A FRIEND OF TAX COLLECTORS AND SINNERS

1 Cor 12,31-13,13; Ps 32; Lk 7,31-35
19 SEPTEMBER
Jesus is accused by scribes and Pharisees, of being a friend of tax collectors and sinners. The accusation allows them to justify not listening to his word and refusal to his person. Their highest sanctity and perfect science of the things of God might never welcome a sinner. These forget that holiness is not an object that is bought at the market. It is the transformation of the heart. From a selfish heart he makes it a heart that loves the man of true love of salvation. A holiness that hates the sinner is certainly the “holiness of Satan”, certainly not the “holiness of God”. The holiness of God loves sin so much as to make his Eternal Son sin in our favour, that is, he made of his the body a sacrifice and holocaust for the forgiveness of the sin of the world.

For the love of Christ impels us, once we have come to the conviction that one died for all; therefore, all have died. He indeed died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. Consequently, from now on we regard no one according to the flesh; even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer. So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come. And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him (2Cor 5,14-21).

Saint John reveals the same truth. God made Christ Jesus, his Only Son, a victim of expiation for our sins. Love for sinners is not just friendship, communion and being together for their salvation. It is offer to the Father of his blood so that the sinner may be forgiven and the true relationship between God and man is recomposed.

My children, I am writing this to you so that you may not commit sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one. He is expiation for our sins, and not for our sins only but for those of the whole world (1Jn 2,1-2). Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us. This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us, that he has given us of his Spirit. Moreover, we have seen and testify that the Father sent his Son as saviour of the world. Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God. We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him (1Jn 4,7-16).

If Christ let himself be made sin in our favour or a victim of expiation for the sins of the world, might there be only one of his disciples that can hate a single sinner? Whoever hates sinners is not a disciple of Jesus. Jesus is a sacrifice so that they are forgiven. He loves Christ Jesus who lets himself be made a victim of expiation by the Father.

“Then to what shall I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children who sit in the marketplace and call to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance. We sang a dirge, but you did not weep.’ For John the Baptist came neither eating food nor drinking wine, and you said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking and you said, ‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is vindicated by all her children.”

Mother of mercy, Angels and Saints make us love sinners with the love of Jesus.