Those who are well do not need a physician

Gn 23,1-4.19; 24,1-8.62-67; Ps 105; Mt 9,9-13
5 JULY

Regardless of Jesus’ actions, the Pharisees, lovers of God’s holiness, should have known that, from the first sin in the Garden of Eden, it is God who always went in search of the sinner to invite him to conversion and return to his obedience. All the prophets are a perennial invitation, without interruption, addressed to the people of the covenant. Even the pagan nations are invited to conversion. An example in Holy Scriptures is Nineveh. The Lord sends Jonah to the city. He says only a very few words. A fast is called. All are converted. The city is spared. It is not destroyed. Our God is the God who awaits in view of repentance. Saint Peter reveals that God delays his coming because he wants everyone to be converted. He does not want anyone to be lost and for that is why he delays the end of the world.

The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: “Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and announce to it the message that I will tell you.” So Jonah made ready and went to Nineveh, according to the Lord’s bidding. Now Nineveh was an enormously large city; it took three days to go through it. Jonah began his journey through the city, and had gone but a single day’s walk announcing, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed,” when the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in the ashes. Then he had this proclaimed throughout Nineveh, by decree of the king and his nobles: “Neither man nor beast, neither cattle nor sheep, shall taste anything; they shall not eat, nor shall they drink water. Man and beast shall be covered with sackcloth and call loudly to God; every man shall turn from his evil way and from the violence he has in hand. Who knows, God may relent and forgive, and withhold his blazing wrath, so that we shall not perish.” When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out (Jon 3,1-10).

But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day. The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard “delay,” but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a mighty roar and the elements will be dissolved by fire, and the earth and everything done on it will be found out. Since everything is to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought (you) to be, conducting yourselves in holiness and devotion, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved in flames and the elements melted by fire. But according to his promise we await new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you await these things, be eager to be found without spot or blemish before him, at peace. And consider the patience of our Lord as salvation, as our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, also wrote to you, speaking of these things as he does in all his letters. In them there are some things hard to understand that the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, just as they do the other scriptures (2Pt 3,8-16).

Knowing that any argumentation of a scriptural nature, would not have been understood, in the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, Jesus uses the image of the physician. As the doctor treats the sick and not the healthy, so he must cure sinners and not the righteous.

As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples. The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” He heard this and said, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

The Pharisees do not know mercy because they do not know God. Who knows God, knows his true mercy. What is God’s mercy? Wanting and doing everything so that no sinner is lost. For salvation, the Father has given his Son.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints make us missionaries of the great mercy of our God.