Mercy at the Table: The Call of Matthew
July 4, 2025 - Friday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 9:9-13
Only five individual calls to apostleship are recorded in Matthew’s Gospel: Peter, Andrew, James, John (Matt 4:18–22), and now Matthew. His call follows immediately after Jesus heals a paralytic—declaring that the Son of Man has “authority on earth to forgive sins” (Matt 9:6). Now, Jesus demonstrates that same authority not only by healing bodies but by restoring a soul. The one sitting at the tax booth—a collaborator, a traitor in the eyes of his people—is called by name and made a disciple.
There is no limit to Christ’s mercy. If a tax collector can become an apostle and evangelist, then no one is beyond redemption. The same Lord who said, “Rise, pick up your mat,” now says, “Follow me”—and both the paralytic and the tax collector rise.
Matthew’s “yes” sets off a chain reaction. Other tax collectors and sinners come to share a meal with Jesus and His disciples. It’s a striking image of the Church: a community founded not on the merit of the righteous but on the mercy of God. The Eucharistic table is still filled with former outcasts—those who were once far off, now brought near.
But not everyone rejoices. The Pharisees, standing outside, murmur not to Jesus, but to His disciples: “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (Matt 9:11). In John’s Gospel, they even call Jesus a sinner (John 9:24). Yet if only they could have heard Paul—the former Pharisee—confess, “For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21).
Jesus responds not with anger, but with a proverb: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” (Matt 9:12). He is the Divine Physician, and all the sick come to Him. But the "healthy"—those confident in their own righteousness—object. They fail to see that Jesus’ words “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matt 9:13) include them, too.
Paul himself once thought he was righteous (Phil 3:5–6), but when Christ found him, he realized the truth: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost” (1 Tim 1:15).
Jesus closes with a command: “Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, and not sacrifice” (Matt 9:13). He quotes the prophet Hosea (6:6): “For I desire steadfast love (hesed), not sacrifice; the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” That word hesed—rich in meaning—describes a love that gives, a mercy stronger than betrayal, a grace that outlasts sin. St. John Paul II called it “a love more powerful than sin, a grace stronger than evil” (Dives in Misericordia).
To understand Jesus’ mission, we must understand this: He dines with tax collectors and sinners not to approve of sin, but because He loves sinners. That love is the beating heart of the Gospel.