Today’s Scripture Readings

Gospel Reading

NRSV

After this he went out and saw a tax-collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up, left everything, and followed him. Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house; and there was a large crowd of tax-collectors and others sitting at the table with them. The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, ‘Why do you eat and drink with tax-collectors and sinners?’ Jesus answered, ‘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 to repentance.’

In this time of Lent, we recognise the truth that we are sinners, not yet among the righteous who have entered the world of right relationship and come to the feast which it promises. We are on the way; we are works in progress. But if we see ourselves as already righteous, the finished product, there will be no progress. We will be stuck forever in the world of illusion, and there will be no feast.

Jesus calls the tax-collector Levi not because he is righteous or worthy, not because of what he is but because of what he might become, which Jesus sees clearly. In answering the call, Levi begins a journey out of the world of wrong relationship into the world of right relationship. That will be a long and difficult journey for him, but it will lead Levi home to Paradise.

We, too, are called on this journey of repentance – acknowledging that we are sinners but following the Lord out of the world of sin, which will climax on Calvary, into the world of grace, which will come with the Resurrection. Repentance allows the infinite mercy of God to do its work in us. When that happens, as the prophet
Isaiah says, “you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail” (Isaiah 58:11).

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