THE CALL OF MATTHEW

Homily for Sept. 21^st, 2019: Matt. 9: 9-13.

          “As Jesus passed by, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post.” Matthew was a tax collector. He was not the kind of tax collector we know today, a civil servant. In the Palestine of Jesus’ day the Roman government of occupation entrusted the collection of taxes to tax farmers, as they are sometimes called, who bid for the right to collect taxes. In doing so, these tax collectors enriched themselves by extorting more than the government required. They were hated, therefore, for two reasons: for preying on people financially; and for serving the despised Roman rulers of the land. 

          Jesus speaks just two words to Matthew: “Follow me.” Without hesitation, Matthew gets up and follows Jesus. Other disciples of Jesus have already done the same, when, at Jesus’ command, they abandoned the tools of their trade as fishermen, their boats and nets, to follow Jesus. What motivated this immediate obedience? I think that if we could have questioned any of them, Matthew included, they would have replied: “There was something about this man, Jesus, which made it impossible to say no.” 

          As a parting gesture Matthew invites his friends to dinner at his house, with Jesus as the honored guest. As we would expect, many of those friends were Matthew’s fellow tax collectors. Others were simply “sinners,” as the gospel reading calls them: Jews, like Matthew, who did not bother to keep all of God’s law.

Observing these disreputable guests, the Pharisees, proud of their exact observance of God’s law, ask Jesus’ other disciples how their Master can associate with such ruffians. Jesus supplies the answer himself: “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. … I did not come to call the righteous [by which Jesus means ‘people like you Pharisees’]. ‘I came to call sinners.’

What is the message for us? If we want Jesus’ loving care, we need first to recognize and confess our need. And the first thing we need from Jesus is forgiveness.

ACCOMPANYING HIM WERE SOME WOMEN

Homily for Sept. 20^th, 2019: Luke 8:1-3

          Who were Jesus’ disciples? The Twelve, first of all, chosen by Jesus to represent Jesus’ desire to reconstitute the twelve tribes of Israel. They were all men. Traveling along with them, Luke tells us in today’s gospel, were women as well. A modern Bible commentator writes: “It was not uncommon for women to support rabbis and their disciples out of their own money, property, or foodstuffs. But for [a woman] to leave home and travel with a rabbi was not only unheard of, it was scandalous. Even more scandalous was the fact that women, both respectable and not, were among Jesus’ travelling companions.” Today’s gospel is one of the many pieces of evidence we have that Jesus rejected the second-class status of women in his society.

          The first woman mentioned, Mary of Magdala, a small town in Galilee, is clearly not the woman “known in the town to be a sinner.” [Luke 7:37]. Luke is telling us about a woman he has not previously mentioned. The information that “seven demons had gone out of her” refers to healing from sickness. The number seven in biblical thought represents fullness. Her healing is now complete.

            The next woman mentioned, Joanna, is married to a high government official: Chuza, the manager of the estates of Palestine’s ruler, Herod Antipas. This Herod was hostile to Jesus. If his steward Chuza was the royal official mentioned in the 4^th chapter of John’s gospel who asked Jesus to heal his son, as some commentators believe, and who “became a believer” when the boy was cured, this would explain why he allowed his wife to minister to Jesus.

          Later it would be women, not men, who were the first witnesses and messengers of the resurrection. Despite all this evidence of the importance of women for Jesus, it was to men alone that he gave the command at the Last Supper, to “do this in my memory.” This helps explain why still today only men are ordained to the priesthood. St. John Paul II told us that the Church has no power to alter Jesus’ clear intention and command.

A SINFUL WOMAN'S GRATITUDE

Homily for Sept. 19^th, 2019: Luke 7:36-50.

          Let’s get one thing straight right away. The “sinful woman in the city” whom we have just heard about in the gospel is not Mary Magdalene. Luke will mention Mary Magdalene just 2 verses after the close of today’s gospel reading; yet he says nothing to suggest that she is the same woman whose over the top behavior he has just described. Nor is there any convincing evidence that this “sinful woman,” as she is called, is a prostitute. There are plenty of serious sins which are not sexual. 

          Jesus is dining in the house of a Pharisee, a man proud of his meticulous observance of all the details of God’s law. “If this man were a prophet,” Jesus’ host says to himself, “he would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner.”

With his unique ability to read the human mind and heart, Jesus perceives at once what his host is thinking. Jesus is a prophet. He has already read his host’s unspoken thoughts. He responds by telling the story of two debtors. One owes a sum equal to 18 months’ daily wages; the other’s debt equals a worker’s pay for just 50 days. When both men tell their creditor they cannot pay their debts, he says, ‘Forget about it.’ Which would love the creditor more? Jesus asks. The answer is obvious. We can see the Pharisee’s resentment at having to give this answer by the frigid words he speaks: “The one, I suppose, whose larger debt was forgiven.”   

Jesus then contrasts the formally correct welcome he has received from his host with the extravagant welcome of the sinful woman. Her behavior is the response, Jesus says, to my forgiveness of her sins. This causes the other guests to ask: “Who is this who even forgives sins?” To which Jesus responds by telling the sinful and now forgiven woman: “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Without claiming in words to be divine, Jesus acts as only God can act.

The story reminds us of something which Pope Francis never tires of telling us: God never grows tired of forgiving us. It is we who grow tired of asking for forgiveness. And the story challenges us with an insistent question: Are we even half as grateful for God’s merciful forgiveness as this sinful woman?

"THEY ARE LIKE CHILDREN."

