Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost, Year A, "Mercy and Sacrifice," Psalm 50:7-15, Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26 (Proper 5/Ordinary 10)

Sermon 6/11/23

Psalm 50:7-15, Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

Mercy and Sacrifice

A few weeks ago, just before I came to Central New York for the summer, I packed up my apartment in New Jersey and moved from one town to another. Not a huge move - just about 15 minutes away. And not a huge amount of things - I moved in with other PhD students, so other than my bedroom furniture, I didn’t have much I needed to bring. As far as moves go, since I have moved so many times as an itinerant pastor and often moved from one five bedroom parsonage to another, this one was pretty simple. Except… as a PhD student, I have to move “student-style,” finding a truck and getting some friends who are willing to help for the reward of my thanks and some pizza for lunch. And, except - I was moving from a second floor apartment, requiring a lot of up and down stairs. And, except this: both of my knees need replacing. They’ve been deteriorating for years, and now they’re down to bone on bone, and walking is painful enough but stairs are even harder, and stairs while carrying heavy things are near impossible. Thankfully, I have good friends. But on moving day, I had to basically sit and watch while they did all of the work of loading and unloading my things, taking trip after trip up and down the stairs at my old place, on what was of course the hottest day of that week. And while that might sound great - sitting back and watching others do the hard work - I suspect for most of us, actually, being helped, while we can’t contribute anything, is more stressful than not. I spent a lot of the day feeling guilty, frustrated, and helpless, wishing I could help, wishing things were different. My helpers? They weren’t doing anything to make me feel guilty. They were thoughtful, appreciative of the lunch I bought, efficient, and done and moved on, while I was still wrestling with how much I hated having to rely on them to get the job done. 

You’ve probably heard the expression: it’s more blessed to give than receive. And I think most of us find that to be the case. We love giving to others. It brings us a lot of joy, doesn’t it, giving? Being able to lift others up through our actions? But being able to receive, graciously, thankfully, when we’re in a place of need and someone else can meet our need that we can’t do ourselves? I think receiving is actually harder than it looks. Maybe it’s fine on Christmas, on birthdays, on occasions where being the recipient of gifts is expected. But outside of that? Where we are receiving not even gifts but “help”? Mostly, I think we really chafe against needing help. I think many of us would do just about anything to avoid appearing helpless, being helpless. 

I’ve been thinking about that a lot this week as I read our gospel lesson. Our gospel lesson from Mathew is really three stories in one. In the first part, Jesus calls Matthew, a tax collector, to follow him. Matthew does, immediately. Jesus is then eating dinner - perhaps at Matthew’s house? - and there are many other “tax-collectors and sinners” joining in the meal. Then the Pharisees - the religious leaders of the community - discover who has been at this gathering, they criticize Jesus to his disciples, that he eats with what they consider unfit company. Jesus overhears and 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,”” paraphrasing from the prophet Hosea. He continues, “For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

Then we skip ahead a bit into what might seem to be two unrelated healing stories, both of which you might be familiar with. First, Jesus gets a message from a leader of the community that his daughter has died, but asking Jesus to come and lay hands on her, trusting that the girl will live. On the way to the leader’s house, Jesus is approached by a woman who has been suffering with hemorrhages for over a decade. And she’s confident that if she can just touch Jesus, even his cloak, she will be healed. Jesus takes notice of her right away, saying to her, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well,” and indeed, she has been made well. Finally, Jesus gets to the leader’s house and finds everyone in the household already in mourning over the daughter who has died. Jesus sends them all away, insisting the girl is only sleeping. Everyone laughs - the girl is clearly dead! But when the crowd of mourners leave, Jesus takes the girl by the hand, and she gets up, alive and well. Our text closes with Matthew reporting that news of these events spread quickly throughout the region. 

I desire mercy, not sacrifice, Jesus says. I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners. What does Jesus mean? Righteousness, after all, means something like being in “right relationship” with God and one another. And it seems, throughout the scriptures, that God very much does long for us to be in right relationships, just relationships. Isn’t that what God wants? isn’t our journey of discipleship about just that - learning how to set right our relationships with God and one another? And, what does it mean that God desires mercy? I understand that God is merciful - compassionate and forgiving. But how do mercy, sacrifice, righteousness, and sinfulness relate? I can’t think Jesus means that we have to relish our sinfulness so that God has more opportunity to show us mercy. I don’t think that Jesus wants us to pretend to be in need of help so that God can get the joy of rescuing us. So what does Jesus mean? 

I think first - and this is a hard one - first, God’s primary audience is not always us. Sometimes we’re like the lost sheep - but sometimes, especially if we’ve been on the path of discipleship for a long time, seeking to grow deeper and deeper in our faith - we’re just one of the sheep who is safe in the pasture. God’s priority is the sheep who is lost. And we can be jealous that God is tending to the lost sheep, or we can be thankful that we’re already safe and sound. 

