Matthew was from Galilee. He worked, no doubt, along the traditional trade route between Damascus and Egypt, Damascus and Alexandria.  The tax collectors bid for their position.  They were given soldiers to enforce their taxes and tolls and then they owed a certain amount of money to the local Roman official.  Anything they extorted above and beyond that amount was theirs and so, they were indeed traitors.  They were also, probably considered heretics or blasphemers as well because Jews believed you could pay tribute to no one but God.  To pay tribute, tolls and taxes to Caesar would have been considered against God’s law, an affront to God, blasphemy.  Jesus addressed that later when he asked, “Should we pay taxes to Caesar or not?”  “Give me a coin.  Whose image is this?”  They said, “It’s Caesar’s.”  He said, “Well, render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”  That was his first speech on the separation of church and state.  Thank God we have that.  We don’t want the bishops running the country.  Believe me. Nor do we want the politicians running the church, although sometimes I wonder. (Laughter) Anyway, what was I talking about? 

With that as a background and realizing the Jewish custom of, the Semitic custom really, Jewish and Arab both, to eat with someone is to show friendship and acceptance of that person.  So, here they were, seeing Jesus eating with this traitor, a blasphemer and in effect, in their mind’s eyes, he was accepting Matthew for who he was and what he did.  Of course, that wasn’t the case.  Jesus always loved sinners but always hated sin.  He never excuses sinners either.  We see throughout the scriptures He constantly encounters sinners and loves them but he never excuses them.  He never says, “Its okay.”  Oftentimes, he says, “Go and commit this sin no more.”  As a matter of fact, you could be sure in that dinner with Matthew, the subject came up of Matthew’s lifestyle and what he was doing.  So, what he does do with sinners?  He accepts them where they are.  They don’t have to get all cleaned up before he’ll accept them.  He’ll accept them wherever they are, even in their sin.  Then he teaches them the truth and then he leads them into holiness.  That was his MO throughout his public ministry.  He always acknowledges evil and sin but he always forgives the sinner.  Indeed, that’s why he came to be our savior, to forgive our sins. 

Jesus sees beyond what people do and sees what they can become.  He sees beyond the sin and sees the change that is the potential of every person.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could do the same; if we could see beyond the faults of each other and see the saint that all of us have the ability and the potential to be?  It would be a very different world. 

One man who did that was Chuck Colson, Charles Colson of Watergate fame.  Recently, Watergate has been in the news as we remember its anniversary.  For you "youngins," Watergate was a great scandal that started in 1972.  It was a scandal that involved: lies by the President and other government officials, misuse of CIA and FBI personnel, burglary, cover-ups, etc.  Of course, it caused the resignation of President Nixon, who would certainly have been impeached and convicted.  Charles Colson was a co-conspirator and as a result was tried and found guilty and sentenced to jail.  He spent about a year in a federal prison in Alabama and in that year underwent a conversion experience.  He was a Christian but in prison he became much closer to Christ and gave his life to the Lord and His work.  He wrote a book called Life Sentence.  In it, he said that before he was released, he was in the dayroom speaking with federal prisoners.  One fellow, a huge man covered with tattoos named Archie, asked Colson, “What are you going to do for us when you get out of prison?”  And Colson said, “Well, I’m going to try to represent you and tell your story.”  Well, I can’t tell you what Archie said but if you take the expletives out, what he said was, “I don’t believe you.”  That’s what he meant to say.  Chuck Colson made good on his promise. He started something called Prison Fellowship which is still very alive and well today.  Some of you may have volunteered for that important ministry at sometime. 

Over the years, twenty-five years or so, thirty years now, Prison Fellowship has had over 120,000 volunteers.  Can you imagine?  That’s a lot of volunteers.  They have reached out and had over 25,000 Bible seminars helping prisoners in over 500 different prisons.  What Colson did after he realized God’s mercy is he used himself as a conduit of that mercy and returned the favor by helping those in prison.  The ministry not only helps those in prison, it helps their families with spiritual and financial help as well.  It also helps prisoners when they are released, which oftentimes, is a very difficult transition.

