Episode Details

Good morning! Top of the morning! Howdi! Our gospel today is from Luke 5:27-32. It may surprise us but the message is that He calls us sinners to Himself. We need not write ourselves off because of our claim that we are sinners, or that we are terrible sinners, or that we have been original in our sins again any or all of of God's commandments. The devil is involved in any way we are dissuaded from approaching God. He is on a quest. His quest is to look for sinners, just like you and I. We read in the gospel today. "Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post." With this short first line, we situate ourselves in the culture of the Israelites. Tax collectors were Jews who worked for Rome. Hence, they were detested by the Jews themselves. Aside from working for the Roman empire, they tended to enrich themselves unfairly collecting all kinds of dues and taxes. They were public sinners according to the eyes of Pharisees and the scribes. Then, there comes the invitation of God to this tax collector. "He said to him, “Follow me.”" Isn't that amazing? Absolutely! Instead of shunning such sinners, Our Lord apparently kept them company. More, He sought them out. This is in stark contrast with the behavior of these religious leaders of Israel. These latter shunned them. They practically judged them harshly and looked down on them. The remarkable thing of the gospel scene is that Levi takes up Our dear Lord's invitation. "And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him." This should be our story as well. No amount of justification or rationalization or excuses can turn us away from the Lord. It is incredible enough that invites this sinner--Levi turns out to be St. Matthew who wrote the first gospel in the New Testament--to follow Jesus. But for all of us, this scene consoles us, encourages us, and shakes us awake. We need not cite our dirtiness, nature of our sins, gravity or great number of our sins or whatever to justify our unwillingness to pursue a relationship of love and friendship with the Lord. He wants us! Listen to the rest of today's gospel. "Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were at table with them. The Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”" It must have been a wonderful and remarkable sight to behold. But listen on the Jesus justifying His divine behavior. "Jesus said to them in reply, “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.” He is absolutely right! It is the sick who need to doctor! This is our ticket to intimacy with the only begotten Son of God. This is for all of us. No one is excluded, except those who do not see themselves as righteous, and therefore not in need of being cured, saved or helped to go to Heaven. We only need to acknowledge and behave accordingly, that is, I need to rescued because I am weak. I need to be redeemed because I am a sinner. There is the rub and difficulty. We fallen human beings have a difficult time in admitting this reality. Maybe in theory, we claim it. But in reality, we don't. We don't because we prefer to neglect going to mass regularly. Even cars go regularly to the gast station for tune-ups or get refilled with fuel. We resist admitting that we need to go to confession. We would find going to confession as an admission of our weakness. Men prefer to be seen as strong and independent. Perhaps that is a case in some area of life we ...