Saturday after Ash Wednesday

Lectionary: 222

hoarfrost in a hay field

Jesus said to them in reply,
“Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.
I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”

Our Christian faith is steeped in riddles, conundrums, enigmas and mystery. How is that he has come not to call the righteous but sinners? Who does he expect to gather into churches, assembly halls, and houses of prayer? 

I read of a Texas sheriff who habitually rode around town with jailbirds and ex-cons. The hard-working, gun-toting, tax-paying, church-going citizens complained about his company; but he said, "How else should I find out whose doing what?" They voted him out of office anyway. They needed a more respectable, less effective sheriff to represent their ethos. 

The doctrine of election is always enigmatic. Why does God choose these particular people? Deuteronomy explores the question: 

For you are a people holy to the LORD, your God; the LORD, your God, has chosen you from all the peoples on the face of the earth to be a people specially his own. 

It was not because you are more numerous than all the peoples that the LORD set his heart on you and chose you; for you are really the smallest of all peoples. 

It was because the LORD loved you and because of his fidelity to the oath he had sworn to your ancestors, that the LORD brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 7:7-8)

As does Saint Paul: 

Consider your own calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 

Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God. (I Corinthians 1: 26-29) 

As I read this it seems to me, I should prefer the company of the foolish, the weak, the lowly and despised if I want to associate with Jesus. The Anglican priest/poet George Herbert said it as well as anyone could:

Redemption HAVING been tenant long to a rich Lord,
Not thriving, I resolved to be bold,
And make a suit unto him, to afford
A new small-rented lease, and cancell th' old.
In heaven at his manour I him sought:
They told me there, that he was lately gone
About some land, which he had dearly bought
Long since on earth, to take possession.
I straight return'd, and knowing his great birth,
Sought him accordingly in great resorts;
In cities, theatres, gardens, parks, and courts:
At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth
Of theeves and murderers: there I him espied,
Who straight, Your suit is granted, said, & died.