That’s a constant of the Gospel. We are to be conduits of God’s mercy not receptors of it.  There’s a big difference.  If you just receive God’s mercy, it ends with you and that’s not good enough.  We have to be conduits of His mercy.  It should flow through us and reach out to others.  Indeed, it is true that God’s love is unlimited or unconditional or both.  But His mercy, actually, I believe, is somewhat conditional.  In just a moment, I wrote down several proofs of that.  The “Our Father” we say, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  We all know the parable of the forgiveness of the great debt.  You know, the man who had a great debt and the master said, “You must repay or I’ll put you in prison.”  The man pleaded for pity and the master felt sorry for him and he forgave the entire debt.  Then, in turn, the man who was forgiven was owed money, a much lesser amount, by someone else and he had him thrown in prison.  When the master found out about that, he reversed his decision and had this man thrown in prison, where there was gnashing of teeth and he was held there until he paid the last penny.  He didn’t show mercy and the mercy of the master was withdrawn. 

The Scriptures say, “Judge not least ye be judged.  As you are judged so you will be judged.  The measure with which you measure will be measured back to you.”  In the Beatitudes, which I believe we’ll hear next week, “The merciful shall obtain mercy.”  It’s important that we be merciful.  Now most of us won’t have the opportunity to be like Chuck Colson, to do something on such a grand scale.  But we can all be agents of God’s mercy in our homes, at work, and in our communities.  It starts in the home.  We need not to be petty in the home.  We need to be forgiving of one another.  I’m smiling because I have no problems in my home.  I tell you that 100% of the time there is never a domestic dispute in that house.  But you know there’s so much pettiness in families.  Husbands and wives argue about the dumbest things.  By the way, this mercy means that you forget.  "It’s mercy I desire and not sacrifice." Oftentimes, when you forgive each other you demand sacrifice for the rest of his or her life.  You must be forgiving to each other and that works.

You know, I mention this all the time, but it’s so true.  In my former parish assignment, one out of every 25 confessions had something to do with work, about the boss or fellow employees.  In Los Alamos, half of the confessions, no seriously, half the confessions are about work.  It’s like this is the work city of America.  Work, work, work, work, work, work, work.  And I know it’s been difficult the last two or three years.  As a matter of fact, when I got here, all the trouble started at LANL.  It’s true. Three years ago, right?  I know it’s a difficult place to work but that doesn’t mean you have to be difficult.  If every employee in the Lab was merciful and kind and stood their ground in matters of principal but did so with mercy and gentleness and compassion, wouldn’t it be a great place to work?  Now, you can’t change the boss but you can change yourself.  And everyone has not only that power but that responsibility as a Christian to do so.

Finally we need to be merciful and kind and gentle in our community.  When I arrived two years ago, I’d read The Monitor and I couldn’t believe the vehemence of some of the letters to the editor.  No matter how petty the issue, oftentimes, the letter would be a personal attack against some individual.  You know what I’m talking about?  The height of it all was this upset citizen who was complaining because a cat murdered a bird.  “Some irresponsible citizen let her cat out and that cat murdered a bird.”  I’m not making this up.  She was all upset or he was all upset about that nonsense. I have to say, it seems to me, that recently though, there’s a different tone in the local paper.  I don’t know if the editor is being more selective or maybe something good is happening here in Los Alamos.  I really don’t know.

Again, we can stand our ground, speak our principles, but we can do so in a kind, and gentle compassionate and merciful way.  That’s required of us.  Let me conclude by praying this prayer of St. Francis that you all know so well.  I think it’s appropriate that he’s our patron saint in the Archdiocese.  Indeed the Archdiocese is named after him.  I would ask you to bow your heads if you would.  We’ve heard this prayer a million times but may it truly settle in our hearts this beautiful morning and may we live this prayer with each other, at work, and in our community.