20160921 MERCY BRINGS GOOD OUT OF EVIL
Readings at Mass
Liturgical
Colour: Red.
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First reading
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Ephesians
4:1-7,11-13 ©
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I, the prisoner in
the Lord, implore you to lead a life worthy of your vocation. Bear with one
another charitably, in complete selflessness, gentleness and patience. Do all
you can to preserve the unity of the Spirit by the peace that binds you
together. There is one Body, one Spirit, just as you were all called into one
and the same hope when you were called. There is one Lord, one faith, one
baptism, and one God who is Father of all, over all, through all and within
all.
Each one
of us, however, has been given his own share of grace, given as Christ allotted
it. To some, his gift was that they should be apostles; to some, prophets; to
some, evangelists; to some, pastors and teachers; so that the saints together
make a unity in the work of service, building up the body of Christ. In this
way we are all to come to unity in our faith and in our knowledge of the Son of
God, until we become the perfect Man, fully mature with the fullness of Christ
himself.
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Responsorial
Psalm
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Psalm 18:2-5 ©
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Their word goes forth
through all the earth.
The heavens proclaim
the glory of God,
and the
firmament shows forth the work of his hands.
Day unto day takes up
the story
and night
unto night makes known the message.
Their word goes
forth through all the earth.
No speech, no word,
no voice is heard
yet their
span extends through all the earth,
their
words to the utmost bounds of the world.
Their word goes
forth through all the earth.
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Gospel
Acclamation
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cf.Te Deum
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Alleluia, alleluia!
We praise you, O God,
we acknowledge you to
be the Lord.
The glorious company
of the apostles praise you, O Lord.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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Matthew 9:9-13 ©
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As Jesus was walking
on he saw a man named Matthew sitting by the customs house, and he said to him,
‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.
While
he was at dinner in the house it happened that a number of tax collectors and
sinners came to sit at the table with Jesus and his disciples. When the
Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your master eat with
tax collectors and sinners?’ When he heard this he replied, ‘It is not the
healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. Go and learn the meaning of the
words: What I want is mercy, not sacrifice. And indeed I did not come to call
the virtuous, but sinners.’
MERCY BRINGS
GOOD OUT OF EVIL
Today, when we celebrate
the Feast of St Matthew, we celebrate the mercy of God in Christ, a mercy that
gives hope to those who are deemed useless and hopeless in the eyes of the
world. One can imagine how touched and moved St Matthew was to be called
by the Lord to be His apostle. In the eyes of his contemporaries he was
considered an outcast, a sinner, a traitor of the Jews and most of all, a
swindler and cheat. As a tax collector, he was hated by the people.
No one in his time would want to be associated with such a person, lest one
gets contaminated ritually by mixing with him. Indeed, that was how the
scribes and the Pharisees viewed him. It was unthinkable for a supposedly
holy man like Jesus to be seen in his company. Hence, “when the Pharisees
saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your master eat with tax
collectors and sinners?’”
What, then, is the answer
to the question of Jesus fellowshipping with sinners and tax-collectors? The
response of Jesus was swift and sharp. He said, “It is not the healthy
who need the doctor, but the sick. Go and learn the meaning of the words: What
I want is mercy, not sacrifice. And indeed I did not come to call the virtuous,
but sinners.” Jesus reckoned Himself as a doctor. The vocation of a
doctor is to give life and to give hope to the sick. His task is to
restore a person to health so that he can live again. In the same way,
Jesus came to give hope to us all, especially those who consider themselves
outside the ambit of God’s love and mercy. So, like all doctors, He
came principally for the sick whilst keeping the strong healthy.
But how could He give life
to those condemned as ‘outcasts’ by society? Again, like the doctor,
Jesus needed to approach the sick directly and personally. What kind of
doctor would He be if He were to stay away from the illness of the
patients? It is the task of the doctor to attend to the patients directly
and diagnose their illness. So if Jesus were to offer life to sinners, it
was necessary for Him to go in their midst. If the scribes and Pharisees
really had mercy for the sinners, they would not have stayed away from them.
They showed their selfishness in wanting to save themselves rather than those
who were in need of God. Indeed, we remember how many doctors gave up
their lives to save those infected by SARS many years ago when Singapore went
through the terrifying epidemic in our history. So, too, Jesus the divine
physician came to be with the sinners in order that He might feel with them,
hear them out and be the light of God’s mercy to them.
