At some point, everyone feels unworthy of approaching God. Jesus is the great doctor who heals us by grace so that we are all made worthy by God of approaching and experiencing his love.
Matthew, as we all know, was a tax-collector. But, tax-collectors were the worst of the worst.
Because they collected taxes for Rome—the occupying force—the Judeans felt that the tax collectors had sold out their own people.
And, on top of that, many tax-collectors took advantage of the situation and taxed their own people an exorbitant rate to make themselves rich.
Despite Matthew’s unworthiness, Jesus, the God-Man, approaches him anyway.
It’s through Jesus’s loving care that Matthew is made worthy and has a change of heart.
It’s the same for us.
We are never worthy of communing at the Divine Liturgy. But, it’s because of Jesus’s love that we made worthy of communing and being healed.
For this gift from God, we give thanks!
The Reading
And passing on from there Jesus saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax-collection house, and says to him, “Follow me.” And rising he followed him. And it happened that, as he was reclining at table in the house, look: Many tax-collectors and sinners came and reclined at table with Jesus and his disciples. And, seeing this, the Pharisees said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?” But he heard them and said, “The hale do not have need of a physician, but rather those who are ill. Go then and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice’; for I came to call not the upright, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:9-13)