Message of Abbot Paul - Friday 2nd July
Message from Fr Paul for Friday, 2nd July 2021
It’s good to have some warm, Summer weather. Yesterday afternoon, instead of meeting in the garden, Toby and I went out with a friend into the countryside to visit a few medieval country churches. Unfortunately, the three we visited were closed on account of the pandemic still, disappointing when you consider that very few people visit these churches anyway. St Mary’s, Kenderchurch, St Mary’s, Kentchurch, and St Nicholas, Grosmont, were all closed. However, it was possible to admire the graves, the wild flowers and the exterior of the buildings. But I missed going inside to say a prayer, to sing one of the old Latin chants and to see what was left of their former beauty. I shall return once these lockdowns are over.
Our Gospel reading today comes from Matthew, (Mt 9: 9-13), and is a continuation of yesterday’s. Jesus meets Matthew and calls him to be a disciple.
“As Jesus was walking on, he saw a man named Matthew sitting by the customs house, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him. While he was at dinner in the house it happened that a number of tax collectors and sinners came to sit at the table with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ When he heard this he replied, ‘It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. Go and learn the meaning of the words: What I want is mercy, not sacrifice. And indeed, I did not come to call the virtuous, but sinners.’” We find this account in Mark and Luke as well, where Matthew is called Levi. Matthew has used his own name and has omitted some of the details found in the others, in fact, in this account, the call of Matthew to be a disciple is reduced to the first sentence only. What we do notice is the brevity and radicality of Jesus’ call and the immediate response of Matthew, just as radical in its own way. It is impossible, of course, to think of the call of Matthew without vividly recalling Caravaggio’s dramatic depiction in San Luigi del Francesi in Rome.
Because of the other Gospels, we take it for granted that the house in which the dinner is held belongs to Matthew. Tax collectors and other people regarded as sinners by the scribes and Pharisees are at table with Jesus and his disciples. Although the Pharisees complain to the disciples and not directly to Jesus about this, it is Jesus who replies to their question and his words have become truly famous. “It’s not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. I did not come to call the just, but sinners.” To support this, he quotes from the Prophet Hosea 6: 6, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Now, when Jesus says that he has come as a doctor for the sick and to call sinners, he is revealing himself to be the very mercy of God.
Merciful Saviour, thank you for calling sinners to be your disciples and for healing the sick of mind and body. Have mercy on us always. Amen.
