+ One single word today expresses beautifully the readings today: Potential!
Paul writes to the Ephesians —
“I … urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received.”
And Paul notes that there are many different gifts, and grace in abundance, plenty of humility, gentleness, and patience. And this potential depends upon the rich gift of the unity of the Spirit, promising —
“One body and one Spirit … one Lord, one faith, one baptism. One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
Who they were called to be, and what and how they would become all that and more, was seemingly endless potential!
+ And the call of Jesus to Matthew was no different; Matthew, a tax collector, was the last and least one could expect to be called by Jesus to be an apostle — one of the Twelve. And yet he was called! Jesus saw potential.
Mathew immediately got up and followed. Jesus saw potential in sinners and in lives that for many of the Jews made people untouchable and to be avoided; one certainly would not want to sit and eat with them at table. But Jesus did! Jesus saw people to be redeemable and worthy of being called as he asserted —
“Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.”
Then he further quoted Hosea 6:6, speaking for God —
“I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”
+ Of course, there is great potential — one could say endless potential — for us today in this word of God.
Jesus, clearly, is our physician, our health insurance, our vitamin pack, our way and truth and life, our companion, our home, our eternal hope, our source of unity and peace.
