A sermon delivered on June 11, 2023, by the Rev. Patrick H. Wrisley, D.Min.
As the church calendar moves into the rhythm of Ordinary Time, our Gospel selections running from now through the end of November come from Matthew. If you will remember, Matthew chapters 5 through 7 contain Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount which includes the Beatitudes. In that sermon, Jesus lines out how people in the church are to live together in community. Jesus then spends the rest of the Gospel physically demonstrating what it means to live out the teaching he’s given. He gives the lesson in the sermon and then shows what he means by living what he preached. This morning’s text is a perfect example of his doing this.
Turn in your Bible to Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26, and listen to the Story. This morning we are going to learn about the essence of what it means to follow Jesus’ call.
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
9As 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. 10And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. 11When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.13Go and learn what this means, (from the prophet Hosea 6:6) ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” …
18While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” 19And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples. 20Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, 21for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” 22Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well. 23When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, 24he said, “Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. 25But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. 26And the report of this spread throughout that district.[1]
We miss Matthew’s genius in his writing if we fail to see the potpourri of characters thrown into this one scene. You have the ultra-pious religious hoi poli sprinkled in with a group of first-century rogues and villains smattered with the ritually impure like a dead little girl and a woman who has a 12-year-long period. Irony is laced through our passage from the outset. Here we have Matthew, whose name literally means, “Gift from God,” juxtaposed to Pharisees who both look at and treat him as though he was scum. What we begin to see is that those who think they are in the in-group are really on the outs and those who are on the outs are being invited inside to sit at the Master’s table.
Jesus meets Gift from God sitting at a tax booth and simply says, “Matthew, follow me.” Jesus chooses a hated social pariah and invites him on a journey. Matthew then demonstrates a spiritual person’s foundational quality for a life with God: Obedience. He heard the call to follow, and he got up and went. On an unconscious level, we think Matthew following Jesus would mean he would be associating with a new group of friends. Yet, we see Jesus call Matthew right back into the circle of ne’er-do-wells he has just agreed to leave. Jesus seems to be okay around ne’-er-do-wells unlike the Pharisees, or as scholar Dale Bruner refers to them, the religiously Serious.
The Pharisees, the Serious, are all about following the Law, the Rulebook. In Matthew’s gospel, they act like a Greek chorus off to the side of a play’s action yelling directions to actors on the stage. Today, they are on the periphery commenting on what they are witnessing with Jesus and are now sowing dissension and murmuring against him. Instead of having the guts to ask Jesus directly, they pull some of Jesus’ brand-new disciples aside and start grilling them on Jesus’ inability to follow the religious and social rules. “Why is your Rabbi rubbing elbows with THOSE people?”
Jesus, fully aware of what is going on addresses the Pharisees directly, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor; sick people do.” He then pulls a page straight from their fundamentalist playbook, looks at them in the eyes, and then he quotes scripture to them. “Go and learn what this means – “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”” And since they were Pharisees, the Jewish Ph.D.’s of Religious Studies back then, they would know that Jesus just quoted Hosea 6:6 which was written to the apostate spiritual and political leaders of Israel and Judah centuries before. And no doubt, since they were the know-it-alls of all things Jewish, the Pharisees would know the next line that follows in Hosea 6:7 which reads, “But like Adam they transgressed the covenant, there they dealt faithlessly with me.” Jesus has metaphorically just dropped the mic and has publicly schooled them.
Right at this moment, Matthew shows Jesus physically living out what he was teaching. He has the audacity to touch a dead girl’s body and raise her up while showing mercy to a poor woman who for over a decade has been socially and religiously outcast because of her illness. He is physically demonstrating that the essence of following a call from God is lavishing mercy on those who deserve it the least.
The essence of following God’s call in your life and mine is to lavish mercy on those who deserve it the least. You see, beloved, it wasn’t enough for Matthew to obediently follow Jesus when he called; it was to obediently follow Jesus right back into the people he formally hung out with and show them the mercy he received from the Lord. The Pharisees and the Serious were obedient in following the rules. They knew what it took, they knew the right ritualistic sacrifices that would keep God happy. What they didn’t know how to do was to show people mercy. Let’s face it, sacrificing a dead goat is so much easier than actually showing mercy to those people who deserve it the least. That, my friends, takes hard work!
Sadly, Pharisees were not good students of practical theology. They were not open to having their spiritual, political, economic, and cultural views challenged. It was so much easier just to kill a goat than learn and show mercy. How do we know they were lousy students? Because those first-century religious fundamentalists had Jesus arrested on trumped-up charges and hung on a Cross. And once again, here’s a flash of Divine Irony and Comedy: The Pharisees and officials thought they snuffed out the problem when Jesus was put to death; yet, it was in Jesus’ death that he actively demonstrated his obedience to the Father and showed us mercy.
Beloved, this is what the Lord’s Supper is all about. It’s about Jesus’ sacrificial mercy shown to us on the Cross. He gave his body for us. He shed his blood for us. This simple meal reminds us and also lets us participate in Jesus’ act of mercy. I want us to leave with Jesus’ words from verse 13 echoing in our minds as we come to the table. He tells us: Go and learn what this means – I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Obedience in following Jesus is important but as we learned today, without demonstrating mercy to those who are most undeserving, obedience is a vacuous puff of smoke. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So be it.
Prayer: May this meal, O Christ, help us to hear your call, and be obedient to it, but most importantly, may it enable us to show others the mercy you have shown us!
© 2023 Patrick H. Wrisley, Pastor, First Presbyterian Church, 401 SE 15th Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, FL. 33301. Sermon manuscripts are available for the edification of members and friends of First Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and may not be altered, re-purposed, published, or preached without permission. All rights reserved.
[1] New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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