25 February 2023 Luke 5:27-32
Today when we work for ‘vocations’, we tend to look for them among committed and balanced people. Today we see Jesus choose someone considered a money grabber, a traitor and an immoral person.
Jesus, passing by, sees a
publican as he exercises an invitation to become his disciple. The publicans were tax collectors on behalf of the Romans, the hated rulers, they extorted more money from the people than they owed
and thus enriched themselves – they were hated and despised as traitors by the Jewish people and considered public sinners by the Pharisees. But Jesus sees in Matthew a person in need of divine love and grace. While everyone hates Matthew, Jesus is ready to offer him love, mercy and forgiveness. Matthew immediately abandons his lucrative work, because for him the call of Christ to follow him is a promise of salvation, of friendship, it is guidance and protection.
It is only natural that Matthew rejoices at this call and celebrates with his friends by offering a great banquet to which he invites Jesus first. Jesus’ lunch with the outcasts in the house of a traitor scandalises the Pharisees for whom ritual purity and communion at the table are important religious practices. They therefore ask the disciples, “How is it that you eat and drink together with publicans and sinners?” Jesus himself answers their question, emphasising his ministry as a healer: “It is not the healthy who need the physician, but the sick; I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners that they may be converted.
For good workers…
– We too must be careful about judging others, taking a moralistic attitude and claiming to be shocked by the behaviour of certain people. All of us, without exception, need healing.
– Jesus calls you and me for a purpose: to be members of his kingdom and to be his disciples, which requires us to leave all things that draw us away from God.
– Every conversion story is the story of a blessed defeat. (CS Lewis) P JOBY KAVUNGAL RCJ