Secondly, a good doctor is
one who always has hope of a cure. If a doctor begins his job with a
sense of hopelessness, he would never be able to go far except to prepare a
person for death. But a doctor, even though he is aware of his
limitations, must also live with hope of finding a cure. He would try all
means possible to cure the patient. If the procedure cannot work or the
medication is not effective, he would resort to other methods and medication
till the patient recovers. This was the attitude of Jesus towards those
who were incorrigible. The world thought that besides prostitutes, tax
collectors particularly had no hope in the eyes of God. They would surely
be condemned to hell. But Jesus never saw sinners as people who had no
hope. In fact, He saw in Matthew the ingredients of a good
apostle-to-be. When we are merciful, we see the wicked person with hope
and confidence; we see much goodness even in the difficult person whom the
world has given up hope on. Jesus had the gift to see the goodness and
the sincerity hidden in Matthew despite the shady trade he was engaged in.
Indeed, when we see the
goodness in the apparently evil person, we will help the person to begin the
process of healing. So when Jesus called Matthew, it was not a sudden
response. We can be sure that Matthew would have heard about Jesus or
even heard Him teaching. His heart was already open but he did not feel
worthy to take another step. He deemed himself to be an outcast and was
certain that he would be rejected. But lo and behold, Jesus read his
heart, a heart that was filled with emptiness, loneliness and bereft of
joy. This is true in daily life, especially with difficult colleagues or
students who do not perform. We need the eyes of mercy to see the
potential goodness and the hidden virtues in the person.
Thirdly, Jesus helped
Matthew to find his true vocation in life. Only when we find our vocation
can we truly live meaningfully in life. Those who live only for their
career cannot find real happiness and meaning. Success is empty when what
we do only brings in money but not life and love. Following Christ does
not mean that we have to give up our career or what we like to do. Rather,
it is more about changing the motives than changing our circumstances.
Conversion is not about giving up one’s talents but rather to use them in the
right way. Jesus therefore encouraged St Matthew, who was probably one of
the few educated ones in His band, to use his knowledge and writing skills to
proclaim the gospel. St Matthew did not have to give up all his knowledge
and training but he could now use it for the service of the gospel. So
with St Matthew, instead of having a career that was directed at enriching
himself, he changed his career and sought a vocation. He now used his
talents for the service of God and the gospel. A career is about
advancing oneself but a vocation is always for the service of God and
humanity. So from that day onwards, Matthew used all his resources for
the glory of God.
Fourthly, a good doctor’s
only desire is to help, to heal and to console. We must avoid following
the negative attitude of the scribes and Pharisees. All they knew was to
criticize Jesus and condemn the sinners. Instead of seeking a solution to
bring them back to God, they stayed away from them. True doctors only
think about how to help and relieve pain when they see their patients suffer.
They do not stand around and lecture their patients for getting into trouble or
falling sick. So when we see people suffering or someone who has made a
mistake in life, we do not keep on scolding the person and putting that person
down. Rather, our task is to lift them up through gentle correction,
enlightenment and encouragement. We should seek to help and not to
condemn those who are already down and out.
Finally, a good doctor of
mercy not only has hope but will transform all obstacles into learning curves
so as to be a better doctor. All good doctors see obstacles as opportunities
for learning. There are many things we learn through trial and error. We
all learn from mistakes. That is why in every hospital there must always
be case studies to see how we can learn from mistakes and new experiments and
initiatives. So too with Jesus; He saw Matthew as a great opportunity,
not just to save, but to be put to use in reaching out to those whom Jesus
would have found difficult to reach. Being a convert and a former tax
collector, Matthew was well placed to help Jesus make inroads with those who
were ‘unreachable’. We can be sure that with Matthew’s conversion, many
other tax collectors, seeing him living a much happier and liberated life,
would have also come to Jesus.
Today as we celebrate the
feast of St Matthew, let us never give up hope on those who are difficult,
those who seem to be failures in life and the ‘incorrigibles’. Before we
write them off, let us remember that for Jesus, nothing is impossible. We
must continue to hope that God will give them the grace to be touched by His
word and be transformed. All of us are called to this same hope. “There
is one Body, one Spirit, just as you were all called into one and the same hope
when you were called.” To give up hope on them is to be lacking in
mercy. Look at them with eyes of mercy and they will find hope in
themselves.
Let us help others as St
Paul urged us; to live a life worthy of our vocation. We are called to
use our talents to help build up the Church and to build up the individual.
“Each one of us, however, has been given his own share of grace, given as
Christ allotted it. … so that the saints together make a unit in the work of
service, building up the body of Christ. In this way we are all to come to
unity in our faith and in our knowledge of the Son of God, until we become the
perfect Man, fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself.” Let
us follow the example of St Matthew and St Paul who gave up their lives for
others after having been transformed, loved and forgiven by Christ. Let
everything we do in life be done for the good of humanity and the glory of God.
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights
Reserved
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