Homily for Saturday, 21 February 2015‒ Saturday after Ash Wednesday

Readings of the day: Isaiah 58:9b-14; Psalm 86:1-2, 3-4, 5-6; Luke 5:27-32

Who does God call to follow in God’s ways, and how are we to do as God invites us?

Jesus answers the “who” question through his calling of Levi in today’s Gospel reading from Luke. Jesus says at the end of the meal scene: “I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.” And Isaiah answers the “how” question in our first reading. How are we, all redeemed sinners who have been called by God, to respond to this call?

Isaiah gives us some practical ways in which we can respond to God’s invitation to us. “Remove from your midst oppression, false accusation, and malicious speech,” Isaiah says. “If [we] bestow [our] bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted,” then we will be living our calling from God; our divine vocation as baptized Christians.

This is not a vocation we somehow deserve. After all, let us return to Jesus’ call to Levi, a tax collector. We are Levi; we are all sinners, but we are all called to something; called to radical holiness by God. Like Levi, God calls us, “Follow me.” I recall especially Pope Francis’ words in the interview with America magazine a few months after his election as pope. The interviewer, the Jesuit Antonio Spadaro, asked his first question: “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?” Our pope responded, “I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.” And later in the same interview, Pope Francis repeated, “I am a sinner, but I trust in the infinite mercy and patience of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I accept in a spirit of penance.” What a great Lenten message for us! Our pope; I; all of us are Levi. We are all redeemed and invited sinners. Do we “accept” God’s invitation in a true “spirit of penance”? How do we accept God’s invitation?

“Remove from your midst oppression,” Isaiah says. Still today, many are oppressed, even right here in our own country; our own communities. God, through Isaiah’s prophetic words, invites us to stand up for the dignity of human life from conception to natural death; to stand especially in favor of our society’s most vulnerable members. God invites us to raise the poor out of poverty; to stand for the rights of workers to a living wage; to stand against ideological divisions.

“Remove… false accusation and malicious speech.” This includes gossip and passive-aggression. Pope Francis continues to denounce gossip and the damage it causes to human relationships.

“Bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted.” Charity is nothing if it “costs nothing and does not hurt”; if it does not take us beyond ourselves; beyond our comfort zones, Pope Francis again said just days ago on Ash Wednesday. St. Basil also reminds us of how radical Christian charity is: “The [excess] bread you keep belongs to the hungry; the cloak you store in your closet belongs to the naked… The [extra] shoes” you store “belong to those who are barefooted; the money you keep hidden belongs to the needy.”

We are sinners, and yet we are redeemed. We are Christians called to radical charity; holiness. We are Levi. Jesus calls to us, “Follow me.”