Reading: Matthew 9:9-13,
18-26
Preached at Beckley Presbyterian Church on June 5th 2005
“Who? Me? A person of faith? The sort of
person who could be a disciple of Jesus? You must be joking! I don’t have that sort of faith! I’m not the kind
of person somebody like Jesus would want around Him! A disciple. A person of faith. I don’t think so. But…”
Our readings this morning gave us three examples
of people who did not consider themselves full of faith or virtue. Jesus had
room for each of them in His scheme of things. Three very different people in
very different circumstances. If Jesus called them to be followers…. Why
not us?
Case Study 1: Matthew
Matthew was a tax collector, a task that was considered
unworthy for any decent person. It wasn’t that collecting taxes was a bad thing... but the fact was that these were
taxes paid to an occupying force… and the fact was that there were tax collectors who cheated those paying their taxes
by way of taking extortionate commissions for their services.
Was Matthew an extortioner? We don’t know. Scripture seems to say that it was bad
enough in the religious folks eyes that he was a tax collector. They are deeply
offended when Jesus goes to Matthew’s house and eats there. After all everybody
knew it was a place crawling with sinners and other tax collectors, and well, everybody knew what low life sort of people
they were!
“You can tell a lot about people from their
friends. If that’s the sort of people Jesus wants for friends, then he
could hardly be a prophet, could He?” At least that’s the way the
Pharisees’ minds worked.
That’s not the way Jesus saw things. He says that actually, it was sinners He was looking for, not the religious folk. The religious folk presumably had everything figured out, so what help could He be
to them? “Those who are well,” He explains, “Have
no need of a physician; but those who are sick.”
Jesus saw something in Matthew that the religious
folk never saw. Faith. A heart that was ready to follow anything that was real
and authentic. The capability for a faith that didn’t care what anybody
thought about it. Matthew wasn’t trying to win any popularity contests.
You didn’t want Matthew’s job if you were worried what people thought
of you!
One suspects that Matthew saw right through the
religious people’s thin veneer of righteousness and was not impressed. For
sure, he had encountered their hostility and rejection in some way or other. Jesus,
however, was not like them. Matthew recognized something authentic and startlingly
different about Jesus. Something that made it possible for the likes of him,
a tax-collector, to say “Yes, I will follow You!”
Case Study Two : An Unclean Woman
Matthew made a choice to live outside the rules
of polite and correct society. But the woman we consider next had done nothing
to transgress any moral boundaries. She was unwell with some kind of blood related
disease that rendered her unclean according to the Old Testament law.
Leviticus 15:25-33 (selected passages) - “Now
if a woman has a discharge of her blood for many days… she is unclean… everything she sits on is unclean…anybody
she touches is unclean. You shall keep the sons of Israel separated from
such uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is among them.”
“This is the word of the Lord,” explained
the Pharisees. The woman was unclean and that was that. God had spoken and only
a sinner would question the eternal, unchanging, everlasting Word of God. Either
that or you go ahead and defile yourself and die in your unclean state. Defile
the tabernacle and you’ll know about it! All of which was about as useful
to the woman as a free ticket to a concert that had just been cancelled.
She does the unthinkable. She pushes through the crowd and touches Jesus. According
to the law that meant He was unclean now as well as her! The dirty woman touches
the holy man. Surely He would have something to say about that! He knew the Scriptures! But what happens? “Jesus turned,
and seeing her He said, "Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well." And
instantly the woman was made well.”
Did you hear that? He
called her his daughter! Imagine claiming a woman like that was His daughter?
Imagine allowing Himself to be made unclean like that? The thing is, of course, that instantly the woman becomes well, which is great for the woman, but as always
the critics of Jesus would suggest that the end never justified the means. That
she was well, was irrelevant. It still went against the Word of God and therefore
it must be wrong.
Case Study 3: The Official Whose Daughter Died
This one is different again. Matthew was by choice an outsider. The woman, by the twists
of fate, had become unclean. This guy, the synagogue official, had a lot going
for him. People didn’t get to his position in the synagogue without the
approval of influential religious folk like the critics of Jesus. This man is
in with the in-crowd.
