How are you feeling this morning?
Did you arrive Bright eyed and bushy tailed, counting your blessings and fired up to say thank you?
Or have you had one of those weeks that leaves you feeling a tad battered, crawling in to lick your wounds and trusting that God understands exactly how you feel and will sit quietly holding you until you feel better?
Or are you, like me, somewhere in the middle...limping a little but always conscious of the love that holds me steady, more or less, no matter what.
I suspect however you feel, it won't be hard to place yourself somewhere in this mornings gospel. Let's journey through it together, in search of occasions of hope and joy...
My first incumbency was in a church dedicated to S Matthew so over my years there I've spent alot of time engaging with the story of his call.
As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
You’d imagine that the next few verses would involve an intent theological discussion about just where Matthew has gone wrong, where he thinks he is going now or possibly Jesus unrolling his credentials as the Messiah, and inviting the assembled company to rejoice.
But it's never that simple is it.
Some of you might be able to identify with Matthew, in that instant obedience to a call to follow…in the radical departure from everything that has been familiar…everything that has provided the backdrop to your life so far…but for many of us faith has more in common with evolution than sudden conversion, so perhaps you'd prefer to join me among the guests at this disturbingly edgy, uncomfortable party.
That’s always the problem when mixing with Jesus – he will invite his friends along, and too often they just aren’t desirable types.
It’s not enough that he picks up Matthew from the tax collector’s booth…once back at Matthew’s house, the company gets even worse.
Where do you think you might fit in that crowd? Are you partying with Jesus, or looking on anxiously with the Pharisees?
You know, they really did have a point...It’s a truth that has been known and passed on by parents for millennia...Bad company can corrupt good character.
As gatekeepers preserving the integrity of the traditions of Israel, the Pharisees are terrified of anything that might dilute the purity of God’s chosen people. There's lots in Scripture to support them. How come Jesus is so happy to consort with those who so are obviously identifiable as sinners. Why does Jesus care so little.? There are all these nice people waiting politely for a chat, yet he prefers the bad company at the edge of the room.
Maybe that's where you'd place yourself, if youre unsure of your welcome, feel more like an onlooker than a participant....Perhaps you prefer to stand among the outsiders, the barely tolerated, those whom respectable society prefers to scapegoat. Its not the safest place to be but actually, that's where you'll most likely find Jesus....hunkering down, talking, listening, drying tears
Last night the Fourth Choir sang a Requiem for such as them: the LGBTQ souls put to death across the world and,yes, in our own country as recently as 1835 ...No mercy for them from state or community...simply exclusion and hatred...from their neighbours at least, but never from God.
God in Christ sees past their wounds and bitterness of their current state, and connects not with the distortions and handicaps of damaged lives but with the precious children of God beneath…embraces their potential, meets them in their longing
Not what thou art, nor what thou hast been but what thou wouldst be beholdest God in God's mercy
For Jesus that day, Matthew is not a hated symbol of Roman oppression and personal greed – he’s a lonely man in need of a purpose and a community, ready to change and be changed by his encounter.
Mercy, notv acrifice
But before we can hear more of this,the party is crashed by a distraught father, introduced first in terms of his status...“a leader of the synagogue” – one of the great and good, an insider– one who, according to the pharisaic approach, should be sure of God’s favour worked out in an easy life of blessing.
But something has gone wrong. He’s dealing with that worst of all parental nightmares, the death of a child.
I guess that many of us will ally ourselves with him if we set out to pray this passage…will offer to God our own urgent entreaties for the continued safety of those we hold most dear, or lament the suffering of innocent children across the world today.
Dear God, why don't you DO something, This can't be right.
It’s to this urgency that Jesus responds. In an echo of the opening verses, we hear now that it’s Jesus who gets up and follows – responding not to the man’s importance but to his need, which trumps identity as surely here as for Matthew.
Let's follow in his wake. Perhaps we can help...
But there’s yet another interruption to the flow of the story, another change of gear and direction.
Another outsider – a woman, and one with a haemorrhage at that….Someone who has waited for 12 years on the margins of society…weakened by the constant bleeding that leaves her all but invisible to observant Jews…
She is doubly outcast – but her need cries out to Jesus with all the power that she herself lacks.
She may not have the courage to ask, but, like Matthew and the tax collectors and sinners at the table, she receives freely the healing she most needs. Ti's mercy all...
At this point in the story, things become alarmingly apposite for me…One of the struggles of ministry, as of any job without firm boundaries, is the way that the urgent so often drives out the important. Jesus is on a life and death mission to a child…surely a case of blue light and loud sirens, of the utmost urgency…BUT here is a woman who no longer dares to voice her own troubles, yet who has the courage to act to address them.
She has waited 12 years, - so this is scarcely urgent – but it is hugely important – for her and for us.
This is what Jesus recognises…
So he stops. He takes the time, even amid his headlong mercy dash, not only to heal her but to relate to her and restore her to community
“Take heart, daughter…Your faith has made you well”
She is given a new identity – no longer the woman with no name, but an adopted child.
She, who has nothing, is given credit for her own healing
“Your faith has made you well”
The important takes priority over the urgent…The outsider is given precedence over the pillar of society…and as Jesus delays, a child lies dead.
Terrifying.
Do you even WANT to be in this story now?
Maybe this is one morning when we could comfortably turn over the page…
And yet, and yet, the truth is that we are all in this story, like it or not., for here in microcosm is Gods great love story in which we all belong,
Dare you lift your gaze beyond the moment of tragedy to see another miracle of restoration...
Restoration of life to the child, of hope andcjoy to her father
Restoration for those with needs that are glaringly obvious to the world…or so deeply hidden that we have yet to acknowledge them to ourselves…
Each of us is dependent on God’s grace and mercy…
Each of us would be lost if Jesus didn’t call us…
When Jesus mixed with the tax collectors and sinners, the Pharisees feared that someone might be changed by the encounter.
Jesus was sure that they would be
Because our transformation is the heart of his mission, then as now…
“I come not to call the righteous but sinners to repentence”
Have you found yourself in the story yet?
I promise you have a place
So....take a moment to thank the One who calls you from sin to salvation, from the margins to the centre, from exclusion to welcome , from death to life as he makes all things new
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