In today's reading from Mark's Gospel Jesus dines at the house of Levi, a tax collector, and is criticized by some Pharisees-- not to His face, of course-- for hanging out with the wrong crowd. They ask Jesus' disciples why He dines with "tax collectors and sinners." Reminds us that the tactic of criticizing one's supporters, when you can't think of a way to criticze what is being said, is nothing new-- it is what the Pharisees did 2,000 years ago. Jesus in response seems to say that He didn't come for everyone, that there only some people who need Him. "I did not come to call the righteous but sinners," He says (Mk 2: 17). Really? There really are people who don't need Christ, who are already "righteous" and thus aren't the target of His love and mercy? Of course that isn't what Jesus is saying. His remark is filled with more than a little irony, as the notes to the New American Bible indicate. If He were speaking today His reference to "righteous" might well be surrounded by air quotes. The Pharisees think they are righteous, better than the "tax collectors and sinners" with whom Jesus socializes. But of course their sickness, their need for a physician, is even greater than the sickness, the need, of others because they don't recognize it. They don't ask for medicine and when they are offered it by Jesus, they don't take it, because they think they don't need it. Sadly, their righteousness is only in their own heads. They are self-righteous, a righteousness determined by one's own criteria. And when one can determine the criteria for righteousness oneself, not surprisingly the criteria almost-always seem to show than one is actually righteous. Funny how that works. Lest we pause too long in our judgment about the Pharisees we might examine our own "righteousness." How often do our own moral judgments conveniently lead us to the conclusion that our thoughts and actions are just fine, even though there is that haunting voice in the back of our heads that says just the opposite? According to Jordon Peterson in his book "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos" (Random House Canada 2018), of 100 people who are prescribed a drug, one-third never get the prescription filled. Half of the remaining 67 who fill the prescription won't take the medicine correctly, and might not even take it at all. Apparently we somehow reach the conclusion that we don't really need the medicine, that we aren't really sick, even though we felt bad enough at one point to seek medical help. Or maybe we just can't be bothered to take care of ourselves. Jesus today analogizes Himself to a physician, prescribing a course of treatment for us. We've received the prescription. Do we even bother to start the course of treatment, to get the prescription filled? Or do we start but somehow fail to carry on? If self-righteousness is the symptom, hard-heartedness is the disease. We all need healing. The only question is where.