September 21, 2026 – Feast of Saint Matthew
Matthew 9, 9-13
Homily
In his response to the Pharisees, who were scandalised by the fact that he was eating with tax collectors and sinners, Jesus explicitly and literally quotes a word that the prophet Hosea had put into God's mouth: " It is love that I want, not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings". (Hosea 6:6).
Reducing the Covenant with God to a moralistic bilateral contract had been one of the strongest temptations of the people of Israel. The relationship with God was easily reduced to a series of ritual gestures by which God's good grace was purchased, and religion had little to do with the practice of justice and even less with love and mercy. Despite the fact that the prophets, especially Hosea and Amos, had spoken out against this attitude, it was exactly that of the Pharisees who watched Jesus eat with Matthew and the other publicans.
The Christian community has always been subject to the same temptation. Perhaps it is a particular temptation for those who want to be and call themselves "religious". We easily assume that once we have been faithful to all the ceremonies and observances prescribed to us by Church law or our own Rules, we have acquired a certain right to salvation. Once again Jesus reminds us that all these practices have no other purpose than to express our love of God - a love that cannot exist unless it is embodied in love of neighbour; and that if this love does not exist, all our observances and rites are vain and empty. The Lord does not want them.
The discovery of God's gratuitous love is always the call to conversion. The description of Matthew's call and conversion in the brief account we have just read is grandiose in its simplicity. Matthew is sitting down. He is, in fact, a well-established man. He has a job that brings him wealth, material well-being and power, even if the Pharisees regard him as a sinner. Jesus didn't give him a long speech or a long demonstration. He simply said to him, in passing: " Follow me ". And the extraordinary thing is that this man, " seated " and comfortable, " got up " and followed him, certainly without knowing where he was going or where it would lead.
A little later, " as Jesus sat at table at home ", many tax collectors and sinners came to sit at table with him and his disciples. In Matthew's Gospel (e.g. 9:28; 13:1. 36; 17:25) this expression " at home " generally means the house of Jesus and his disciples (in a parallel account in Luke, where the publican is called Levi, it is Levi who gives a feast; but it is not certain that Levi and Matthew are the same person). What's more, it is not said, or even implied, that all these publicans and sinners were converted, as Matthew was, and became disciples of Jesus. No; they are simply there, and Jesus has no problem sharing a meal with them. In this way, Jesus shows that he is breaking down all the barriers that people have set up between themselves. And to make it clear that all these barriers are man-made, not God-made, he sends the Pharisees back to school: " Go and learn what this saying (from Hosea) means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice '".
We always need to hear this lesson from Jesus again, both individually and collectively. There is always the temptation to build a security cordon around ourselves to separate us from all those whom we consider inferior or "less good", because of their ideas, their religion, their culture or simply their profession.
Let's be careful not to dissociate ourselves from those whom Jesus came to call.