When we enter the doctor’s office, sometimes we need to be willing to swallow a bit of bitter medicine, but the pill will heal us when we swallow it. The same is true about the Gospel. When we hear the Gospel, we hear our own mistakes and our own sinfulness. The only way the Gospel can heal us is when we are willing to swallow the bitterness and allow the healing of the Church to save us. When it comes to the Gospel of Christ, every bitter pill is accompanied by sweetness because we are all called to His Kingdom, even though we are sinners.
My brothers and sisters. This morning’s gospel is one of those times where I think to myself, there is a little bit of sweetness and a little bit of bitterness in the gospel this morning. And as we know, the old saying goes that sometimes the medicine is bitter. And this morning’s medicine, my brothers and sisters, has a little bit of bitter taste to it. But if we listen to the gospel and accept the truth that the gospel is portraying, even that bitterness can turn to sweetness for our soul. In this morning’s gospel, Christ is at a dinner with Matthew, the tax collector. Now right there off the start, no one likes a tax collector. To this very day, I don’t think people like tax collectors. Not because they do anything necessarily wrong, but because in our own greed, we don’t like anyone that comes after our money. But in the ancient day, the tax collectors were actually crooks and they would steal money from this person and steal money from this person. It would go into their pockets.
Maybe things aren’t so different after all. So Christ is at dinner with Matthew and all these tax collectors around the table. Now you can imagine the scandal of it all, that Jesus is having dinner with all of these crooks, all of these sinful people. And the Pharisees, the ones who were so good at keeping the rules, they went up to the disciples and they said, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” And here is where the sweet bitterness comes. Christ says, “Those who are well, have no need of a physician, but those who are sick,” and he continues for, “I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” You see, my brothers and sisters, the sweetness is that Christ came to call us. He came to invite us into heaven. That’s the sweetness. He already knows that we are sinners.
I remember there was a story of a young family. Their child was having really serious nosebleeds and they went to the doctor for the checkup for these nosebleeds. The doctor spent maybe 30 seconds. He says, “I think maybe you should go to the hospital.”
“Really? Should we have breakfast or…”
“No, maybe you should just go straight to the hospital.”
The family didn’t even realize how sick the child was, but the doctor was able to diagnose the sickness almost immediately. And so the family had to swallow the bitter pill and go to the hospital for the health of their child. You see, my brothers and sisters, sometimes we don’t even recognize our sickness. Sometimes we go to the doctor and the doctor has to inform us. We think we’re feeling just fine. Well, there’s something in your blood work. There’s a number here I’m not so crazy about.
I heard a little something on your test. You see my brothers and sisters, that’s like this morning’s gospel. We came to church feeling just fine and now the church is telling us we are sick. And we, my brothers and sisters must be willing to swallow the bitter pill. We must be willing to first and foremost admit that we are sick, admit that we are sinners, and then the sweetness of the invitation of Christ into heaven makes sense. We cannot live the life of the Pharisees, always passing judgment on other people. The Pharisees were so blind to their own sinfulness, but they were very good at seeing the sin of others. We, my brothers and sisters, I’m sorry to say the truth, we are very good at seeing the sins of other people. We must begin to look at ourselves. We must begin to admit that we need to be healed by God.
We need the sacraments of the church. We need fasting. We need prayer. We need the discipline of taking care of the poor. We need holy confession regularly for our own spiritual health because if we don’t receive the medicine from the church, we remain ill. We remain in our sickness and we will not recover on our own. This is that beautiful joy that Christ gives to us. My brothers and sisters, today is the day that we can change our perspective. Christ has called each and every one of us into his kingdom. He is willing to eat with us. In a few moments when we celebrate the Eucharist, when we come down with the chalice and those of us who are orthodox come and receive Holy Communion, God has allowed us in our sinfulness to eat dinner with him today. Don’t be like the Pharisees. Don’t sit there and point at other people, even if it’s only in your own mind. Because God came to heal us because we’re sick. He didn’t call the righteous but sinners.
The healthy don’t go to the doctor, the sick go to the doctor. And my brothers and sisters, the church is our hospital, filled with expert doctors of the faith, the saints of the church, the holy men and women who lived the struggle that we live. Who each and every one of them swallowed the bitter pill of the medicine and found themselves in the kingdom of heaven. It’s not too late for us. As long as there is breath in our mouth, as long as we breathe the air of life, there is still time for us to swallow the pill and to allow God to heal us. Would that we’d listen to him, would that we allow the church as the loving doctor to heal us? That’s our great gift and that is our great challenge because every pill is bittersweet.
Glory to God for all things.
