13 February 2027 · Latin Rite
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“Jesus answered, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.”” Luke 5:31–32
Isaiah continues yesterday's teaching on true fasting with a cascade of promises. “If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.” Notice the small sins named: the pointing finger, the evil word. Lent is a time to give them up. And the promises are beautiful: “you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail”; you shall rebuild ancient ruins and be called “the repairer of the breach”. The reading ends with the sabbath: if you call it “a delight” and honour it, “then you shall take delight in the LORD.” Mercy to the neighbour and worship of God belong together.
In the Gospel Jesus sees Levi, a tax collector, sitting at his booth: a man despised as a collaborator and cheat. Jesus says only two words: “Follow me.” And Levi “got up, left everything, and followed him.” Then he throws a great banquet for Jesus, with a crowd of tax collectors and others. The Pharisees grumble: “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answers: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Lent is not for the perfect; it is for the sick who know they need the Doctor. The first step is Levi's: to get up from the booth where we have been sitting too long, and to follow.
Theme: “I have come to call… sinners to repentance.”
Mercy that makes us a garden, and the Physician who calls the sick.
“If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,” Isaiah 58:9
“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.” Matthew 7:1
Apply: Replace every criticism today with a prayer for that person.
“The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.” Isaiah 58:11
“The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”” John 4:14
Apply: Do one act of mercy that repairs a broken relationship.
“I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak,” Ezekiel 34:15–16
“Jesus answered, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.”” Luke 5:31–32
Apply: Go to confession before the Second Sunday of Lent.
Mercy turns a dry life into a watered garden.
Jesus calls sinners; Lent is for the sick who need him.
Take-home resolution: Give up gossip and criticism for the whole of Lent.
Dear friends, Isaiah promises: if you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry, then your light shall rise in the darkness (Isaiah 58:9–10).
The Lord will guide you continually, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail (Isaiah 58:11). Small sins like gossip and blame dry us up; mercy makes us a garden.
Jesus sees Levi, a tax collector, and says: follow me. And he got up, left everything, and followed him (Luke 5:27–28). When the Pharisees complain, Jesus says: those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance (Luke 5:31–32).
Lent is not for perfect people. It is for the sick who know they need the Doctor. Let us get up from wherever we are sitting, and follow Jesus, beginning with a good confession. Amen.
Children, Jesus called Levi, even though people did not like him, and Levi followed Jesus. Jesus is like a doctor for our hearts. When we do wrong, we can always go back to him.
Lord Jesus, Physician of souls, you called Levi from his tax booth and ate with sinners. Call us too, and give us the courage to get up and follow you. Take away from us the pointing finger and the evil word, and make us like a watered garden, a spring whose waters never fail. Amen.
Today's first reading goes on from where Friday's stopped: the promise to those who feed the hungry. Then Jesus sits down at a banquet with the people nobody wanted. Isaiah says that the one who gives bread will become a watered garden and a repairer of what was broken. Luke shows us a tax collector whose house becomes such a garden. Psalm 86 is the prayer of one who knows that he is “poor and needy”, and this is the one kind of person Jesus says he has come to call.
Setting.
The chapter that began with fasting moves on to two practical things: how we treat one another (vv. 9b–12), and how we keep God's day (vv. 13–14). For people back from exile, the ruins were not a figure of speech. Jerusalem was still broken (see Nehemiah 1–2), and the keeping of the Sabbath was a chief mark of faithfulness.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.” (58:10)
The Hebrew says, literally, “if you pour out your soul to the hungry”. It speaks of more than handing over food: one gives oneself.
“and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.” (58:11)
People who live in a land with little rain know what this means. The giver does not run dry.
“if you call the sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable;” (58:13)
Note the order of the chapter: justice first, then worship. They belong together; the chapter refuses to choose between them.
“then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth;” (58:14)
The language of the Song of Moses, where God “set him atop the heights of the land” (Deuteronomy 32:13). What was promised to Israel long before is offered again to a people who thought it was lost.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that Sunday fulfils the spiritual truth of the Jewish Sabbath (CCC 2175), and that on Sundays the faithful should refrain from work that hinders the joy proper to the Lord's Day and the relaxation of mind and body (CCC 2185). It goes on to say that Sunday is a time for the sick, the elderly and the poor (CCC 2186). So Isaiah's joining of the Sabbath to care for the hungry is still the Church's practice. St John Paul II's letter Dies Domini (1998) is a rich reflection on the joy of Sunday.
Setting.
Levi works at a tax booth. Mark also calls him Levi (Mark 2:14), and Matthew's Gospel tells the same story of a man named Matthew (Matthew 9:9). In Galilee such men collected tolls for the ruler, Herod Antipas. They were widely disliked, for they were seen as working with the powerful and often as taking more than was due. The Pharisees' complaint comes from a real concern for holiness: to share a table was to share life. But the disagreement is about how holiness spreads. They fear that contact with sinners will harm holiness; Jesus shows that holiness can heal.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“And he got up, left everything, and followed him.” (5:28)
A man's whole conversion in a single line. There is no speech. The Greek verb for “got up” (anastas) is also a word used for resurrection.
“Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house;” (5:29)
His first act as a disciple is to throw a party and invite his friends. They may be the only friends he has, and he wants them to meet Jesus. In Luke's Gospel Jesus is often at table.
““Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”” (5:30)
They ask the disciples, not Jesus. The word “their” (“their scribes”) shows that it is a particular group within the Pharisees' circle. Jesus also ate with Pharisees (Luke 7:36; 11:37; 14:1).
““Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick;” (5:31)
He takes a common saying and makes it about himself. No one blames a doctor for visiting the sick. Nor is the point that some people are actually well: the question is who knows that he is sick.
“I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.”” (5:32)
The word “call” is what happened to Levi at his booth, and it is also the word for an invitation to a meal.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that Jesus invites sinners to the table of the Kingdom (CCC 545), and that by receiving sinners at his table he shows in a striking way both God's forgiveness and the return to the heart of the People of God (CCC 1443). It also calls Christ the physician of our souls and bodies (CCC 1421), and says that in the confessional he addresses every sinner personally as the physician tending each of the sick who need him (CCC 1484). St Bede, preaching on Matthew's call, says that Jesus saw him by having mercy and by choosing him (in substance). Pope Francis took the Latin words, miserando atque eligendo, as his motto.
Does this mean that Jesus does not care about sin?
No. Luke says “to repentance”, and Levi left his booth. Jesus does not call the sick “healthy”. But he goes to them, and he does not wait for them to clean themselves up first. The Church asks us to do the same: to hate the sin and go and sit beside the sinner.