As for righteousness? Well: like everything else we might come to have, it is a gift of God. If we learn to grow in discipleship, and set right all our relationships, it is through drawing on God’s strength, embracing God’s grace, and imitating God’s love. When we start believing righteousness is something we’ve achieved by our own efforts, that’s self-righteousness, and self-righteousness is pretty far from God’s intent for us. Being in right relationship with God and others isn’t a destination we can reach and just settle at. It’s a practice, a discipline, something that we grow in with God’s help. 

And there it is: God’s help. Friends - we need God’s help, always. We stand in need of God’s mercy, always. Rather than this gospel being some strange suggestion that we have make ourselves appear to be in a position of needing mercy in order for us to get God’s attention, we need to recognize that we’re already there. We are in need of God’s help. We need God’s mercy. We do sin. We are broken. We do turn away from God. We do fail to live in right relationships. We can’t do it by ourselves. We need God’s help. Unfortunately, our culture is full of really destructive messages about being in need of mercy, about needing help. Our society implies that if you need help, especially too much help, or for too often, or for too long, you are weak, you’re wrong, you’re less than. Instead, we cultivate this myth of self-made people who’ve pulled themselves up by their own power and strength, no help needed. 

When I look at the vignettes in our scripture today, I see stories of people who knew that they needed help/ Matthew, the unnamed sinners and tax collectors, the leader seeking help for his daughter, the woman Jesus healed - they needed help, and they knew it, and they weren’t afraid to accept the help Jesus offered them. Can we be vulnerable enough to know that we need help, and to accept the help that Jesus offers? Can we recognize our own failings, and receive mercy from God who is ever-ready to offer it to us? It’s not that God isn’t interested in righteousness. I think, rather, it’s that our ability to claim the label “righteous” isn’t the standard for entry into God’s reign that we think it is. Rather, God wonders, how receptive are we to receiving God’s grace and mercy? How ready are we to receive all that God wants to give us? I think, friends, that part of our readiness to receive from God includes letting others receive mercy and grace without judgment from us. Those who received healing, welcome, and a calling from Jesus in our text from today: they demonstrate to us the incredible vulnerability of being able accept God’s mercy. God wants to be merciful to us too. God wants to help us, because we need it. May we open our hands and our hearts, ready to receive what we need. Amen. 

Sermon for Second Sunday after Pentecost, Year A, "The Next Step: You Look Just Like Him," Matthew 10:24-39

Sermon 6/22/14

Matthew 10:24-39

The Next Step: You Look Just Like Him

Our gospel lesson this morning is a sort of hodge-podge of things, and at first, you might have a hard time threading them together, because they seem like separate sets of instructions. First, the part about disciples and teachers. Then, a section about fearing only those who can corrupt our souls, rather than those who can kill our bodies. Then finally, Jesus talks about coming to bring not peace, but a sword, resulting in family members being set against one another. But, Jesus concludes, “those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” These seemingly disconnected instructions are all part of a larger section of Matthew. Jesus is sending out the twelve during his years of ministry, giving them authority to heal and preach and teach as he has been. And before he sends them, he wants to give them instructions for their time away. These verses we read today are part of the list of things the disciples should keep in mind as they travel, and in that context, they make more sense together. Remember that they are still disciples, even though they’re preaching and teaching and healing. Remember not to be afraid, even though they’ll face threats. As long as their souls are safe, so are they. And remember, their ministry will cause people to need to make decisions about whether to follow or not, and sometimes this will result in division and conflict. But, following in the subversive, upside-down, cross-carrying way of Jesus is the only real way to find life. In context, then, it seems these verses are really quite perfect for our time together today, as we, all disciples, prepare to head our separate directions, but still seek to remain faithful in our journeying.

Have you ever seen one of those stories online showing people who look like their pets? Or maybe married couples who remarkably look very much like each other? It turns out, scientific studies actually show this to be true in certain scenarios: couples who have been together for years and years actually do begin to resemble each other over time. Even when couples “bore no particular resemblance to each other when first married had, after 25 years of marriage, come to resemble each other,” the research shows. And what’s more, “the more marital happiness a couple reported, the greater their increase in facial resemblance.” Scientists say this is because of “decades of shared emotions” between couples. The theory is that “people, often unconsciously, mimic the facial expressions of their spouses in a silent empathy and that, over the years, sharing the same expressions shapes the face similarly.” (1)  

Who do you resemble? Or who are you trying to resemble? When I saw little, about 4 years old, I asked for “boy toys” for my birthday. My brother Jim is 6 years older than me, and I adored him, and I wanted to be as much like him as possible. So I wanted to have the things that he had, so that I could imitate him all the better. I wanted to be like Jim. Of course, I’ve also read stories about people who are trying hard to look like celebrities, going to the extent of paying for plastic surgery to alter their appearances. “Toby Sheldon, 33, has spent almost $100,000 in an attempt to look like Justin Bieber. He underwent hair transplants, "smile surgery," eyelid surgery, and Botox, among other things, over a period of five years.” (2) Who are you trying to resemble? These days, one of the biggest compliments you could pay me would be to say that I remind you of my mother, or my grandfather. Who do you so admire that you would love to be told, “You remind me of….”