But his daughter just died. Like any Father would be, he is cut to the core by her loss. What could he do? The doctors had failed him. His religion had failed him. His prayers for his daughter’s recovery had been unproductive. All his position and power and prestige couldn’t do a thing.
But Jesus could. Somehow
he knew that. And right then, the awareness that Jesus could change things, made
everything else he stood for completely secondary. He was past caring what others
thought. In his heart was one thought, that he had to get Jesus to be with his
daughter. Now!
Rather like Noah in the midst of people who failed
to hear God, he was hearing God loud and clear, and God’s Word to him right then was “Trust in Jesus.” And like Noah, those who witnessed his actions thought it was a huge joke. “The situation is hopeless, you confused idiot… she’s dead. All is lost. Let it go!”
What happens? Jesus
went in and took the girl by the hand, and the girl got up. “Not dead,”
explained Jesus, “Only sleeping.” How do you explain all of that?
Not just the daughter’s recovery, but the fact that this leader in the
synagogue, a leader amongst the very people who were against Jesus, is turned around by God to seek out the One he has previously
condemned; seek Him out, not as a last hope, but with genuine faith that Jesus could make a difference!
Three very different people. In each case it would not be unreasonable to suggest that they could rightly say, “Who? Me? A Disciple?”
Jesus saw in each of them things that everybody else was blind to. In Matthew he saw leadership potential. In an unclean woman
He saw a daughter needing a Father’s touch to make her whole. In a father
who had lost his daughter he saw an opportunity for the exercise of great faith in the midst of hostility.
We could spend a long time exploring the different
aspects of these three faith examples. Instead, I just want to pick out one thing about each character.
Firstly, Matthew reminds me that it’s not
my place to judge people, but to seek to ignite the spark of God that is in their hearts. O.K,
so their lifestyle or their beliefs or their morals may not be everything that some of us feel is right. But if we wait for them to clean up their act to our standards, we’ll wait for ever. And who says our standards are worth living up to in the first place? At
best we are simply sinners redeemed by Grace. We’ve got nothing to boast about except the Grace of God.
Secondly, the healing of the unclean woman reminds
me that, whatever life may do to us or we may do to ourselves and each other, we share a common humanity that goes deeper
than religious rules or expectations. The Pharisees saw ‘the unclean woman’
as an impersonal object capable of defiling their holy lives. Jesus called her
‘daughter’. How we need to look at others through the eyes of Jesus
rather than the narrow perspective of our limited vision!
Thirdly, the synagogue ruler’s “Conversion
to Christ” (for that truly is what happened to him!) calls me to embrace a vision in which not simply those who are
outside the faith can be saved, but also those who have lost faith, but remain as insiders, and are desperately trying to
find meaning in what their religion has become. Maybe Jesus can say to them “No,
your faith hasn’t died, it’s only sleeping.” Under the touch
of Jesus, faith can live again!
There really is a whole lot more in these passages.
I leave you with this one thought. That whenever you give a whole lot of reasons
for not following Jesus Christ, and whenever you feel like saying, “Who? Me? A Disciple?” remember that God has
a place for you.
Whatever you have been, whatever you are right
now, wherever you feel life has taken you recently, God’s love for you has not let up. God’s
not mad with you. Christ is calling you to come as you are and welcome His companionship.
You’ve made mistakes? Well, welcome to the club! You worry that what God asks is
more than you are capable of giving? Guess what? You’re
not the only one! (But remember, God sees in you things that are not noticed
by others and which you yourself may be unaware of). So life has been unfair?
You know… sometimes that’s life.
So quit with the excuses and open your heart to
the Jesus who loved you so much that He went and died on a Cross for you; open your heart to the God whose awesome love can
embrace anybody; open your life to the influence of the Holy Spirit, breathing into your days a clear fresh breeze of the
peace and healing of God. As we meet around a table laid with bread and wine, we are offered a glorious opportunity to set
our lives back on track with God.
Who? Me? A disciple?
Yes, you.
A disciple!
Amen.
Rev Adrian Pratt
