Friday of the 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

“I Came to Call Sinners”

We pick up the Gospel of Luke today after yesterday’s calling of Peter (which I confess I wish was today’s passage!) immediately after the call of Levi which we did not hear of during the liturgies this week. We also did not hear of both the healing of the leper as well as the healing of the paralytic let down through the roof. Jesus’ reputation has been growing since his healings at Capernaum and the healing of the leper, and since then, the Pharisees and scribes have been following him also, but not to be converted but rather to investigate him.
 
So they are present at the feast that Levi throws Jesus in his house after Jesus called him. First, in the passage before today’s, they complained to Jesus that he is eating with tax collectors and other “sinners.” For they, like many Jews of that day in Israel, would not associate with any who were considered outside the faith or in some way not completely obeying the Mosaic law. That was the reason Peter in yesterday’s reading begged Jesus to leave him, “For I am a sinful man.” Sin was understood then as based almost entirely on disobedience of the law (not following it completely), as opposed to any failing of a more spiritual nature. Jesus rightly told them that it is precisely the “sick” who need a “doctor’s” help, not the healthy.
And then, here today, they also complain that his disciples are not behaving like truly “religious” people, such as John the Baptist’s followers who often fast and offer prayers (as do they, the Pharisees, themselves). Jesus explains that the bridegroom (he himself) is with them now and so now they must celebrate but the day of fasting will come soon enough. He then goes on to give his parable of new and old garments and new wine in new wineskins, which implies a new awareness of what God is really calling us to.

For Jesus is telling the Pharisees in that parable something that many religious people have always had trouble hearing. And that is that people who feel they are in religious compliance (or perhaps we should call it obedience), that is, doing what they “should” do and behaving according to certain rules and regulations, often have the unfortunate tendency to look down on (judge, really) those who do not seem to keep those rules. The Pharisees were great rule keepers. In Matthew’s version of the call of Levi, after he tells the Pharisees that sick people need the doctor, he also tells them, “Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I came to call sinners, not the righteous.”

We all tend to do this, by the way. Think of all the times while at Mass that we’ve been annoyed at people talking or not paying attention. Or how we criticize, if only to ourselves, people’s dress or language or lack of proper piety or some other form of what we consider improper behavior for a Christian. We can take this to other levels. How would you react to seeing someone who you know is divorced and remarried receiving communion? How about someone who you know is in a gay marriage or relationship receiving? Or a woman who has had an abortion? Most would protest to me here that the Church itself prohibits such people from receiving communion. But that still does not help us discern Jesus’ saying, go and learn the meaning of mercy not to mention that new awareness he speaks of after that. And we remember that he said these things to the Pharisees, those great keepers of the rules whom he would later call hypocrites and white washed tombs who laid down harsh laws and never lifted a finger to help anyone with them.

Many would protest that I’m talking about apples and oranges here. Perhaps, but look at the people who Jesus ministered to as well as those he called. Few if any could be considered “religious” paragons, including the Apostles when he first called them. That’s one of the reasons the Pharisees had such terrible difficulty with him. He simply never played by the rules.

In the 1986 French Film, Thérèse, directed by Alain Cavalier, there is a lovely small scene with the saint, the Little Flower as she is now known, shown sitting with a group of her fellow postulant sisters. They are all very young women, girls really (St. Therese herself would die at only 24 of tuberculosis), and St. Therese is shown as quietly sewing at their center while the group are all being very silly and foolish, as girls often can be, giggling and gossiping about various nonsense. Therese never says a word but she is often shown listening and warmly smiling at them and their nonsense, and they are clearly quite dear to her. It is a beautiful depiction of complete acceptance with utterly no judgement or any hint of disapproval or correction. For Therese’s love for these very young women does not depend on anything they either do or do not do. Certainly not on anything they “should” do. She simply loves them because they are there with her. Would that we could learn to do the same with those whom God has placed with us.