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Philip Yancey’s What’s So Amazing About Grace? really speaks to our reading in the Gospel today. Yancey discusses how Jesus didn’t spend much time with those who were legalistic or judged others. Instead, Jesus hung out with tax collectors, like Matthew, and other sinners. As Jesus says in today’s Gospel, He did so because they are the ones who needed His help.
The Truth, as Yancey also states in What’s So Amazing About Grace?, is that we all are really broken. We all have sinned. We all need the grace and love that Christ Jesus so freely offers to those He meets. That’s whether we get lumped in with the leaders of the Pharisees or with the other sinners. We all need Jesus. The difference is that the tax collectors and sinners are willing to admit it.
Yancey suggests Jesus hung out with the tax collectors and sinners because they were easier to get along with. They didn’t have anything to prove. I think another way we could put this is that the tax collectors and sinners were more humble, and they were more humble because they had to be. After all, they had no illusions about their sinfulness.
In this way, we should follow the example of the tax collectors and sinners too. If we can see our own sin, we will be humble. If we are humble, then we can more readily show love to one another. If we can love one another, then we are fulfilling our purpose in sharing the love Christ Jesus has for us to all those in the world.