Jesus sent out the disciples during a time in Jewish culture where it was typical for students, when they’d learned all they could from a teacher, to either find a new teacher to learn from, or to set themselves up as a teacher. (3) Jesus says we don’t need to do that. It is enough for us to focus on being like our teacher and master. Because we’ll never learn all we can – we’re always still in process. We need to be honest with ourselves, though, about our discipleship. How hard are we working to resemble Jesus? To be more like him? Are we putting as much in as the people who are giving their all to look like a celebrity whose fame is fleeting? Are we even trying as hard as my 4 year old self, making sure we’re well equipped to be like the one we want to resemble?  Like the study about the married couples, I think it takes years of practice, of shaping our lives to look like Jesus’s life. We may feel like we start out pretty different. But years of sharing Jesus’ emotions, of feeling empathy and compassion just like Jesus does, of making the same expressions with our life that Jesus does, will result in us resembling Jesus. And that’s why Jesus asks us to do what he does, even when that means picking up the cross like he does, and putting ourselves last, and being a servant, and losing our very life like he does.

Jesus tells us that our journey to be like him might be challenging. He knows it will, in fact. He tells us that following him will be more like balancing on the edge of a sword sometimes than like strolling through peaceful meadows. Because we’ll constantly have to choose. We’ll constantly have to choose, again, following Jesus, seeking God’s kingdom, instead of other choices. And sometimes our other choices will look so good, or pull so strongly on our hearts. There’s no promise of no conflict. But he tells the disciples, and tells us: don’t be afraid. God knows even about the lives of every bird of the air. And we’re even more precious to God than that.

            Our two years together have been such a short time in the scheme of things, friends. In our time here, I think Aaron and I have most emphasized to you that as a church, we always need to remember to ask ourselves “why” we’re doing what we’re doing. Why are we coming here? Why are we willing to support a budget for the work of the congregation? Why do we want more people to come here? Why do we spend time planning and in committees? Why do we want our youth to make a confirmation here that they too choose this family? Why?  

My answer is that I choose this path because I want to be like Jesus. I choose it because I’ve found nothing and no one else that helps lead me into a relationship with God, that helps me glimpse the kingdom, than following Jesus. So I want to spend my life trying, even if so often I fail, to be as much like Jesus as possible. I hope you want that too, that you choose that too. If it is Jesus you want to resemble, I hope that you will commit with me, wherever we are, to the lifelong task of choosing again and again to follow Jesus, even when it is costly, even when we will be offered endless opportunities to follow other shinier, glossier things.     

            Be as much like Jesus as you can, so that eventually, people even say you look alike, that looking at you is like looking into the heart of the living Christ. Don’t be afraid, because you are precious beyond measure to God, who guards your soul. Know that you will have opportunities again and again to choose paths that aren’t about following Jesus. Hard choices to make. Other paths that look dazzling. Choose the way of Jesus, even if it costs you everything to do so. Even if it costs your whole life. Because in the choosing, in choosing the way of Jesus again and again, you’ll find your real life. Amen.

(1) Daniel Goleman, Long-Married Couples Do Look Alike, Study Finds, August 11, 1987. http://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/11/science/long-married-couples-do-look-alike-study-finds.html

(2) http://www.newser.com/story/185451/7-people-who-had-surgery-to-look-like-a-celebrity.html

(3) Chris Haslam, http://montreal.anglican.org/comments/apr12l.shtml?

Sermon for Second Sunday after Pentecost, Year A

Sermon 6/26/11

Matthew 10:40-42

            As some of you know I have another set of Doctor of Ministry classes coming up in July. This semester, one of my two classes is on Ecclesiology. Ecclesiology is the study of what makes church church. Now, you might think that all my classes are probably a little about that – church – and you are right. But ecclesiology is the formal word for the study of what truly constitutes church. Think about it – we have probably hundreds of denominations, some large, and some quite small, that are made up of places that say they are churches. And yet, these places do very different things – we worship in different styles. We believe different things about the sacraments. We have different understandings of who can be pastors. We have different ways of organizing. Are we all church? Well, if one of you starts meeting with a group of Christians in your home, and you sing a hymn and read a scripture passage, are you church? Why or why not? What makes church church?

