Word to the Wise
Saturday, February 25, 2023 - Saturday after Ash Wed.
[Isa 58:9b-14 and Luke 5:27-32]Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post. He said to him, "Follow me." And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him. 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 with tax collectors and sinners?" 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." [Luke]
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Pope Francis startled readers of his first interview after being elected pope by answering a question: "Who are you?" with the words, "I am a sinner!" Then, in his initial major document, "The Joy of the Gospel," he characterized the church as a "field hospital for the sick and wounded," and not a club for a spiritual elite. The evangelist Matthew (the other name for "Levi") adds some other words to Jesus' reply to the complaints of the Pharisees and scribes: "Go and learn the meaning of these words, 'It is mercy I desire, not sacrifice!'" (from the prophet Hosea).
The story of Levi's (Matthew's) call is a challenge to the "righteous scribes and Pharisees. Jesus called one of the most despised persons in Jewish society of the time - a tax collector! - to be a disciple. [cf. also the story of Zaccheus in Luke 19:1-10]. The very fact that Levi could afford a banquet indicates he profited well from his position. That position would make a person "unclean" in the eyes of the scribes and Pharisees because it required handling Roman coins with the image of the emperor, considered divine by Romans.
Pope Francis has followed up on his image by calling the church to a compassionate response to people who have been alienated from the church: the divorced/remarried, those impacted by clerical misconduct, the LGBTQ persons and others. In doing so, he has been the object of the same criticism that Jesus received. Are we among the scribes and Pharisees or are we among those whom Jesus calls? Are we the "righteous" or "sinners?" Lent is a very good time to consider those questions. AMEN