jesus came along, the Romans were just the latest, and they weren't even the worst.

 

Think of it like this. Say you were a super-villian who wanted to take over the world - would you disband Congress, execute all the world leaders, terrorize the populace and then try to run everything all yourself, or would you just go to all the world leaders who were already there and say "Now ya'll answer to me?" The Romans tended to do the latter. And they didn't much care what kind of leaders you had, how you did things or who you prayed to, as long as you just did what they told you.

 

Now, say there's a kid in school and every bully that comes along beats him up and then takes his lunch money, except one, who tells him "Just give me your lunch money and I'll leave you alone". Maybe that one, the kid thinks isn't as bad as all the others. The truth might be that he's just lazy and doesn't want to have to beat him up every day, but the little kid would probably think he wasn't so bad. He might even think of him as kind of friendly, all things considered.

 

That's kind of how it was for Israel and the Romans. A lot of folks thought they weren't that bad, relatively speaking. When it came time for the Romans to do some hiring, to help collect taxes or build things or dig ditches, they didn't have too hard a time.

 

There was one problem that the Romans had when it came to ruling over Israel, that they didn't have anywhere else: That is, Israel called themselves God's Chosen People. No one else back then did that. Everyone had their own gods, but they were either menacing idols that you had to sacrifice babies on, or just little statues that you bowed to as you walked past them. If there were no famines or plagues, most folks didn't think much about their gods, and even if they did I'm pretty sure no one thought their little statue was any better than the one in the next village.

 

Except Israel did, and that was a problem for the Romans. In Israel, religion was everything: It was their government and their police force, it determined how they crossed the street and washed their hands. And so, while the Romans were relatively non-intrusive and subsequently didn't have a problem getting people to work with them, there was also a lot of Israelites who resented the hell out of the Romans just for being Romans and didn't figure pagans had any place in Israel, let alone ruling over them.

 

So the Romans had been in Israel for quite some time, and there were those who worked for them, most of whom belonged to a sect called the Sadducees. We'd call them government workers today, like the tax collectors. Tax collectors were generally a corrupt and contemptible lot, just because they just were. They were allowed to be. It was the nature of their job, when you had to go out to a guy and say "You owe me five bucks" it was just as easy to say "And five more, too" because who was counting? You had to give what they said, because they worked for the Romans, which gave them the authority to do what they did but was also another reason for normal folks to hate them.

 

On the other side of the political spectrum, you had the Zealots. They were religious extremists and, by extension, political extremists as well. Today we'd either call them freedom fighters, or terrorists. They were aggressive, uncompromising militarists who advocated violence not only against the Romans but against the Sadducees as well. They carried around these long knives and assasinated people, like ninjas. Jewish ninjas. Oy vey!

 

Now, Jesus came along and He called twelve disciples. You know how when a new President gets elected and he assembles his cabinet, and he feels like he has to have all these different groups represented, like women and Latinos and African Americans? This is kind of what Jesus did.

 

Matthew was a tax collector, he was a Sadducee, he was wealthy and today we'd consider him fairly liberal.

 

Simon was a Zealot, and probably would have killed Matthew given the chance.

 

And I can't find specific incidents of this in the Bible, but there are certain traditions that say, when Jesus sent the disciples out two-by-two, He sent the two of them out together.

 

It would probably sound disrespectful and blasphemous and offend a lot of people if I were to say at this point that the idea of sending the two of them out together to spread a message of peace sounds, well, a little insane. But by our standards I think a lot of folks back then probably sound insane.

 

To me it sounds like the first Lethal Weapon movie, or Midnight Run. I mean, I'm sure that Jesus knew what He was doing and probably chose people to be his disciples whom He was at least reasonably certain wouldn't stab each other with swords, but everyone has their own views about politics and stuff and they wouldn't just change just because you joined some club or whatever, so I'm thinking they probably would at least punch each other in the head every once in a while.

 

On the one hand, I'm sure that the two of them making a presentation together would be pretty impressive. Like, what a great commercial for Jesus that He can bring together people who would normally kill each other. Hey ya'll, this peace stuff really works! Kind of the same way commercials show how laundry detergent really does get out grass stains.

 

On the other hand, I would think that Simon and Matthew would be considerably less effective if they argued all the time, in front of people.

 

I wonder if Jesus made them check back with Him every so often, to make sure that they didn't kill each other. Or if maybe Simon would come back first and say, "Matthew fell down, I don't know where he is." That would be a funny practical joke. But on second thought, it was probably really hard to get one over on Jesus. Since He was perfect and everything, He would probably play along and laugh with you, but it wouldn't be as funny.