By Metropolitan Cleopas of Sweden
Allow me to begin not from a Patristic text, but from a world we often consider distant from the Church: the world of cinema – the world of art, of images, of contemporary storytelling.
The Church is not afraid of modern culture; whatever bears seeds of truth, she embraces, illumines, and transforms. As Saint Justin the Philosopher says: “Πάντες οἱ σπερματικοὶ λόγοι τοῦ Θεοῦ εἰσί” – “All the seeds of truth belong to God.”
Today, we will take such a “seed” from contemporary cinema and plant it beside the Gospel: a modern, unpretentious, moving American film, “Beauty in the Broken.”
It is a film which, without knowing it, speaks the language of the Gospel. A story which, without intending it, mirrors the story of a great Saint: the former tax collector Matthew, who became Evangelist, Apostle, martyr, and guide of generations.
In this film we meet a young girl. A girl living on the margins: homeless, afraid, deeply wounded. A human being who, in the eyes of the world, is not worth paying attention to. People walk past her as if she does not exist; some pity her, others avoid her, others almost fear her. A “broken” life.
But then something unexpected and ultimately saving happens. Someone sees her. Looks at her deeply. Not as others look at her, but as God looks at the human being: beyond clothing, beyond poverty, beyond wounds.
A psychiatrist, a man with an open heart, sees in this girl not a ruined life, but a life that hides within itself an invaluable treasure: the gift of art, the gift of creativity.
And from that single look, the transformation begins. Not because the girl suddenly becomes perfect, but because someone has recognized her worth. This person has seen the beauty within the broken.
Which figure in Scripture most brings this girl to mind? Who so closely resembles an existence on the margins, misunderstood, condemned? Who also lived in fractures, in social disdain, in moral loneliness? The tax collector Matthew.
The one who became the author of the first Gospel. The one who wrote about Christ, because Christ first “wrote” upon his own heart.
Before becoming an Evangelist, Matthew was a tax collector. And tax collectors in that era – as the Fathers of the Church describe – were dishonored people.
Saint Cyril of Alexandria says: “Οἱ τελῶναι ἦσαν τοῖς πολλοῖς βδελυκτοί” – “Tax collectors were abominable to the many,” that is, repulsive to most people, and “ἄνθρωποι ἄδικοι” – “unjust people,” because they were considered collaborators with the Roman occupiers, people of shame.
Saint John Chrysostom notes that “tax collector” meant “ἄδικος κατ᾽ ἐπάγγελμα” – “a professional in injustice.”
Saint Gregory the Theologian underscores that people of this sort were regarded as “ἀνίατοι τῇ κακίᾳ” – “incurable in their wickedness.”
This is how the world saw Matthew. Just as the world in the film sees the young girl: a lost cause.
And yet, Someone passes by in front of him. Not just anyone – Christ, the God-Man. The only One who can see into the soul more deeply than anyone else.
And Christ sees him. He looks at him without contempt, without disgust, without suspicion, but with love. With that love which Saint Basil the Great calls “ἀγάπη ἡ ἁγιάζουσα τὰ ἀμαρτωλά” – “love that sanctifies even what is sinful.”
And then Christ says to Matthew two words that changed the history of the world: “Follow Me.”
He does not ask him to correct his mistakes first. He does not say, “Become better and then come.” He gives him neither deadline nor conditions. He says: Come as you are. With your cracks. With your mistakes. With your wounds. And I will transform you.
Saint John Chrysostom comments: “Οὐκ ἐκ λόγων μακρῶν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐκ μιᾶς ῥήσεως ἡ κλῆσις.” – “His calling did not come through long speeches, but through a single phrase.”
And elsewhere: “Εἷλκεν αὐτόν οὐ λόγων πλήθει, ἀλλὰ τῇ δυνάμει τοῦ βλέμματος.” – “He drew him not by a multitude of words, but by the power of His gaze.” Christ attracted him with the power of His divine look.
And Matthew rose up “immediately” and followed Him. From this moment onward, everything changes. The broken becomes strong. The margin becomes mission. Shame becomes glory.
Here the life of Matthew meets the film we mentioned. For what Christ does to Matthew is precisely what the doctor does to the girl in the film: He sees him. He recognizes him. He honors him. He lifts him out of insignificance. He gives him hope. He gives him identity.
In the film, when the girl paints, when she allows her soul to express itself, when her art gushes forth out of her wounds, we see something astonishing: the cracks do not disappear – they are transformed. They become color. They become lines. They become beauty.
So too with Matthew: his old self does not vanish, but is sanctified. His mistakes are not erased, but redeemed.
