Daily Mass Gospel Reflection- Being With Jesus

Word on Fire Ministry ^ | 1.14.23 | Bishop Robert Barron

[MurphsLaw]

Mark 2:13-17 Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus calls Matthew to become his disciple.

Jesus gazed at this man and said simply, “Follow me.” Did Jesus invite Matthew because the tax collector merited it? Was Jesus responding to some hidden longing in the sinner’s heart? Certainly not. Grace, by definition, comes unbidden and without explanation.

In Caravaggio’s magnificent painting of this scene, Matthew responds to Jesus’ summons by pointing incredulously to himself and wearing a quizzical expression, as if to say, “Me? You want me?” The hand of Christ in Caravaggio’s picture is adapted from the hand of God the Father in Michelangelo’s depiction of the creation of man on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Just as creation is ex nihilo, so conversion is a new creation.

Matthew immediately got up and followed the Lord. But where did he follow him? To a banquet! “While he was at table in his house . . .” is the first thing we read after the declaration that Matthew followed him. Before he calls Matthew to do anything, Jesus invites him to recline in easy fellowship around a festive table. As Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis comments, “The deepest meaning of Christian discipleship is not to work for Jesus but to be with Jesus.”

[MurphsLaw]

+++Jesus went out along the sea.
All the crowd came to him
and he taught them.
As he passed by, he saw Levi,
son of Alphaeus,
sitting at the customs post.
Jesus said to him, “Follow me.”
And he got up and followed Jesus.
While he was at table in his house,
many tax collectors and sinners
sat with Jesus
and his disciples;
for there were many who followed him.
Some scribes who were Pharisees
saw that Jesus was eating with sinners
and tax collectors and said to
his disciples,
“Why does he eat with tax
collectors and sinners?”
Jesus heard this and said to them,
“Those who are well do not need
a physician, but the sick do.
I did not come to call the righteous
but sinners.”+++