10th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today's Gospel features Matthew being called from his Tax Collector's post.   What was Matthew's life like up to that point?  Tax Collectors in Jesus' day were quite affluent, well connected within the Roman Empire, but at the same time quite alone.  Their own community shunned them, calling them sell-outs to the Romans, from whom the Zealots fought to be free.  

So Matthew seemed to have it all.  He had a small community that banded together, but because his religious community shunned him, he figured that God was against him.  Jesus came along and called him from his post, and Matthew found a new lease on life.  He and his friends found a new acceptance from God that he never felt from the scribes and Pharisees. 

Because Matthew felt accepted by Jesus, he felt free to let go of his old life.  He's been healed.  Many of us really don't know what God thinks of us.  We have a hard time realizing that God loves us.  We look at our lives and what a mess we've made.  Our Lord understands how messy life can be.  He's seen it first-hand. 

When we look at our messy lives and think, "How can God love me, after all I've done?"  Guess what?  He does love you anyway.  He wants to clean up the messes that we've made, because He knows that the mess we've made is too big for us to completely clean it up.  Just like with Matthew, Jesus knows that we are sick with sin and He wants to heal us.  He'll do anything to heal us, even if it's unpopular with some.  He'll step out and bind up our wounds.   Just let Him.