Sunday, September 22, 2019

I desire mercy...


Sermon for St. Matthew’s Day

September 22, 2019 


As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

Today we are celebrating the fest day of Matthew our patron Saint.  Yesterday was the actual feast day.  We are allowed to transfer our patronal feast to the nearest Sunday.  The gospel lesson today is the simple calling of Matthew to be one of Jesus disciples.  It is a simple story.  We are told that Jesus was walking along and he saw Matthew sitting and collecting taxes – or tolls – in the tax booth.  Jesus simply says to Matthew to “Follow me” and remarkably he does.

I say remarkably because being a tax collector was a lucrative position – even if it didn’t earn you many friends.  Tax collectors acted as agents of the Roman occupation.  Tax collectors had to collect a certain amount of taxes, but they were also allowed to collect whatever they could get and keep for themselves.  Because they were agents of Rome and able to demand whatever money they wanted the people despised them.

After Jesus offers the invitation to follow the scene shifts into Jesus having dinner with Matthew and it says that “many tax collectors and sinners” where sitting at table with Jesus.  And the pharisee’s wondered why this itinerate Rabbi would be eating with people who are political pariahs and would make him ritually unclean. When they ask why Jesus eats with these people he says “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

The phrase “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” is well known.  And it has been used as one of those verse to put people down.  It implies that the people Jesus are eating with are sick.  It is easy for us to then come up with a theology that says that people who do things that we judge as sinners are sick people.  And if sick then we need to heal them.  It is interesting that beyond this phrase we do not hear Jesus telling those he is eating with to do anything different. Instead we hear throughout the Gospel of Matthew – and the other Gospels – that Jesus’ version of being a physician was to extravagantly heal the sick with no required “payment” and to dine with those society saw as outcasts.

Jesus told the Pharisee’s to go and learn what “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” means.  Jesus is asking them to remember the Prophet Hosea who said “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.”  Jesus is reminding the pharisee’s that God is a God of love and a God of mercy.  He is asking the religions leaders to look into their hearts and see if they are practicing mercy. 

Jesus is enjoying his time eating and drinking with the Tax Collectors and sinners.  He is befriending those that society casts out.  He is providing mercy by companionship to those who have little.  He is not judging them as being outcasts and unclean as his observers are. No.  Jesus is having table fellowship with the outcasts – an intimate action in first century Israel.  Jesus is showing Mercy by welcoming “the other” to table.

Michael Cranford who manages the blog “One Steadfast” said “God desires mercy, not sacrifice. .....it's not just telling us that God wants us to love people more than he wants us to observe ritual holiness. It's telling us that his deepest desire, the thing that is most important to him in all the world, is that people come to him, experience his love, and find themselves washed clean. It's not only a message to us, it is a message for us. God is a God of mercy. He doesn't want perfection, he wants his children to experience his forgiveness and to draw near.”[1]

We are invited to hear the same offer that Jesus made to Matthew when he said, “Follow me”.  We are called to follow a Jesus who offers healing and eats with those that society treats as unclean.  That society sees as outcasts.  We are called to learn what it means to desire mercy.  Not to judge others for what we see as their lack of purity.  Not to judge others because they don’t make the proper sacrifices to God.

We are called to find ways to offer mercy to God’s beloved children.  The first way we do that is by recognizing that all of God’s beloved children are indeed loved by God.  All of God’s beloved children are invited to the banquet.  We show mercy when we offer food to the hungry.  We show mercy when we offer clothing to those in need.  We show mercy when we eat at table with those that society judges as unworthy.

We also show mercy when we are good stewards of this creation.  We cannot advocate for policies that cause environmental destruction and say we are being merciful.  Climate change is threatening extinction to more and more of creation.  And while some do not agree with the scientific assessment that climate change is happening, we saw this past Friday that the youth in our world do understand it.

I was struck by the reports on the Climate Strike this past Friday. In Sacramento the leader is a 13-year-old girl.  She worked to secure a permit at the capitol and expected a couple of hundred people I hear, and more than a thousand young people and their parents showed up.  Thousands gathered in protests in cities all over the world.  A movement that was started by a young Swedish women Greta Thunberg who started protesting outside of the Sweetish parliament in 2018.  A movement that has grown to a worldwide protest calling on our leaders to acknowledge climate change and to do something to help. 

According the the Episcopal News Service The house of Bishop’s, meeting in Minneapolis took a break from their meeting “for a moment of solidarity with the strikers. About 100 bishops gathered outside their hotel to pray and sing, having released a statement in support of the strikes the day before, and Presiding Bishop Michael Curry spoke about the Christian responsibility to protect the Earth.

“We are bishops of The Episcopal Church. And we are leaders who share leadership with other clergy and lay people in the church. But we are not here today as leaders. We’re here as followers. We’re here to follow the youth mobilization on climate change. We’re here to follow and support what they are doing to stand in solidarity with them,” Curry said. “[Jesus] said, ‘God so loved the world’ – not just part of the world, but the whole world. This is God’s world, and we must care for it and take care of it and heal it and love it, just as God loves it.”[2]


Cleaning up environmental harm and preventing environmental destruction is showing mercy to those who are growing up in our world today.  It is showing mercy to the creatures who are finding their habitats increasingly hostile to their very survival.

The good news is that we are being called to Follow Jesus.  We are called to open our hearts to those that society treats as “the other”.   We follow Jesus when we advocate for policies that provide dignity to those who are in need.  We do that when we advocate for simple human necessities for those who find themselves homeless.  Such necessities as bathrooms that are accessible to people living outside – a concept that our government seems not to understand.  Yes public bathrooms are abused by some folks but without them we find our rivers and environment polluted by human waste.

This congregation has a long history of being Followers of Jesus’ way of Love.  You have a long history of welcoming all to the table.  You have a long history of providing food to the hungry, clothing to those in need, and access to medical screening.  You all have a history of following the call to mercy.  A call that is transforming this neighborhood by creating the Center of St. Matthew’s.  A center that has this worshiping congregation at the very heart.  A worshipping community that invites all of God’s beloved children to the table.  A community that uses its resources to spread God’s love outside of these doors.  We are following Jesus command to follow.  This very day We are striving to love mercy.

Amen.