Those Who Are Sick!

Saturday, March 8, 2025

Is 58:1-9; Mt 9:14-15

Today’s Gospel highlights the call of Matthew by Jesus as an antidote to the exclusionary practices replete in his time. 

The final verse of the Gospel is very popular because of its revolutionary tone. Jesus declares that ‘Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.’ In what comes across to us often as a spiritual revolution, we discover the fullness of God’s love made manifest in the liberative praxis of Jesus.

Jesus showed no hesitation to respond to the social maladies that beset his context. He let his proactive approach become the change he wanted to see in the society.

If so, how did Jesus show himself as ‘the physician of the sick’ in his time?

There are three ways in which we find Jesus responding to social illnesses.

1.Jesus included the marginalized as an integral part of his mission. The call of Levi becomes an extraordinary example of Jesus’ inclusive agenda. When people were under the impression that Jesus’ mission was exclusively to the Israelites, he turned his attention toward the marginalized sections, much to the chagrin of the Jewish religious leaders of his time. Thus, he not only proclaimed that sick people needed a physician but also became one. Thus, Jesus’ inclusive mission was a decisive countercultural measure that his Kingdom proclamation integrated. 

2. Jesus dined with the tax collectors and sinners. Those of us who tend to slight his commensality should take a look at our Indian society which still forbids interdining while maintaining a food hierarchy. No one can deny that Indian hospitality comes tinged with caste. If caste people refuse to interdine with lower castes, there are also untouchable foods for the high castes just as there are people who are known as former untouchables. Given this reality, the commensality that Jesus championed in his time was not mere daredevilry but a radical form of love. 

3. Jesus defended the marginalized against the hostile forces. The Jewish religious leaders were shocked by Jesus’ inclusive mission that decimated the established cultural boundaries. All four Gospels show how Jesus is found fault with by the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes for his liberative mission. It is often in favour of the marginalized that Jesus challenged their notion of holiness and exposed their hypocrisy. It is through his defence that Jesus the ‘physician’ justified his initiatives on behalf of the ‘sick.’ What Jesus spearheaded became the norm for his disciples to carry forward the agenda of inclusive mission and preferential option. 

Let us pray that, by following Jesus’ example, our mission may become the antidote to the ills of our society. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar