Is There a Doctor in the House?

Luke 5:27-32

In today's Gospel, Luke recalls the scene where Levi, the tax collector, responds to Jesus' call. Levi drops everything, leaves his post and follows Jesus. Thinking in terms of the circumstances of our own day, this scenario is hard to imagine.

But taking the entire episode at its face (without really even examining what in the world Levi must have been experiencing in the exchange) we see something that the religious of the time could not understand. Jesus was not seeking out those who were righteous. He was reaching out to those who were perceived the dregs of their society. The guys you love to hate: the tax collectors. (Lenten restraint prevents me from making a bad IRS joke.)

Later in this passage, we are told of the gathering and dinner Levi hosts where Jesus is the guest of honor among a group of other tax collectors-- some of the society most notorious sinners.

What is going on here?

We must remember who Jesus is-- God. We must remember His job-- to proclaim the Truth about our destiny as man. Jesus uses the analogy of the patient-doctor relationship. This is a simple one to understand. Jesus reached out to the sick-- in this case, the spiritually sick.

This story says something beautiful about all of us. Whether we are believers or not, there is something inside each of us that knows that there is something missing in all of us. We may not always sense it. But, I think if we are honest with ourselves, we can point to episodes in our lives where we have felt a void.

The lesson today is that God makes house calls. We just have to recognize our symptoms and be honest enough with ourselves to tell the doctor the truth-- regardless of our fear of treatment.