Come Inside
This is the sermon I preached Sunday at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. The text was Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26.
Isn’t Jesus always getting into trouble? He hangs out with the wrong people, the inappropriate people, the people he was told to stay away from, the great unwashed. Why can’t he just learn to fly under the radar? Life is so much more comfortable that way. He could still do good, heal a few people, but the right kind of people—the good religious people who don’t stir up trouble.
In today’s gospel, we find an array of characters: good religious ones, on the inside of society and those on the outside of society by virtue of their birth or their diseases.
We have three distinct movements in this passage, which is why three different people read this passage:
The call of Matthew (v. 9).
The account of Jesus’ table fellowship with tax collectors and sinners (vv. 10-13).
Sandwiched stories of restoration of synagogue leader’s daughter (vv. 18-19, 23-26) and woman with persistent hemorrhaging (vv. 20-22) (Charles B. Cousar, Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV-Year A).
Let’s meet Matthew. He was definitely an outsider as a tax or toll collector. “The rabbis discuss tax collectors in the same vein as other criminals such as robbers” (The Jewish Annotated New Testament). Jesus not only invited Matthew to follow him, but welcomed him to dinner.
What I find interesting about this scene is Matthew’s immediate response to Jesus’ invitation. Jesus says, “‘Follow me.’ And Matthew got up and followed him.” What was there about Jesus that elicited this response? Was it his eyes? Was it the reports he had heard of healings, like that occurring before our passage? Maybe it’s all this or something else. We really don’t know.
We next meet more outsiders; tax collectors and sinners and they’re invited to dinner! But Jesus knows peoples’ hearts. His actions here are scandalous, and the Pharisees’ reaction is no surprise.
Table fellowship in the first century mediated communal relationships. It defined who did and did not hold power and social status. Who you ate with said who you were spiritually, socially, and economically… Why is Jesus doing this? He knows the holy intent of the law, yet he sits at the table of sinners—especially a tax collector, who in his very job description is complicit with and benefits from the Roman occupation. (Rob Ruthruff, christiancentury.org)
The people we meet in the final scene, stories of restoration, are a mixture of insiders and outsiders. First off, we meet a synagogue leader with a report of his daughter dying. This man was in a privileged role. He was a leader, a man of faith, well-respected in the community because of his place in it.
Now the action accelerates. Jesus is still home at dinner when “suddenly” the synagogue leader arrives with his plea. Jesus and the disciples left and followed the leader. In the middle of doing so, there’s another “suddenly.” A woman suffering from hemorrhages touches him for healing.
It frustrates me when I am in the middle of one thing, only to be interrupted to do something else. This woman is the second interruption in this scene. But Jesus does not treat her as such, he calls her “daughter” and heals her. She, too, was an outsider. In Judaism, women who were bleeding from their period or a case like this woman were considered unclean. A menstruating woman was unclean for seven days and whoever touches her is unclean till evening (National Library of Medicine, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6290188/#).
How would you feel if you couldn’t touch or be touched for twelve years! She must have felt incredibly lonely. Jesus “saw” her. He noticed her and spoke tenderly to her. God’s heart is so big.
Now back to the earlier part of this scene, the synagogue leader’s daughter. Jesus is going everywhere, being wanted by everyone. Unlike us, he didn’t yell out, “Stop!” His love would not allow it.
By the time they arrived at the leader’s home, there was quite a hullabaloo going on. There were flute players and the crowd “making a commotion.” Flute players were professionals who worked at funerals. According to the Jewish oral tradition of the day, “Even the poorest man in Israel should not hire fewer than two flutes and one professional wailing woman” (New English Translation, notes). Jesus kicked these people out and healed the daughter.
What has this got to do with us? That was then and this is now. How we treat people affects the growth of God’s kingdom and the growth of our church. God calls us to be like Jesus. How? In our love for the “other,” the marginalized, the abused and unwanted and each other. I need to tell you some things about the Five Loaves and Two Fish Ministry that we support. Firstly, it is not only the people of St. Timothy that participate in food packing for school students. There are people from all the area churches. And you know what? The atmosphere is light and people have fun. You hear a hum of conversation as well as laughter. Folks are enjoying themselves. Our participation helps to heal the inequity many live with, feeding hungry children in Jesus’ name.
Jesus’ healing changed people’s bodies and restored them to their families and social positions in their communities. With his love, Jesus takes outsiders, those on the margins of society, and makes them insiders, transformed by his very presence. Those of us who are hurting today can be healed by Jesus’ presence and that of our family of faith.
Who do we identify with in this passage? Are we one of those who is hurt and in need? Are we more like the Pharisees, blaming the victims for their situation? Do we identify with Jesus, the healer, the one who turns people’s lives upside down? Isn’t that the work of the church? That is what we are called to because God works in and through us by the power of the Holy Spirit. Let’s not avert our gaze from those with such profound needs—the sick, the homeless, the down and out.
God, give us the grace and strength to be your love in the world. Amen.
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