Monday after the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on August 21, 2023 by under
Scripture: St. Mark 2:13-17 (NKJV)
2:13 Then He went out again by the sea; and all the multitude came to Him, and He taught them. 14 As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he arose and followed Him.
15 Now it happened, as He was dining in Levi’s house, that many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many, and they followed Him. 16 And when the scribes and Pharisees saw Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to His disciples, “How is it that He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?”
17 When Jesus heard it, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
Devotion
The Church is called the Communion of Saints, and yet every single member is by nature a sinner. None of us was called into this sacred fellowship because we were already holy, but because it was the Lord’s intention to make us holy. Just as no one goes to see the doctor when he is well, but only when he realizes that he needs treatment, so Christ, the divine Physician, welcomes those who recognize their sinful sickness and come to Him for forgiveness and renewal.
Christians sometimes are called hypocrites when others, who know their past behavior, see their repentance and new-found faith in God’s mercy. “As though God would ever accept them!” they imagine against their neighbor. Matthew, the newly minted disciple of the Lord, must have felt the sharp sting of such a barb when the scribes and Pharisees attacked Jesus for eating with the likes of him. But such is the greatness of God’s mercy, that He is not ashamed to commune with us miserable sinners.
We should not let the accusations of the devil, the world, and our erring conscience make us feel as though God does not love us. Instead, we should console ourselves with the Gospel that He has forgiven us and called us to be His saints in the paradise of heaven.
Prayer: Almighty and Everlasting God, Who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve: Pour down upon us the abundance of Thy mercy, forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
