A: 26th Sun of OrdTime (1 Oct 2017) - TAX COLLECTORS AND PROSTITUTES - Mt 21:28-32

“Jesus said to them, ‘I tell you solemnly, tax collectors and prostitutes are making their way into the kingdom of God before you (Matt 21:31b).”

It is quite surprising why the two groups of sinners were singled out by Jesus in our gospel. Surely, murderers, rebels, and bandits are far more sinful than they are since they claim people’s lives and cause havoc to society; while the former are only doing “petty” crimes for few monetary gains.

I think that Jesus had to enumerate particularly the two because in the eyes of Jewish religious leaders (“chief priests and elders” in v.28a) these two sins are the ones that contaminate the Jewish religion with pagan impurities. Tax collection is attributed to rubbing elbows with the Roman Imperial authorities while prostitution is mixing one’s biological makeup with foreign Gentile blood. For the religious leaders, what matters most is the preservation of their pure religion, while closing their eyes to other societal evils: poverty, slavery, insurgency, and injustice. Jesus had to challenge their myopic conception of sanctity by emphasizing that all sinners who repent would have a place in his kingdom.

The First Reading summarizes this thought incisively: “When the sinner renounces sin to become law-abiding and honest, he deserves to live” (Ezek 18:27).

Jesus welcomes all sinners, while giving special attention to tax-collectors and prostitutes since they are the most marginalized by the Jewish leaders. He needed to enumerate them in our pericope to debunk the public conception that they are the worst of all sinners. Instead of joining the bandwagon of denouncing them, he acclaimed that they could indeed be saints far ahead of self-righteous pious persons.

Drug-addiction in the Philippines is adjudged by the government as the main villain in the rise of poverty, criminality, and even terrorism. This is even reiterated by our Secretary of Foreign Affairs in his recent address to the 72nd United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 23, 2017. He further claimed to the whole world that the current Drug War is in fact a way of protecting the human rights of all Filipino families which are potential victims of every drug addict. The consequence of this propaganda is that the general public has begun to conclude that drug addicts are the worst of all sinners in the Philippine society.

Indeed, there is some truth to this claim. However, if we are to imitate the example of Jesus, we are not to single out a particular kind of sin or sinners. Even if they may be the worst sinners, we should always offer them our welcoming and compassionate hearts, since with their perfect repentance they can also make their way to the kingdom of God… even ahead of us, especially when we remain arrogant, self-righteous, and unforgiving.

- Rex Fortes, CM