We hear more today about things that are pleasing to God in our first reading from Isaiah 58. The Lord also talks about how we should conduct ourselves on the sabbath. “If you honor it by not following your ways, seeking your own interests, or speaking with malice – Then you shall delight in the Lord.” In our Gospel reading today from Luke 5, we read about the call of Levi, or Matthew.
Levi throws a big banquet for Jesus, and invites a bunch of other tax collectors and others. Tax collectors were considered traitors by the Jews – turncoats who turned their allegiance to the Romans and sold their souls for a buck. So the Pharisees want to know why Jesus is hanging out with these scum-of-the-earth types. So Jesus tells them, “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”
I’m not big on going to the doctor. Probably a guy thing. But when I know that something is wrong, out of whack, I go. It should be the same with Jesus. We have to admit to ourselves that something is wrong, out of whack. That spiritually, we need to go see the doctor. And that’s where our Divine Physician comes in. Now, He may have to give us medicine that is not too pleasant to take. He may even have to perform radical surgery. But if we go to Him and allow Him, He will make us whole.
Father, we acknowledge that we do, indeed, need a physician. And so we commend ourselves to the care of your Son, Christ Jesus, our Divine Physician. Amen.
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