Thank God for sending Jesus to associate with sinners.

Homily of Deacon Mike Harris from Mass on January 13, 2024 at Our Lady of the Gulf Catholic Church in Bay St. Louis, MS

Referenced Readings:
1 Sm 9:1-4, 17-19; 10:1
Mk 2:13-17

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First reading from Samuel Saul is wandering all around central Israel his dad Kish has has lost his donkeys and he’s out looking for him he sends Saul with one of his servants to look for the donkeys and uh he goes far and wide looking for these donkeys

He goes east to the hills of Ephraim and then North to shalisha and then South down to the land of Benjamin and I I looked at all that said golly what is this you know and so I got my map out and I and I traced it out it’s this huge

Equilateral triangle like 40 miles on the side like foot of the Bay Bridge Ocean Springs is like 40 miles and so calculate the area that is like 700 square miles looking for these donkeys and uh it’s like and uh so he he’s made the route hadn’t found the donkeys he’s

Been gone a long time so long that actually somebody else had gotten the donkeys brought brought him back to Kish and uh his dad’s now not worried about the donkeys he’s worried about Saul where the heck is Saul after all this and uh it had to be a little

Disappointing for Saul because he’s you know wandering looking searching and not finding and then but God’s leading him exactly where he wants him he leads him to the the prophet Samuel who anoints him and God told Samuel to anoint Saul to be the uh leader of his people you

Know to govern uh Israel and to protect them from their enemies the countes surrounding them or the peoples surrounding them like the Philistines which you heard about earlier in this week and the battle the battle that the Israelites had had with the Philistines and lost Terri terribly

And so sometimes we wander aimlessly and we don’t know really what we’re after but we’re we’re looking for happiness or something like that and God’s always with us and he’s always directing us so that he brings us to himself just like he brought uh Saul to uh Samuel now in Our

Gospel um Jesus calls Levi the tax collector we know him as St Matthew the Evangelist and um the Apostle of Jesus he calls him to follow him and he gets up and he just leaves it and he goes and follows Jesus and that evening they go to Matthew’s house and uh they’re having

Dinner and all his buddies are coming by all these tax collectors and um there’s grumbling there’s the the scribes and the Pharisees just do not like what they’re seeing and that gospel passage gives us two Notions of religion and one is the Pharisees and the other is Jesus’s notion and in the Pharisees

Notion of religion there’s a separation we have to have those that judge themselves righteous and just and separate them from the unrighteous and so and Sinners and so the UN the Sinners that that had judged certainly with the Pharisees uh the tax collectors the prostitutes and uh even

People who were sick like the people with Leprosy they figured that they were suffering because of a sin that they had committed and that’s why they had leprosy and uh so that that notion of the Pharisees is of religion is you separate the two and then Jesus who is a teacher of

Truth and teach teaches us the ways of Holiness he Associates with Sinners he gets close to them he touches them like he touched the leper earlier in the week the story about Jesus curing the leper you know and uh he eats with them like today with eating with the tax

Collectors and stuff and when he’s questioned about and people say why do you do that you know these are sinners that you’re hanging around with what why are you doing that he says those who are well do not need a physician but the sick do I did not come

To call the righteous but sinners and that’s really good news for us because if we’re honest and humble with ourselves realize that we are all sinners and Jesus came to save us and if we consider ourselves righteous and perfect and don’t need Christ we we

Block Christ off from us so today as we go through our our day we should thank God for sending Jesus and Jesus for choosing to associate with sinners like us so that we can be saved he can bring us to Eternal happiness with him one day