DGeMs- Daily Gospel eMessage
Dear Friend in the Lord,
Jesus and Sinners: In today’s Gospel, Jesus and His disciples were dining at the house of the tax collector. The Pharisees questioned the reason for Jesus to eat with sinners. We are hypocritical if we consider ourselves too righteous to associate with other sinners. Jesus does not condemn, but came to save all sinners; including us.
Fr Philip Heng, S.J.
Mark 2:13-17
Jesus went out to the shore of the lake; and all the people came to him, and he taught them. As he was walking along he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.
When Jesus was at dinner in his house, a number of tax collectors and sinners were also sitting at table with Jesus and his disciples; for there were many of them among his followers. When the scribes of the Pharisee party saw him eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?’
When Jesus heard this he said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. I came to call not the upright, but sinners.’