Message of Abbot Paul - Friday 7th July 2023

It’s been a blessing to have cooler weather for a few days. One of the effects of the protracted hot and sunny weather has been to make our roses and other flowers bigger, yet at the same time to fade them. Our Belmont roses are actually a different colour this year, much lighter but appearing to be burnt at the edges. Even so, we’ve had a magnificent display and it continues to the present day. I wonder what lies ahead and whether we’ll get another hot spell.

 

​Our Gospel passage from Matthew today recounts the call of Matthew, (Mt 9: 9-13). Rather like the call of the fishermen, the call of the tax collector is as radical as it’s brief. “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.”

Did Jesus already know Matthew? Did Matthew know Jesus? We will soon discover in Matthew’s house, why it is that Jesus called him: to be an example to others, for Jesus came, “not to call the virtuous, but sinners.” This very fact filled others then, as it does us now, with thankfulness and rejoicing, that Jesus should call sinners such as you and me. After his call, a dinner was offered at Matthew’s house. “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.’” The story is well known to us all: Jesus is surrounded by tax collectors and sinners, the Pharisees see this and complain to the disciples, Jesus hears this and replies, quoting the words of the prophet Hosea, “What I want is mercy not sacrifice,”(Ho 6:6). Jesus takes this a stage further by stating categorically that he has come to call sinners to repentance and new life, for the virtuous have no need for God and can look after themselves, which is precisely what the Pharisees were doing. Lord, we thank you for calling us to salvation, although we are sinners. Amen.