            Last week, I preached about the Trinity, and we read together the fourth century Nicene Creed. In it, and in the Apostle’s Creed, we say that we believe in the holy catholic church. This is a theme that is coming up a lot in my books for class. And that phrase – holy catholic church – usually perks up our Protestant ears. I am happy to say though that the one person that actually voiced the question out loud last week to a parent to then ask to me was one of our elementary students! You might notice a little asterisk next to catholic that at the bottom of the page tells us it means universal. But the word catholic is from two Greek words kata and olou, which mean according to the whole. In other words, the word catholic emphasize the oneness of the church – we believe in one church – the whole universal church, that we are all part of, even if we are splinted into fragments. It is one church, and it is for the whole people of God.

            So our church, this particular church, First United, here in this particular place, East Syraucse, is fully church – we represent the whole church universal, the body of Christ, in this particular place. At the same time, we are a part of, a piece of, the universal church, which is made up of many members, and the many members make up the one church, the one body of Christ. So we are, at the same time, completely church, and also part of the complete church.

            Today our gospel lesson is this short little passage from Matthew. It is so short, we might be tempted in fact, to oversimplify it. To think it doesn’t have much in the way of content for us take in. I know I did: I glanced at it when I was making my preaching schedule a couple of months ago, and noted to myself: Oh, a passage about being welcoming. But there is a lot in these three little verses, and a lot more than words of welcome here. This text takes place at the end of a chapter full of words of encouragement and instruction from Jesus to the twelve. He is about to send them out on a mission – they are about to travel around, preaching and teaching in the cities and villages just as Jesus has been. So Jesus says these words to prepare them. And theses three verses are the concluding words. He says: whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.’

            Whoever welcomes you welcomes me. In Jewish law, a person’s agent or a person’s messenger is considered to be like the person himself or herself. They are a legal, or valid stand-in for the one whom they represent. So what Jesus is saying to the twelve is that they are being sent out as stand-ins for him. They are agents of Jesus and so are to be like Jesus is, acting as Jesus would, and they can expect people to respond to them, in turn, as they would respond to Jesus. But not only that, Jesus says, but grace upon grace from God means that even the ones who welcome and receive not just Jesus, but these agents of Jesus – well, they will actually receive the same blessings and benefits as if they themselves were agents of Jesus. Whoever welcomes a prophet – one of the twelve – in the name of a prophet – Jesus – will receive a prophet’s reward – being part of this kingdom of God. That means that Jesus' agents play an extremely important role. How the twelve carry out their mission, how they act and behave when they are sent out to share the good news – well, there are consequences to their actions that are important and life-changing to the people they will meet.

            Remembering that we, too, are disciples then, and that Jesus' words to the twelve also apply to us might start to make us really interested in this passage then. Remember what I said earlier about the catholic church. Our church, this particular church, First United, here in this particular place, East Syracuse, is fully church – we represent the whole church universal, the body of Christ, in this particular place. At the same time, we are a part of, a piece of, the universal church, which is made up of many members, and the many members make up the one church, the one body of Christ. We can take that understanding and stretch it further and apply it to ourselves as individuals. If we are members of this church, formally or informally, and the church in a particular place is as fully church as the church universal, and we are the body of Christ, then we are agents, you might say, of First United Church when we are in our communities, at school, or at work, when we go about our daily lives. And since, as part of our church identity, we say we are disciples of Jesus Christ, then that means we are agents of Jesus, stand-ins for Jesus, representatives of Jesus wherever we go.

            What does that mean? Well, imagine. Consider. The next time you are driving your car and someone cuts you off in traffic, you are an agent of Jesus. The next time you walk by someone who is homeless, you are a stand-in for Jesus. How that homeless person sees you – well, they are getting a glimpse of Jesus. What will you show them? For our graduates, for Kristina when she heads to college – she is a stand-in for Jesus. Whenever we decide how we will spend our money or our time, we are stand-ins for Jesus. When we have to interact with that person who drives us up the wall, we are acting as an agent of Jesus. Jesus doesn’t mention any time limits to his words. He doesn’t mention that these rules apply only on Sunday mornings or only during office hours or only when we are working on a mission project. Once we are disciples, we represent Jesus all the time. He knew it was hard work. He warned the disciples again and again about what they were getting into. They still took him up on it. Because when we are agents for Jesus, messengers who represent what Jesus wants to say in the world, that also means that be our actions, by our lives, we might be the reason that someone else claims all those blessings from God these verses talk about. So when we invite someone to church and they find a new family here, we represent Jesus! When someone is mourning and we comfort them, we represent Jesus. When we teach a child and we see them learn and grow into a gifted young person, we represent Jesus. Three little verses. So much meaning.

Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.’ Amen.

(1) http://montreal.anglican.org/comments/apr13l.shtml?