As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’[a] For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Why does The Saviour want us to have mercy?!
Saint John Chrysostom Homilies at Matthew, homily LXIV, V, in Church Fathers and Writers (1994), vol. 23, p. 744
`If we are mindful regarding ourselves we can find salvation finding the cure of mercy to heal our wounds. Oil doesn`t heal that much the body as mercy heals the soul; mercy makes the soul invincible and the devil can`t knock him down; no matter from where he would grab him he would lose him since the oil doesn`t allow the devil to grab us from our back. Let us anoint ourselves with this oil. It gives health, light, joy.
But a certain person, you say, has so much golden money and he doesn`t give any alms.`
`What do you care? You`ll be even more admired if in your poverty you will be more geberous than him. This thing made saint Paul to admire the Macedonians, not that they gave alms, but that they were poor and they gave.
(II Corinthians 9, 2).”
Saint John Chrysostom, Homilies at Matthew, homily LXVI, IV, in Church Fathers and Writers (1994), vol. 23, p. 767
When they (the poor) receive alms from your hands they pray to God and make God merciful with you ; when they make God merciful…these reject the scheming of the demons. They don`t let the evil one to fight against you or assault you without cease, they break his power. Seeing this that these soldies fight for you every day against devil by their prayers to God, pay this nice tax, the food of the poor. Our gentle emperor didn`t appoint any people to gather this tax for the poor, He wants you to give with goodwill. If you give little by little He receives it, if you are poor and can`t pay for a long time, He doesn`t force who doesn`t have. Do not despise therefore His long lasting patience and let us gather not anger but salvation, not death, but life, not torment and punishment, but honor and wreaths. It is not necessary to pay to see this tax going from earth to heaven. It is not necessary to exchange money. If you give to the poor this tax The Lord in person take it to heaven. The Lord takes care to make a profitable deal.
Source: http://ziarullumina.ro
