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Commentary on the Gospel for Saturday, January 18, 2025
Today’s Gospel text is truly surprising: Jesus chooses to keep company with the so-called “wrong crowd.” Many people come to Him, and Jesus welcomes them all, speaks with all of them, and teaches everyone. But when it comes to choosing someone to join His closest disciples—those who would follow Him most closely and truly be with Him—He picks Levi, the tax collector sitting at his booth. Levi was one of the hated collaborators with Roman power, someone the “good” Jews would never sit with. If they encountered him on the street, they’d cross to the other side just to avoid greeting or brushing against him.
And when Jesus goes to dine with some of those who listened to Him, He chooses to go to Levi’s house, eating with him and his friends—all tax collectors and sinners, people of questionable reputations. All of them were outcasts in the eyes of respectable Jewish society.
The Gospel shows us that if we want to follow Jesus, the most important game we can play in life is the game of inclusion—of not leaving anyone out, no matter how “bad” they might be. The Kingdom is for everyone. The Father’s love is for everyone. There are no exceptions. No sin is so great that it can exclude someone from God’s love.
Unfortunately, many in our world—Christians and non-Christians alike—play the game of exclusion. These are the people who keep lists and erase names from them. Some they exclude because of their race, others for their political views, others for their gender, others for their behavior, and still others simply because they seem to threaten their way of life. The problem is, in the end, they’re left alone. And their loneliness looks nothing like the Kingdom. Playing the game of exclusion distances us from the Kingdom and from God.
Today, as always, if we want to be faithful to Jesus, we must play the game of inclusion—of drawing near to everyone, bringing them in, and building community and family with them. Today, as always, we must work to ensure that no one is left outside the hope and love of God. Because Jesus did not come to exclude but to include and welcome—even sinners, even those we consider “bad.”