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Sermon - The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (A) - 8th June 2008
St Alban's Epping 7, 8 & 10am
Readings:Matthew 9:9-13;18-26
In every way Jesus’ message remains as much of a challenge to us today as it ever was. The very choice of Jesus’ disciples always looks like a dangerous experiment. You could not have put together a more dispirit group ranging from the comfortable middle class on the one hand to revolutionaries of the state on the other. If we were wanting to start a new religious movement we would normally start with a group of like-minded individuals. Jesus did just the opposite. He included James and John, known as the “Sons of Thunder”, because of their fiery temperaments. He chose Simon the Zealot, who belonged to a political movement which used tactics very similar to guerrilla warfare. Then of course, there was Judas, who eventually betrayed Jesus. This was not a safe group of men. They represented a broad sweep of political opinion. At one extreme is Simon the Zealot who you could call an ultra-nationalist.
At the other extreme is Matthew the tax collector. One of the worst features of the Roman administration was its tax system. It was corrupt. It was exploitative. It was aggressive and it kept the people poor. The Romans usually used local people, who basically had the status of collaborators to do the work of collecting the money. Matthew like any tax collector would have been regarded as both a traitor and a religious outcast. Yet Jesus included this man as part of his inner circle. Ironically, it is this man, Matthew, who achieves such great excellence in his version of the gospel. By choosing Matthew to be a member of a band of these misfits, the Pharisees must have wondered what sort of movement Jesus was running. Under no other circumstances would you find this group together in one place unless it was a street fight.
But Jesus took it one step further. He went to Matthew’s house to eat. One could meet a sinner in the street and even speak to him yet remain ceremonially clean. But you could not eat their food because their food would never be clean. By eating their food it would make you ceremonially unclean. By eating with Matthew Jesus was making himself unclean. This was something a Pharisee would avoid at all costs. but then it becomes even more amazing. We are told that many tax collectors and sinners entered the home and ate with Jesus. The Pharisees wondered what sort of mission Jesus was on.
There had been many movements that had sprung up in Israel in response to Roman occupation. These movements usually fell into one of two categories. Either they were intensely political, and sought to arm themselves so they could fight against the Romans or they were intensely religious where they would be over-scrupulous in keeping the law and with a special emphasis on ritual purity. But though Jesus preached on the Kingdom of God, when it came to the Romans he urged Israel to love their enemies and do good to hose who hated them. This is not the language of someone plotting a coup.
On the other hand, Jesus spent so much time with the sick, the outcasts, those with leprosy, he seemed to have no concerns about being ceremonially unclean. His disciples didn’t fast, and Jesus repeatedly broke the Sabbath by healing. So what sort of religious movement was he running? Yet Jesus seems to have no doubt about what he is doing. first he quotes an old saying. In response to the Pharisees criticism he said “Those who are well have no need of a physician, only those who are sick.” This saying was well known in the ancient world. Plutarch quotes it several centuries later but from a very different source. Its as if Jesus is saying, “Common sense would tell you that I am ministering most where I am really needed.” But Jesus is also drawing attention to the fact that the Pharisees had no real concern for the sick and suffering in spite of the many commands in the Old Testament to do that very thing.
He followed that rebuke up with a second by quoting Hosea 6:6. In Hosea’s day God had decided to send judgment because of how the weak suffered and were cheated by the strong. There was no love for God. Love was described as evaporating like the morning dew. Then comes the statement “For I desire love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings.” Hosea is not rejecting the sacrificial system. Rather he is saying, what is the point of sacrifice where there is no love. Even in his day they had the two great commands, “Love God, and love your neighbour.” But if those two commands weren’t obeyed there was little point worrying about the others. Here Jesus is demonstrating his love for those in society living on the margins, those who had been rejected by the mainstream. And sadly, the mainstream had lost their way. Israel had forgotten how to live as the people of God. It was not an easy life under Roman rule, but there were free to worship God, they were free to read the prophets. They were free to show love to those in need. There were clear instructions on how to live but they refused to do it. It was so bad that it was ridiculous when the Pharisees complained when Jesus healed the sick, or helped the outcasts. For all their learning they seemed to have no idea of what God expected of them.
But Matthew added a second element to this story. Having been called by Jesus and then telling the story of the meal Jesus shared with these sinners, Matthew tells us a story of two miracles. One of the reasons why the miracles are so important in the gospels is that they point to the authority of Jesus teaching. The miracles indicate that what Jesus is teaching is backed up by heaven itself.
Some people have great trouble with the miracles. They often seem too fantastic, to unbelievable. Some people believe the miracles spoil the story. They understand Jesus to be a great and intelligent moral teacher but the miracles turn the gospels into fairy stories and thereby they lose their moral authority. Many attempts have been made to rip the miracles out to get to a more authentic history of Jesus. But it seems impossible.
The miracles are integral to the message of Jesus. The fact that they are so amazing is the whole point. They demonstrate that Jesus has the authority of heaven to teach what he is teaching. In John’s gospel, the miracles are called signs. They point us to the fact that what Jesus does, is done with God’s blessing.
And so Matthew tells us the story of the healing of two women, one still a young girl and the other who had suffered for 12 years. Again its remarkable that Matthew tells us about two women. Women are prominent in the story of Jesus. Again this is running contrary to the culture of his day. If there is to be an appeal to an authority it should have been men. but that wasn’t Jesus’ method. At every opportunity Jesus is showing that he is going in an entirely new direction. This is why he spends time with the tax collectors. This is why so much of his ministry is to women. Jesus doesn’t fit the old categories. He is doing something completely new.
Jesus was called by a ruler to attend his daughter even though she had died. On the way, a woman who had suffered a haemorrhage for 12 years reached out and touched his garment. Instantly, the woman was made well. Then when Jesus arrived at the rulers house, he entered the home and took the dead girl’s hand and told her to rise. And immediately she did so. Here we have two hopeless cases. Ill for 12 years and the young girl is already dead. You can’t get worse than that. Yet both experienced an instant healing. No wonder the news of these healings travelled around the countryside. They were so fantastic. No one could do these things apart from Jesus. No one could do these things if God were not with him.
And so we are challenged by these events to consider the priorities of Jesus’ ministry. He sought out the weak, the marginalised, those rejected by so-called good society. He went to those parts of the city we may prefer to avoid. He loved the unlovely. He cared for those in great need. As a church we are always in danger of becoming a Holy Club, a group turned in upon itself, more concerned with our own purity, than our ministry in the world.
I always remember the episode of “Yes Minister” with the hospital with no patients. It had the lowest infection rates. It had the highest efficiency ratings of any hospital in the country. According to all the management criteria, no other hospital could equal it. The only problem was it was no earthly use – it had no patients. It treated no one. We can become self-satisfied with our church. It can become a very happy club. But in doing so, it becomes no earthly use. Jesus describes the church as a light on a hill, or as the salt of the earth. The church has its mission. But when it forgets who it is and what it is meant to do, its not much use.