Once again, I had a college sophomore in my office looking for help with his career. He talked about dropping out of college after failing to complete last semester taking five incompletes. But he had another agenda in mind, which I did not hear about until weeks later.He admitted that he had using marijuana daily for several years. Then he got involved with cocaine which he started using every other week. He was not only afraid of the law, but afraid that he get tossed out of school if he didn’t flunk out first.
This young man asked: “Supposing there is a God, would he accept a man like me?” I did not hesitate to answer him for I preparing a Lenten Penance Service homily on Matthew’s gospel, last verse. “For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners,” (Matt 9:13).
I shared this verse with him, but his mind was obsessed with all the sins he had committed, and so I countered with Matthew’s words again: “I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”
No less than seventeen times did this student try to explain to me why he was unworthy to receive forgiveness. Seventeen times, I simple repeated the words, “I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” I don’t know if I wore him down, but finally he bowed his head, cried a little and asked me, Would you hear my confession? I want to come home.
This young person is back in school trying to complete his degree and he got what he really did want: forgiveness, peace and a return to his true home. And there he was and all students of the Lord in my mind’s eye: at the table with Matthew, college students, professors, parents, colleagues, CEO’s, pilots, crewmembers, that greedy tax collectors, sinners---AND Jesus.
Sometimes I see humanity as a sea of people starving for affection, tenderness, care, love, acceptance, forgiveness…everyone seems to cry, “Please, love me.”
The story of Matthew says that there stands Jesus ready to do so. As Mother Teresa said of the lepers she treated, “We have drugs for people with diseases like leprosy, but these drugs do not treat the main problem, the disease of being unwanted.” And there stands Jesus who does want us, disease and all.
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine friends who have felt the pain of rejection from their family and friends but NEVER from your arms and voice. Let us humbly bring our weaknesses before your altar and bathe in your Spirit of healing and forgiveness. Peace to all my Sonshine Friends.
