Saturday after Ash Wednesday – Gospel

Commentary on Luke 5:27-32

Jesus certainly made strange choices in his prospective followers. In our time, when we look for ‘vocations’, we tend to search among committed and well-balanced Christians. But in today’s Gospel we see Jesus picking someone who was regarded as an immoral money-grabber and a religious outcast.

Tax collectors were despised on two counts. First, they were seen as venal collaborators with the hated colonial ruler, the Romans, for whom they were working. Second, they were corrupt and extorted far more money than was their due.

But Jesus knows his man. At the sound of the invitation, Levi drops everything—his whole business and the security it brings him. It is very similar to the fishermen leaving their boats and their nets. He then goes off after Jesus. Where? For what? He has no idea. Like Peter and Andrew, James and John before him, in a great act of trust and faith, he throws in his lot with Jesus, whatever it is going to mean, wherever it is going to bring him. In Luke’s Gospel particularly, the following of Jesus involves total commitment.

Then, as his last fling so to speak, he throws a party in his house for all his friends, who of course were social rejects like himself. The religious-minded scribes and Pharisees were shocked at Jesus’ behaviour. They complained to the disciples:

Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?

Jesus answers for them:

Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.

Jesus’ words can be read in two ways. On the one hand, there is no need to preach to the converted—which is what we do a lot of in our Christian churches. What is needed is to reach out to those who are lost, whose lives are going in the wrong direction, who are leading a self-destructive existence.

And surely that is what the Church needs to be about today. There is a lot of the Pharisee among us still. We are still shocked if we see a priest or a ‘good’ Catholic in ‘bad’ company and often jump to hasty and unjustified conclusions, and think or say “A priest (or sister) should not be seen in such company.” As a result the Church is, in many cases, very much confined to the churchgoers in society.

Jesus’ words can also be taken in a sarcastic sense. His critics regarded themselves as among the well and virtuous. In fact, they totally lacked the love and compassion of God reflected in Jesus. Their ‘virtue’ did not need Jesus because they were closed to him anyway. We remember the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in the temple. It was the one who acknowledged himself as a sinner and wanted God’s mercy who won God’s favour.

We too need to be careful of sitting in judgment on others, taking the high moral ground and claiming to be shocked at certain people’s behaviour. Without exception, we are all in need of healing.

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Saturday after Ash Wednesday – First Reading

Commentary on Isaiah 58:9-14

The Scripture lessons as we enter the Lenten season could hardly be clearer. Lent is not just a time for focusing on ourselves by giving up things and perhaps even feeling smug about it. It is a time to look beyond ourselves and to find God there.

Earlier in the passage we read today, Isaiah comments on complaints being made by people that, though they are fasting, God is not taking any notice. The reason, says Isaiah, is because while they are virtuously fasting, they continue to exploit their workers and get involved in fights and quarrels.

If we call on the Lord for help, he will hear us, but he does have expectations of us. We must be rid of any form of oppression, false accusations or malicious speech. We need to share our bread with the hungry and console the afflicted. When we do this:

…your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday…
you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water
whose waters never fail.

There is a further call to spend the Lord’s day in a more reverent manner. It is a time to refrain as far as possible from our daily concerns, and make it more a day for quiet reflection and a time to remember God’s gifts to us:

…then you shall take delight in the Lord…

Lent, then, is really a time for us to reflect on the meaning and direction of our lives and to consider what changes are necessary, not just at this time, but for the year ahead.

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