"Called by Faith...Opened to Love"
           June 8, 2008
   Dan Wilkie, TEI Graduate, Assistant Minister

                 Scriptures:  Hosea 5:15-6:16     Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

            Did it occur to any of you as you heard Matthew’s Gospel that we have been despising and ostracizing tax collectors for over 2000 years?  After all how many of you seriously look forward to April 15th each year and writing out those checks to the IRS, or cherish having money withdrawn from retirement or payroll checks, or relish receiving a letter advising that you might be subject to an audit?  Come on, let’s see those hands.  

          Yet as much as we hate our own tax burdens, and look down on the IRS and it’s agents, the fact is that it is far different from what tax collectors were like in Jesus time.  

          While we have a chance to vote on the people who enact our tax laws, the people in Jesus’ time had no such luxury.  Their country was occupied by the Roman Empire, and the average citizen had no real say in the matters of everyday life, specifically when it came to government regulations and taxes.  The Roman officials rarely ever collected their own taxes but instead contracted them out to the highest bidder, who would use whatever means were available to obtain what was due.  Often these “contractors” hired underlings to do their work for them, instead of doing it themselves.

Since most average citizens worked for subsistence wages, paying taxes alone was bad enough without the stress of knowing that theses subcontractors were often little more than hoodlums who, to make a living, would double or triple what was due.  Then, if this amount was not paid, these “collectors” would resort to violence or threats of violence in order to get what they said was owed.  

          So we can see why, when Jesus called Matthew, who was one of these people, and then later was seen eating with him and others considered to be sinners, his actions caused such a stir.  This just was not done in Jewish society and was simply too much to bear for the Pharisees. 

          In this situation most of us are willing to give the Pharisees a bad rap here, but the reality of the situation is that these were simply very powerful religious leaders, trying to keep the Jewish citizens on the straight and narrow, following the laws they believed God had laid out for them.

After all, some of the most important of these laws and rituals occurred at meals, because meals weren’t just times to eat.  They were times of healing and reconciliation, with meal-time rituals showing just how much they loved and followed God.  Thus, how the food was processed, who sat with whom, and having the right people became of primary importance. In the Pharisees’ minds, Jesus had defiled what a meal meant to them in terms of honoring God.

Seeing this disrespect for Jewish ritual law and tradition, they confronted Jesus, who countered them by comparing himself to a doctor.  “Well people don’t need a physician, but the sick do.  Go and study on this and understand what it means, for I desire mercy not sacrifice, for I have come not to save the righteous but sinners”.  

          This same kind of situation would play out a few days later, first in the healing of Synagogue leader’s daughter and secondly in the healing of the hemorrhaging woman.  Again it is important to understand that in addition to rituals and laws concerning food, there were purity laws, and touching a dead body or any woman who was menstruating was considered being unclean. 

When Jesus held the hand of the young girl and healed her, he had violated the sacred rituals considered so important in Jewish society.  Likewise, the hemorrhaging woman’s approach to Jesus was something that simply would not have been done.  No woman approached a holy man, let alone a woman who was considered unclean.  When the woman touched Jesus’ cloak and asked him to heal her, she was violating strict ritual law, so in Jesus’ response by touching her and healing her he too violated this strict law. Once again the Pharisees challenged Jesus’ authority, and once again Jesus responded to them, this time with the words of the Prophet Hosea that we heard in our Old Testament scripture reading, the meaning of which is that the right moral behavior, not ritual and sacrifice, establishes our relationship with God.

          What Jesus was focusing on in these examples was not where these people were from; what they wore; who they knew; which country club they played golf at; what political party they belonged to, but something far deeper: what was in their hearts and the unlimited nature of their faith. 

          Jesus saw them not as sinners, or outcasts, but as brothers and sisters, people just like everyone else, and in his treatment of them as equals he brought them reconciliation with the rest of society.  They were made whole. 

          Imagine for a moment how powerful this must have been for them.  Here was this man who so many people followed, a man who challenged the religious leaders and the society that persecuted them.  A man who came not to save the righteous, but to save them, the weak and powerless, a man who ate with them, participating with them in one of the most basic of human interactions. 

