TENTH SUNDAY IN Ordinary time: A. Jun 8, 2008

Hosea 6:3-6 Psalm: 50 Rom 4 : 18-25 Matthew 9: 9-13

“I have come for sinners.”

1. Often at a party, just to get a rise from me, a person will say, “I have stopped going to church because it is full of sinners and hypocrites.” If I am in a bad mood, I will say, it is not full, there is always room for you. But I will usually say, thank God for that - otherwise the church would have no purpose. Jesus said, I have come for sinners.  It is because we are sinners, it is because we are imperfect, it is because we say, “Lord I am not worthy..” that we have the Church, the sacraments, the anointing service, the reconciliation room.

2. Jesus has a penchant, an attraction for the sinner and the outcast. He calls Matthew to come just as he is. Matthew does precisely that - he leaves his tax booth and the money and all the books. He follows Jesus. Jesus did not tell him to repent, to get his act together, to settle all his accounts. Come as you are.

The late Fr. Don Driscoll tells this story of himself. He had come all the way from the States to make his retreat at Guelph. His spiritual director told him to relax and take things easy. “I have not come all the way from the States to take things easy. Give me some scripture passages to pray, and give me a routine to follow.” The Spiritual director took him to the barn which is a part of the huge Guelph complex and asked him what he saw. “There are some bales of hay” replied Fr. Don. Oh, for goodness sake, take a better look! There are cobwebs, there is cow-dung, there is straw all over, the stalls are not painted. It is a mess. And it is here that Jesus chose to be born.” This is the picture of your life and mine - a mess. It is here that God chooses to enter. But YOU want to clean up everything first, and then sit down with God around a conference table and tell God how to run the universe. God does not need advisers !” 

That is precisely the picture of our Pharisees today. They had their pharisaic laws and rituals. As long as you followed that everything was copasetic. Everything would be all right.

3. In our Gospel, the Pharisees are scandalized by Jesus. First he eats with a sinner and a tax collector. Secondly by what he says and does.  Jesus is uncompromising with the Pharisees because they are so self righteous. They have no need for God or God’s saving grace. They claim that they are good, so grace cannot enter, graces just bounces off their attitude of “we do not need you.”

3a Our Church has to be equally uncompromising with truth. It needs to constantly remind us that we are sinners in need of God’s mercy. It needs to tell us that even though we are sinners, God continues to love us and sends us a saviour as long as we see the need of a Saviour.  We say in the Exultet, the Easter Song of praise: “O happy fault, o necessary sin of Adam, that won for us so great a redeemer.”

3b The Church could also compromise and water down the truth. It could be a huge “placebo pill.” It can gloss over sin, feed us with pious pap and bromides, dilute God’s Word with a constipation of thought and a diarrhoea of platitudes. In such a Church, there is no sin, we are all good. All we need is a wee bit of encouragement now and again, but we do not need to turn to God or even hear his call.  This was the philosophy of the Pharisees in the time of Jesus. We are righteous, whereas this Jesus he “eats with sinners and tax collectors”

4. Matthew was a sinner and so he welcomes Jesus and God’s mercy.

• if we cannot acknowledge we are fallen, we cannot be picked up.
• If we cannot say with the lepers, “unclean, unclean” we cannot be made clean
• if we cannot with the haemorrhaging woman touch the cloak of Jesus, we will never be cured. And the worst possible scenario:
• if we cannot attach ourselves with a Church that is a caring community with people like Martha and Mary, we will just be dead and tied up with bandages. We will never hear the words of Jesus, “Come forth. Untie him and set him free.”

5. The Church today is centred around the Eucharistic Table. Jesus did most of his healing and invitations at table and during meals.

• At the Wedding feast of Cana, he opened the eyes of the Apostles. They believed.
• At the Miracle of the Loaves and fishes, he offered the believers the Bread of life and the Cup of eternal salvation
• At the house of Simon the Leper, the sinful woman was forgiven her sins and cured, will Simon the Leper remained in his sickness, because he did not see the need to be cured.
• At the Last Supper, Jesus gave his Apostles, not only the Bread of life, but also a chance to be a part of his own divinity. I am the Vine, you are the branches. Abide in me.

6. We see ads on TV with suffering and starving children from Africa and India. They are brown and black children. Needless to say, we cannot see our own faces in those children, - Wrong country, wrong colour. And yet we have a deeper starvation, a deeper emaciation, a deeper malnutrition.  We need grace, we need forgiveness, we need healing, we need the Bread of life.

We say poor kids, we send them a cheque if we feel generous, or we switch channels until the ball game comes on again. We should freeze that picture and say that is “my soul” - and because I can see myself there, I should rejoice, because Jesus is saying to me, “come follow.” - I will eat with you today. Come as you are. I will provide you with a robe for the banquet.