Why does your Master eat with sinners and tax collectors?
Hebrews 4:12-16
Mark 2:13-17
It is bad to be sick with some serious disease. It is worse to be sick and to be unaware of it, for then the sickness can grow until it is no longer manageable. When the Scribes of the Pharisees’ party asked the disciples why their Master ate with sinners and tax collectors, very likely they did not consider themselves as belonging to that category. When Jesus said in reply that it is not the healthy but the sick who need a doctor, and that he did not come to call the virtuous but sinners, probably they felt that he had come for the others not for them.
Holiness does not consist in the doing good things and avoiding evil ones by our efforts. Many of us don’t go very far by our own efforts. Some do go far, but then there comes the tendency to become aware of how good they are; to count the good deeds they do and the evil ones they avoid. Our prayer can degenerate into the prayer of the Pharisees, telling God about our goodness, thanking God for the many good deeds we do and the evils we avoid, and contrasting ourselves to the rest of humanity and particularly to the “bad” people we know. Holiness consists rather, in the degree of intimacy with Christ. It consists in learning to let go of our will, even in the things that appear good to us, and to allow Jesus’ will to take over. When Christ is the measure of our holiness, we never hit a thresh-hold. There is always more to aspire to; we always fall far too short of the mark. We cannot regard ourselves as righteous, but people in need of God’s constant mercy.
It is wisdom to know that worst villain has some goodness or at least a potential for virtue in them, and that in the greatest of the virtuous there is an element of weakness. Matthew is the proof of that truth in today’s gospel. The tax collector who was named together with the sinners became an apostle and an evangelist and a saint.