Homily for Sept. 18^th, 2019: Luke 7:31-35.

          Jesus speaks often of children in the gospels, usually in a positive sense. He tells us, for instance, that we cannot enter the kingdom of God unless we “become like little children” (Mt. 18:3; cf. Mk. 9:36, Lk 9:47). When his disciples try to keep children away from Jesus, he rebukes them, saying that anyone who welcomes a little child “welcomes me” (Lk 9:48). In these and similar passages Jesus is recommending the sense of dependence that children have. It never occurs to small children that they can make it on their own. He is also recommending children’s ability to wonder – something that most of us lose, as we grow up, though artists and great saints retain the sense of wonder at God’s creation into old age.

          In today’s gospel Jesus speaks about a negative aspect of childhood. Grieved that too few of his own people have responded either to his cousin, John the Baptist, or to himself, Jesus compares them to children who reject every approach of those who reach out to them in loving concern. ‘You complained that John was too strict and ascetic,” Jesus says in effect. ‘Me you find too laid back and merciful. What do you want?’ Jesus asks them.

          Children can be like that. I experienced it myself, in my own childhood. I might have been ten years old, or even younger, with a sister eight, and a brother six. I remember my father saying to another grownup, in a tone of resigned frustration: “My children are contra-suggestive.” I no longer know what occasioned this remark, but I can easily imagine it. Whatever my father suggested, by way of a leisure activity – whether it was a walk, a drive in the country, or a visit to a museum – we said: “Oh, no -- we don’t want to do that.”

          Most of us carry over this childhood stubbornness into adult life. We’d like to determine our own agenda, thank you. But of course we can’t. God set the agenda for us before we were even born. “My yoke is easy”, Jesus says, “and my burden light” (Mt. 11:30). Jesus’ yoke is easy, however, only if we accept it. Otherwise it chafes. How better could we respond to Jesus’ words in today’s gospel than to pray: “Not what I want, Lord, but what you want.”

"YOUNG MAN, ARISE."

Homily for Sept. 17^th, 2019: Luke 7:11-17.

          Can there be anything more tragic than parents having to bury a son or daughter? The tragedy is deepened in the story we have just heard by the fact that the mother who must bury her son is a widow, who has no other children. It was a man’s world. Women were the property of men in Jesus’ day: the property of their fathers until they married, then the property of their husbands. The Commandment, “Thou shalt not covet,” lists a man’s wife among the things one must not covet. With her husband already dead, and now her son as well, this widow of Nain has no man to speak for her or protect her.

          This tragedy has parallels even in an age of women’s liberation. I remember as if it were yesterday standing as a young priest in a bleak and rocky cemetery in Arizona, where I had just laid to rest beside his long deceased father the only son of a widow named Nellie. Her deep Christian faith strengthened my faith then, and I continue to pray for her today. “There are my two men-folk,” Nellie told me when the prayers of committal were over.

          How could Jesus be indifferent to such grief? We heard in yesterday’s gospel about Jesus healing the gravely ill slave of a Roman military officer, to whom the sick slave was “very dear.” The young man being carried to burial at Nain is no less dear to his mother. Disregarding the Jewish law of ritual purity which said that one must not touch a corpse, Jesus unhesitatingly reaches out to touch the coffin saying: “Young man, I tell you, arise!” Whereupon, Luke tells us, the young man “sat up.” The Scripture commentators tell us that the Greek word which Luke uses for “sit up” is a medical term – hardly surprising when we know that Luke was what passed in those days for a medical doctor. The people who witnessed this miracle respond with the simple but powerful words: “God has visited his people.”

          What better response could we make to this moving story than to pray the words of an old evangelical hymn: “What a friend we have in Jesus / All our sins and griefs to bear! / What a privilege to carry / Everything to God in prayer. / Are we weak and heavy laden, / Burdened with a load of care? / Precious Savior, still our refuge / Take it to the Lord in prayer.”

"LORD,I AM NOT WORTHY."

Homily for Sept. 16^th, 2019: Luke 7:1-10.

          The centurion who asks Jesus to heal his serving boy is a Roman military officer, something like a colonel today. This is clear from his response when Jesus sets off at once to heal the boy. The officer shows both courtesy to Jesus and respect for the Jewish law by saying: “Lord, I am not worthy to have you under my roof.” The officer’s Jewish friends have already told Jesus this Roman officer has taken a genuine interest in their religion, and has even built a synagogue. The officer knows, therefore, that in entering a Gentile house Jesus could become ritually unclean. Hence, Luke tells us, the officer suggests an alternative: “Just give an order and my boy will be healed.” I do that all the time, he says. I give orders to those under my authority, and they do what I command.

          Upon hearing these words, Luke tells us, Jesus “showed amazement.” Normally it is the witnesses of Jesus’ healings who are amazed. Here it is the Lord himself who shows amazement. I have not found faith like this from my own people, Jesus says. This outsider, who has neither our divine law, nor our prophets, he tells the people, shows greater faith than you do.

          The centurion’s words continue to resound two millennia later. “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof,” we say before we approach the Lord’s table to receive his Body and Blood, “but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed.” Even after a good confession, we are still unworthy of the Lord’s gift. He gives himself to us for one reason: not because we are good enough; but because he is so good that he longs to share his love with us.  

          How do we respond? By gratitude! By walking before the Lord in holiness and righteousness all our days, trusting that when the Lord calls us home to himself, we shall hear him saying to us, very personally and with tender love: “Well done. … Come and share your master’s joy.” (Matt. 25:21).