To Call Sinners

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Matthew 9: 9-13

The Calling of Matthew

⁹ As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

¹⁰ While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. ¹¹ When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

¹² On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. ¹³ But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

The familiar tale of Matthew's vocation can have a powerful impact on us since it reveals the power of God's invitation and what becomes possible when it is accepted.  What magnet drew Matthew from his lucrative chair at the tax table?  Jesus did not offer him money, so Matthew must have seen that "something more" that he was looking for and responded without question or hesitation.  One can sense his joy and new found freedom, and can understand his banquet which included other tax collectors, sinners, Pharisees, Jesus and his disciples who would become Matthew's close companions in the years ahead. When the Pharisees objected to the presence of "unclean" sinners and other tax collectors, Jesus took the opportunity to pinpoint his mission: to call sinners to repentance and new life.

What do we hear Jesus saying to us?  Follow me?  Accept all as I do?  Can you welcome "sinners and tax collectors" to your table?  To your circle of friends?  Can you be as open to my will for you as Matthew was to my will for him?  Take time to reflect at length on these questions during the day...and beyond, if so moved.

Bro. Rene