Everyday we are presented with chances to love. We are repeatedly faced with the choice of whether we will stop what we are doing so we can love others. Thus we are called to love rather than to fear. When we fall prey to fear, we fall away from love. We decide to love when we listen to our neighbor. We choose love when we are willing to learn from our neighbor.
Today as we celebrate the feast day of Saint Matthew, once again we hear how Jesus calls us to love and to be merciful and thus to open our hearts to our neighbor. In today's Gospel, we hear that
Jesus 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."*
When Jesus told Saint Matthew to follow Him, Saint Matthew got up and followed Jesus. As a wise person once pointed out to me, Saint Matthew didn't ask Jesus what his invitation entailed. Saint Matthew simply got up, left everything, and followed Jesus. Saint Matthew didn't have to discern what he was going to do; it was clear to him that he was going to follow Jesus, so immediately he did so.
God presents all of us with chances to love. When God gives us the gift of an opportunity to love, get up and follow Jesus wherever He calls you to go. We find Jesus in our neighbor, and for however long our neighbor is next to us, we can choose to love our neighbor in every single instant. Jesus calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves.** If our neighbor requests love from us, then we are to give that love to Jesus who we find in our neighbor. When the duty of the present moment requests, then we get up and follow the call of Jesus to love our neighbor.
When we choose fear over love, we ignore this call from Jesus. When we succumb to fright, then we are turning away from loving our neighbor. When we want to run away from what we have to do, then we turn aside from Jesus and from the duty to love our neighbor. When we run away from our duty, we fail to love ourselves.
I felt this pull of fear, and I was taught by a friend how to properly respond to such fear months ago. This friend, who here I'll call "Anna," had done something wrong. She needed to set it right again.
She went to set things back in their proper place, and I accompanied her. When she got to where she needed to restore things, she asked me how she was to do so. Panicking, I stammered, "Just be done with it, and let's get out of here." Calmly, she replied that she felt it was more appropriate to speak with the people who she had wronged. She tried to speak with them, but it turned out that they were not there when she arrived. She could have just departed, yet she not only left a voice message apologizing to the people she had wronged, but she also left her name. She did her best to make amends for how she had inappropriately behaved.
What else can I tell you about Anna? Anna is a homeless woman who is addicted to methamphetamines.
It is easy and convenient to declare that the homeless drug addict is the sick one. Jesus suggests that those who are morally lacking are sick. I was the morally deficient one in that situation: I was the one who wanted to hurry up and leave so we could avoid an uncomfortable confrontation, rather than see my friend partly spiritually healed through making the appropriate reparations to the people she had wronged. In demonstrating to me how to begin to responsibly set right one's mistakes, this homeless addict was like a physician to my sick and troubled soul.
When we see how we can learn from others who we had previously thought were below us, it becomes easy to realize the meaning of the words, "Mercy is what pleases Me, not sacrifice."*** If we realize that we can learn from people who we think are worse off than us, then it becomes easy to be merciful toward them.
Jesus explained that He came to call not the upright, but sinners. It is more comfortable for me to think of myself as upright than to realize that I am a sinner. The truth hurts. The truth is that I am a sinner. Yet all is not lost, for Jesus calls me and all of us sinners to repentance and to restoration with God.
Jesus calls us. Jesus asks us to get up, leave everything and follow Him. Jesus asks us to leave our conceptions of ourselves, to realize we are sinners, to give up our sinful ways, to make amends for what we have done wrong, and, having renounced our sinful desires, to follow Him. Jesus calls us to such renunciation since He wants us to love ourselves and stop destroying ourselves. He wants us to love ourselves so we can love our neighbor as ourselves. We are called to love so that we can love each other as Jesus has loved us.**** We are called to show great love, to give up everything, and to follow Jesus. When we do so, we finally become who God has always meant us to be. Amen.
* Matthew 9:9-13
** Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Leviticus 19:18; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14
*** Hosea 6:6
**** John 13:34; John 15:12
Today as we celebrate the feast day of Saint Matthew, once again we hear how Jesus calls us to love and to be merciful and thus to open our hearts to our neighbor. In today's Gospel, we hear that
Jesus 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."*
When Jesus told Saint Matthew to follow Him, Saint Matthew got up and followed Jesus. As a wise person once pointed out to me, Saint Matthew didn't ask Jesus what his invitation entailed. Saint Matthew simply got up, left everything, and followed Jesus. Saint Matthew didn't have to discern what he was going to do; it was clear to him that he was going to follow Jesus, so immediately he did so.
God presents all of us with chances to love. When God gives us the gift of an opportunity to love, get up and follow Jesus wherever He calls you to go. We find Jesus in our neighbor, and for however long our neighbor is next to us, we can choose to love our neighbor in every single instant. Jesus calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves.** If our neighbor requests love from us, then we are to give that love to Jesus who we find in our neighbor. When the duty of the present moment requests, then we get up and follow the call of Jesus to love our neighbor.
When we choose fear over love, we ignore this call from Jesus. When we succumb to fright, then we are turning away from loving our neighbor. When we want to run away from what we have to do, then we turn aside from Jesus and from the duty to love our neighbor. When we run away from our duty, we fail to love ourselves.
I felt this pull of fear, and I was taught by a friend how to properly respond to such fear months ago. This friend, who here I'll call "Anna," had done something wrong. She needed to set it right again.
She went to set things back in their proper place, and I accompanied her. When she got to where she needed to restore things, she asked me how she was to do so. Panicking, I stammered, "Just be done with it, and let's get out of here." Calmly, she replied that she felt it was more appropriate to speak with the people who she had wronged. She tried to speak with them, but it turned out that they were not there when she arrived. She could have just departed, yet she not only left a voice message apologizing to the people she had wronged, but she also left her name. She did her best to make amends for how she had inappropriately behaved.
What else can I tell you about Anna? Anna is a homeless woman who is addicted to methamphetamines.
It is easy and convenient to declare that the homeless drug addict is the sick one. Jesus suggests that those who are morally lacking are sick. I was the morally deficient one in that situation: I was the one who wanted to hurry up and leave so we could avoid an uncomfortable confrontation, rather than see my friend partly spiritually healed through making the appropriate reparations to the people she had wronged. In demonstrating to me how to begin to responsibly set right one's mistakes, this homeless addict was like a physician to my sick and troubled soul.
When we see how we can learn from others who we had previously thought were below us, it becomes easy to realize the meaning of the words, "Mercy is what pleases Me, not sacrifice."*** If we realize that we can learn from people who we think are worse off than us, then it becomes easy to be merciful toward them.
Jesus explained that He came to call not the upright, but sinners. It is more comfortable for me to think of myself as upright than to realize that I am a sinner. The truth hurts. The truth is that I am a sinner. Yet all is not lost, for Jesus calls me and all of us sinners to repentance and to restoration with God.
Jesus calls us. Jesus asks us to get up, leave everything and follow Him. Jesus asks us to leave our conceptions of ourselves, to realize we are sinners, to give up our sinful ways, to make amends for what we have done wrong, and, having renounced our sinful desires, to follow Him. Jesus calls us to such renunciation since He wants us to love ourselves and stop destroying ourselves. He wants us to love ourselves so we can love our neighbor as ourselves. We are called to love so that we can love each other as Jesus has loved us.**** We are called to show great love, to give up everything, and to follow Jesus. When we do so, we finally become who God has always meant us to be. Amen.
* Matthew 9:9-13
** Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Leviticus 19:18; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14
*** Hosea 6:6
**** John 13:34; John 15:12
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