His past is not cancelled, but transformed into Gospel.
Saint Gregory the Theologian says this in a striking way: “Ὁ Θεός μεταποιεῖ τὰ ταπεινὰ εἰς ὑψηλά, καὶ τὰ ἀτιμασμένα εἰς τίμια.” – “God transforms what is lowly into what is exalted, and what is dishonored into what is honorable.” He “sees the being of the heart and not the seeming.”
This is what He does with Matthew. He does not see a sinner, but a hidden Evangelist. He does not see an unjust tax collector, but a future Apostle. He does not see the sin; He sees the beauty hidden within the broken.
This is what happens with Matthew. This is what happens in the film. This is what can happen for each one of us.
After his calling, Matthew does not simply become a believer. He becomes an Evangelist. He writes the first Gospel in order.
Saint Jerome says that the Gospel according to Matthew is the “Gospel of the prophecies,” because it shows that Christ fulfills the entire Law and the Prophets.
Saint Athanasius the Great calls Matthew’s Gospel “a fountain of truth and a treasury of wisdom.”
Saint Chrysostom says that the Sermon on the Mount – which only Matthew records in such detail – is “the Constitution of the Kingdom of God.”
The once “unjust tax collector” writes the Constitution of the Kingdom of God!
But he does not stop there. He becomes an Apostle. He becomes a missionary. He reaches distant nations. He preaches Christ to peoples unknown. He endures persecutions. And finally, he offers his life.
Chrysostom says: “Οἱ ἀπόστολοι ἐσφράγισαν τὸ εὐαγγέλιον οὐ λόγοις, ἀλλ᾽ αἵματι.” – “The Apostles sealed the Gospel not with words, but with blood.”
This is what Matthew does as well. He gives what he had: his life. This entire journey of holiness begins from a single look and two words. From the fact that Christ saw the beauty within the broken.
We all have cracks. We all have weaknesses, fears, wounds. No one is perfect, but Christ does not ask for perfection. He asks for a heart. He asks for a will. He asks that we open for Him even a small window so that He may enter and dwell within us.
Saint Basil says: “Οὐκ ἀπαιτεῖται τέλειος ἀρετή, ἀλλὰ προαίρεσις ἁγία.” – “What is required is not perfect virtue, but a holy disposition.” God does not wait for us to become saints in order to love us. He loves us so that we may become saints.
Just as, in the film, the girl discovers the power of art through the love of someone who believed in her, so too we discover our own gift when we allow Christ to see us.
Today, Christ says to us the very words He spoke to Matthew: “Follow Me.” Come. With your wounds, with your past, with your mistakes, with your weaknesses, with your “cracks,” because it is there, in the cracks, that the light enters.
Saint Nicholas Cabasilas says that the grace of God enters “ἐν ταῖς χαραγμαῖς τῆς ψυχῆς” – “into the cuts of the soul.” Into the scratches of the soul. Where we hurt. Where we are weak. There God opens a way.
We honor a Saint who teaches us that Christ does not see as the world sees. The world sees what is broken. Christ sees the beauty within the broken. The world sees sin. Christ sees a mission. The world sees the past. Christ sees the future.
This is why the message of Saint Matthew is so contemporary. Matthew – like the heroine of the film – teaches us that you are not what others, the ill-intentioned and toxic, say you are. You are not your mistakes. You are not your wounds. You are not your fears. You are what God sees within you!
Saint Gregory the Theologian says: “Τῷ Θεῷ οὐ τὸ τέλειον ἀρέσκει, ἀλλὰ τὸ προσφερόμενον.” – “What pleases God is not what is perfect, but what is offered.”
So let us also become people who see beauty. Let us learn to see others as Christ sees them. Let us learn to see ourselves as Christ sees us.
If a tax collector became an Evangelist, if a girl on the margins became an artist, then we too, by the grace of God, can become something we cannot yet imagine.
And if you allow Christ – if you open even a small chink in your heart – then you will see that what you consider cracks are in reality the very points where the light will enter. Because in the life of the Christian, as in art, the most beautiful designs are painted on surfaces that have been wounded.
Let us therefore be inspired by this film, by this parable of our age. Let us be inspired by the story of Saint Matthew. Let us learn to see others not through their fractures, but through their gifts. Let us learn to see beauty where the world sees only failure. And above all, let us learn to see ourselves as Christ sees us – through the promise of transformation.
The tax collector became an Evangelist. The weak became an Apostle. The broken became beauty. May our own life likewise become a wondrous story of transformation. May it become a small continuation of the Gospel. For, as Saint Basil the Great says: “Every Christian is called to become a living Gospel!”