          And while we don’t really know how they felt for sure, we can look at our own human nature for some ideas.  I can imagine if I were Matthew, and was seen as an outcast, and were personally called to follow Jesus, I might have gone because the unknown had to be better than being a social outcast.  I know too that if I had seen my daughter brought back from death, or had been healed, I would have shouted from the rooftops, the glories of the person who had performed such miracles.

          I am also sure that if I had come from a marginalized place in society as had Matthew, or the hemorrhaging woman, and had this experience, I am very sure that I might have a greater appreciation towards the circumstances of others who are hurting, a more acute sense of compassion, and a stronger desire to live in ways that are just and merciful. 

          This is the lesson then that I think we are to take away today.  Just as Jesus saw past the things that caused so many to be seen as marginalized members of society, instead saw their potential.  He also sees in us our potential and what is in our hearts, our capacity to love, heal and reconcile, to live mercifully and justly, and He calls on us to see those we meet in the same way.

          And in doing so, these are the very things that have power to change lives, because when we live faithfully, and allow our hearts to be open to love, with the potential that Christ sees in each of us for mercy, justice and compassion for those around us, we can and will change lives. 

          It would be hard for me to imagine that lives aren’t touched by the many volunteers who cook for those needing meals or work to provide a warm, safe place to sleep.  I can also imagine that lives are touched when someone helps a friend or a neighbor, or a person on the street.  I believe that lives are touched when we contribute to OCWM or local mission projects.  I believe that lives are touched when we welcome into our midst all people, regardless of economic status, or gender, or nationality, or sexual orientation.

 These are very powerful things because in these acts of love and compassion we reflect our deep faith in and love of Christ, and bring healing and reconciliation to those most in need.  When we help them find healing and reconciliation and love of Christ, not only are they healed and brought in to the greater community that we all enjoy, but the potential also exists for the message to then be spread to others through their efforts.

          To highlight just how powerful this message is I want to share a little bit of a program I watched last Sunday on the Tru Channel, or what used to be Court Channel.  It seems that there had been a discussion around town about the honesty of people in the community of Memphis, Tennessee, so a local television station in conjunction with a local bank and armored car company devised a plan to find out just how honest people were.  What they would do is drop ten money bags around town at different locations, each one containing five thousand dollars, and then see how many were returned.

They did not announce this plan in any way, and especially did not announce that at the end of the week the television station, the bank and the armored car company executives would select from the people who returned the money the one they felt most deserving and would reward him or her with the entire fifty thousand dollars.  So, starting on Sunday and each day during the week, the armored car company would “lose” a money bag. Inside was the cash and a note to contact the television station.  What is amazing is that no matter where they dropped the money bags, whether in the wealthiest or the poorest of neighborhoods, all were returned.  Even when a bag was found by a homeless man on a bicycle he chased down the armored car to return the money and refused to give his name or to be interviewed by the station.

The most impressive, however, was an older man who lived in a very poor church and did the church’s custodial work, odd jobs around the church, and ran errands for the minister.  When the reporter interviewed him, she was truly surprised by his story.  This man, it seems, had spent the majority of his life in prison for property crimes, assault, armed robbery, and other petty theft charges, and he had been out of prison for quite some time.  Being unable to find a job or a place to live because of his record, he was sitting in the church after services one Sunday praying.  The minister and one of the deacons saw him and approached him.  In sharing his story they were moved to offer him a back room in the church, a job with a small salary, and some extra money to buy some food.  This act of compassion and love had an amazing and transformative impact on this man because, as he put it, he felt loved, wanted and accepted for the first time in his life.  In this acceptance and mercy he also felt so full of love and joy in the Lord.  When the reporter said that this money would have set him up for a while had he kept it, he said that he would not have been able to live with himself for he found something in Christ far greater than money.  This story doesn’t end here, however, because the station chose him as the recipient of the overall prize.  Yet what he did here was even more amazing because when offered the fifty thousand dollar prize, he said that he was happy and blessed to have his apartment and life working for the church, and he felt it should go to someone else more in need.  The station then awarded the money at his request to one of the other folks, a single mom with four children who was working on a minimum wage job trying to support her family.  The money, and a guaranteed loan by the bank that took part in this test, allowed the young woman to get a house of her own in a better neighborhood closer to better schools. And for the first time in her life she had something for her and her children that was greater than anything she could ever have imagined.

          Yes indeed, to be called by faith and to be opened to love are really powerful things.  May they always be so.