Mark 2: 13-17
Jesus went out again beside the sea; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them. As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.
And as he sat at dinner in Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples—for there were many who followed him. When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Calling the Sinners
The important developments of Catholic Social teaching since Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (1891) and continuing through Vatican II has received renewed attention and energy with Pope Leo XIV’s recently announced initiative to re-catechize the Church on the Second Vatican Council and reinvigorate these principles towards human dignity and the common good in society. Who of us do not support Jesus’ preferential care for sinners, the disadvantaged, marginalized, ignored, and excluded of our current world.
So, when I read this line in scripture, “I did not come to call the righteous but sinners”, I nod, agree, and think: Aha! YES, way to go, Jesus!
And yet, which of us are not blind to the fact that most, or all, of us reading this reflection, are also quite like the “scribes who are Pharisees” in this same Gospel passage?! Am I not from the educated and privileged socio-economic class from which the world’s “righteous” spring? Aren’t I quick to look (down) and judge others from my own rules of right-and-wrong. Don’t I more easily “notice the splinter in your brother’s eye” rather than “the wooden beam in my own eye”? [And lest we all ignore, I live now in the protected and respected status of a Jesuit priest.]
—Fr. Glen Chun, SJ, a priest of the Midwest Province, is community minister of Bellarmine House of Studies in St. Louis.
Prayer
Blessed are you Lord, God of all creation,
who have brought us to life and formed us in your own image,
who have called us to follow you,
not to rule and dominate the earth for our own self-enrichment,
to care for all of your creation along with your sustenance of it,
and to help fulfill your mission to reach out to other people
with love and humility and hope.
—Fr. Glen Chun, SJ
Pray with the Pope
Pray with the monthly prayer intentions of the pope.