Welcomed, healed, restored, forgiven
Readings: Matthew 9. 9-13, 18-26
In our Gospel reading today we see Jesus encountering quite a few different people in quick succession, but the thread running through them all are two themes: who Jesus has come for, and what he has come to bring them.
Jesus’ first encounter is with Matthew, the same Matthew, we believe, whose name is attached to this Gospel. Here he is, meeting Jesus, sat at his tax collectors booth. Now if you think you grumble about HMRC in our day, it’s nothing compared to tax collectors in Jesus’ day. They were gathering taxes for the Romans, the occupying force, and so if you were an Israelite doing this job you were viewed as a traitor, you were hated, you were an outcast from respectable society. And to make matters worse, to become a tax collector you essentially had to bid for the job by how much tax you reckon you could get from people, so were an exploiter of your own people too. And on top of that tax collectors had a bit of a reputations for taking more than they were meant to in order to line their own pockets, they were robbing their people too.
And so you can perhaps see why, when Jesus calls Matthew to follow him, and goes and has dinner at his house, why this caused such a stir with the religious leaders. You only ate with people who were on your level, it was a sign of welcome and inclusion when you ate together. And so for Jesus, as a respectable teacher and preacher, to be eating at the house of this man, surrounded by more people like him, other tax collectors and ‘sinners’, those whose lives were far from respectable, is a scandal. But Jesus responds that he is here for the sick, those whose lives are not healthy, those who are haven’t got everything sorted out. He’s not here for the morally upright, those who are certain of their goodness and respectability, he’s here for those who know they are far from good, who know their weaknesses and failings. Know their need of the forgiveness and mercy of God. That’s the first scene.
The second scene comes in two parts, and I want to look at the middle part first; the woman who has been bleeding for 12 years. It’s awful in itself isn’t it, the pain and suffering she has endured for over a decade. But on top of that, according to the Law this woman was unclean, and so everyone else would stay away from her to avoid themselves becoming unclean too. So not only is she suffering physically, she’s also an outcast, she’s isolated and alone. So strictly speaking she really shouldn’t be in this crowd, she really shouldn’t be touching Jesus, because if she does Jesus becomes unclean. And yet Jesus doesn’t become unclean, instead she becomes clean, in touching his cloak uncleanness doesn’t flow from her to Jesus, but instead healing and wholeness flows from him to her. She is both healed from her suffering, and welcomed back into society, restored to her community.
We see in these two encounters the people Jesus has come for, the outcast and excluded, those who are outcasts because of what they have done, like Matthew, and those who are outcasts because of fear and distrust, like this unnamed woman. Jesus has come to bring them back into the fold, to restore them, bringing healing and wholeness and life.
But sat around the story of this woman is another encounter. This time with someone who is very respectable, a synagogue leader, a religious leader. He doesn’t quite fit with the states of the other two does he, he’s the opposite of an outcast. And yet his daughter has died, his little girl is gone. The heartbreak and the pain he must be suffering, the awful crushing weight of grief, made so much worse than normal grief by the fact that this is all wrong, she should have been burying him many decades later, not him burying her. And yet he comes to Jesus, comes with faith, that if he lays his hand on her, this little girl will live.
And perhaps as they are hurrying to his house, and this woman touches him and is healed from her bleeding his faith is quickened, his hope increases. If this woman is healed simply by touching his cloak, could this same man raise his little girl from the dead? And so we arrive at the house, the mourning rituals have begun, and Jesus throws them all out. And then with no flourish, no dramatic words, he simply takes her hand and she wakes up. The Lord of heaven and earth simply takes her hand and she’s alive.
So what does this Father have in common with the woman and with Matthew. All three knew their need of Jesus. All three of them saw in him what they needed, and they saw how generous he is with those who know their need of him. What we see in our Gospel is that Jesus is here not for those whose lives are perfect, the all put together, those whose lives are going perfectly well, the respectable and those who know they’re better than everyone else. Jesus is here for the struggling, the suffering, those who are hurting, those who feel they’re too far gone to be forgiven, those who are at their last straw. He’s here for those who know their lack, who are searching for an answer, because he is the answer, always and every time, he is the answer.
You don’t have to have it all worked out, or pretend that you do to approach God, he’s not here for the righteous. Instead we can come to him being honest about the fact that we don’t have it all worked out, that we’re hurting, that we’re sinners who mess up and hurt others and ourselves, and yet we can come to him as we are because he’s come for us, the spiritually sick that he might heal us, the sinners so we can be made righteous.
That’s who Jesus has come for, but what has he come to bring? Well for Matthew it was restoration and forgiveness, for the woman it was healing and wholeness, and restoration too. For the father of that girl it was life itself. What Matthew is telling us in these encounters is that this is what Jesus has come to bring all of us. Restoration, restored back into relationship with the God of the universe, restored to relationship with our fellow human beings in the church as we are gathered together as God’s family. Forgiveness, a new beginning, a new start, cleansed and forgiven from all that we’ve messed up in the past. He’s come to bring healing, not necessarily physical healing, although at times he still does, but deeper healing, the healing of our souls, of our hearts, the deep cleansing and healing we need as he gently and tenderly puts us back together again from the suffering we have caused for ourselves or received from others.
And he brings life, new, deeper, more abundant life, both now and in the age to come. Life connected into the very life of God. You can imagine life without God as trying to run on batteries, it works but there’s a limit to how much power you can get out of a battery, it’ll only push out so much at a time, and eventually of course the battery will run out, and that’s the end. But Jesus has come to restore us to God, to connect us back to God through his death on the cross, as our sins are forgiven and washed away, as we are reconnected, it’s like being connected to mains power, which is far more powerful, and will keep on going as long as the supply exists. This is the life Jesus brings, connected to God both for this life in the here and now, and then when we die in this world, live forever with him in the world to come.
Do you know your lack? Do you know your need for something more? Jesus has come for people like us. People who mess up and sin, so that we can be forgiven. People who are overlooked or outcast because of what we have done or because of fear and distrust, so that we can be welcomed back in. People who are suffering and struggling, so that we can know his healing and wholeness. People who feel like we’re dead, like there’s no future or no hope, so we can know his life in all its fulness. So if you don’t know Jesus today, if you don’t know him for yourself, may you know that his hands are outstretched to you offering this to you, if only you would take his hand. And if you do know Jesus this morning are there parts of your life that you’re keeping from him? Parts where you’re trying to sort it out on your own before you let him in? Know that he longs to come to those places too to bring his healing and wholeness, we don’t need to sort it out first.
Even now, in our day, as we gather this morning, Jesus is in the business of welcoming people like us, so that we can know the new life that he brings, all it takes is acknowledging our lack, and putting our trust in him for the rest. To turn from trying to do things our way, to leaning on him for a better way.
Amen.