Friday in the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 1, 2022

Matthew 9, 9-13

As Jesus passed by, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples. The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” He heard this and said, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. Go and learn the meaning of the words, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

The first half of the year has now passed.  Time goes so quickly.  Sometimes we ask ourselves, When is the Lord coming?  Two thousand years seems a long time between his Incarnation and Birth and his Return.  When he does come again, we will see that it was not really a long time, but the blink of an eye as, for instance, compared with the age of the earth, or even with the age of the human race between Adam and Eve and the Birth of the Lord.  “As Jesus passed by, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post.”  Jesus was walking by, and a few strides would have carried him out of Matthew’s sight.  He stops and calls to Matthew.  The tax collector has only a moment to make a life-changing decision.  He makes it, leaves his post, and follows Jesus.  This happened in the space of less than a minute —- a blink of the eye in a lifespan of maybe seventy or eighty years.  If Matthew had hesitated, Jesus would have left him there at his post, but Matthew seized the moment.  Possibly he had gone to see John the Baptist with other tax collectors, had been impressed by him, were baptized by him, and asked him: “Master, what shall we do?” To which John answered: 

“Do nothing more than that which is appointed you” (Luke 3, 12-13).  Prepared by John, he rose up to follow the Lord when he called.  When moments of inspiration occur to us, we ought to follow them.  Often, they occur when a name from our past pops up in our minds for no apparent reason.  This is a sign for us to pray for the person, or even to check to see how the person is doing.  We ought not to let such a moment disappear without acting.

“Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.”  The Pharisees criticize the Lord for associating with these “sick” people.  The Greek word translated here as “sick” is an adverb which, in its form as an adjective, means “bad”, “ugly”, “worthless”, “wretched”, and “immoral”.  The Lord, in using this word essentially agrees with the opinion the Pharisees have of these people, but disagrees on how they ought to be treated.  Rather than shunning them, they should be treated so that they can become good, moral, and righteous.  One reason for the Lord’s lack of regard for the Pharisees had to do with the fact that though they presented themselves as the true teachers of Judaism, they completely failed at preaching repentance from sin.  They preferred to exaggerate the need for ritual cleansing rather than the cleansing of the soul.  So we ought to pray for the conversion of sinners and give them the quiet example of our lives lived virtuously.