Gospel in Art: It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick

The Doctor, by Sir Luke Fildes © The Tate Gallery

Source: Christian Art

Gospel of 7 July 2023
Matthew 9:9-13

As Jesus was walking on, he saw a man named Matthew sitting by the customs house, and he said to him, 'Follow me.' And he got up and followed him.

While he was at dinner in the house it happened that a number of tax collectors and sinners came to sit at the table with Jesus and his disciples.

When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, 'Why does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners?' When he heard this he replied, 'It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. Go and learn the meaning of the words: What I want is mercy, not sacrifice. And indeed I did not come to call the virtuous, but sinners.'

Reflection on the painting

Reading in today's Gospel Jesus' observation that it's not the healthy who need a doctor, I thought of this beautiful painting by Sir Luke Fildes that literally depicts a doctor attending to a patient. We see a Victorian doctor watching over a sick child, set in a humble working class home. The interior is messy, the table cluttered, and very moody light illuminates the two central characters: the doctor and the child. Fildes's skilful use of light focuses our eye on these two characters which are symbolic for Christ acting as our doctor, watching over us, his children, as we need him.

In the background we see the father of the family looking on helplessly, his hand on the shoulders of his tearful wife. Is she crying or praying? In a way, although she is discreetly in the background, she is the central character around which the whole scene and family revolves. The doctor is observing the critical stage of the child's illness in pre-antibiotic days. The disease seems no longer to be life-threatening: the breaking light of dawn coming from the window to the right, gently hitting the child's face, suggests that the illness is nearly over. Hope and recovery are on their way. The parents are watchful and fully trust the doctor to do his work…

Christ saw himself as the heavenly physician sent to heal broken humanity. We all come before the Lord in our brokenness, in our various forms of dis-ease and un-ease.

Jesus didn't let the hypocritical judgment of the Pharisees move him from His mission… Like the Pharisees, who operated under the self-deception that they were in good spiritual health, we can't be healed either until we recognise that we are sick. Only then can Christ as the divine, spiritual physician heal us….

LINKS

Gospel in Art: https://christian.art/
Today's reflection: https://christian.art/daily-gospel-reading/matthew-9-9-13-2023/