Go and learn what this means

Hosea 6.3-6 ‘I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice.’

Romans 4.18-25 ‘Abraham grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God.’

Matthew 9.9-13 ‘I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.’

 

‘Go and learn what this means…’ (Matthew 9.13)

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Today’s gospel reading reveals the deep logic of salvation, what Jesus came for: the mission and purpose of the Son of God:

I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. (Matthew 9.13b)

We heard the call of Matthew; the carping of the Pharisees because Jesus gathers sinners - people who are spiritually broken and sick - and eats with them; and the commission to go away and learn what the Lord says through the prophet Hosea, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice’.

Every day Jesus calls; he calls you and me from the things that preoccupy our lives, all those things that can obscure the deeper call to be children of God, to be his disciples.

Through the hubbub of jobs, family life, preening self-image, assertion of autonomy, still Jesus calls, calls men and women, calls you: ‘follow me’, come, follow me.

Matthew heard the call and responded to it.

Matthew’s preoccupation was his lucrative job.

Tax officials in antiquity were not the upstanding people they are today: as collaborators with the despised Roman occupiers, the local tax collectors were part of a corrupt regime, siphoning off sweeteners and kickbacks.

Yet it was the Matthews of this world who were invited to sit and dine with Jesus:

…as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. (Matthew 9.10)

In the gospels the catch all phrase ‘sinners’ meant a whole collection of people who violated the Covenant, be that through sexual immorality, financial impropriety, mistreatment of other people.

Jesus does not say that they are all fine, and that he accepts them just as they are.

No.

He acknowledges their sickness, that they are not whole, they need a physician, a healer.

Similarly, the Pharisees, who appear to themselves at least, to be totally sorted and right with God and the Covenant show themselves to be spiritually sick too.

None of us relishes a diagnosis when it comes to our health – physical or mental - but we generally accept that a doctor or health care professional will know how to diagnose the sickness and prescribe the right medicine.

The Pharisees could see the sickness of the ‘sinners’ but they could not see their own.

They need the physician, the doctor, as much as the sinners Jesus sits down and eats with.

Remember that you can appear to be a totally sorted, strong, beautiful, successful person and still be spiritually sick, in need of forgiveness and salvation.

The Pharisee in you and me needs to acknowledge that we’re no more superior to the people we look down on.

We all must wean ourselves off the pernicious habit of thinking we have it all right and that only people who think like us are right, the righteous.

The first step of returning to health, and accepting the prescribed treatment will work, is to acknowledge that there is a problem in the first place.

If I don’t acknowledge I have a problem, then I will never act so as to be healed.

When I have a headache, I take paracetamol; when I sin, do I see it as spiritual sickness, and, if I do, what healing medicine do I need for my soul?

Now, the Pharisees want to be right with God; they know that there is such a thing as spiritual health, as much as physical and mental health.

What the Pharisees miss, as much as the ‘sinners’ and many people today, is that Jesus comes to bring health of body, mind and spirit: that is truly holistic, and it is the precursor to holiness.

And it is holiness that the Pharisees seek which is good and right, yet there is a ‘but’ hovering.

Seek holiness, a good relationship with God, but acknowledge your own sickness too.

And that is why Jesus says them, ‘Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ (Matthew 9.10)

Sacrifice without mercy is like a body without breath: it is dead.

Sacrifice and mercy are not mutually exclusive; they are intimately related.

The challenge the prophet Hosea issues, echoed by Jesus, is that the first step to mercy is not to point the finger at others to declare them sinners, but to start with the acknowledgement of one’s own sinfulness and lack of superiority over others.

That’s why in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says:

So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. (Matthew 5.23,24)

The sacrifice, the offering, is wonderful and important, but it must come with the balm of mercy, reconciliation, forgiveness.

After all, Jesus will have known the text from the book of Sirach, ‘He who has mercy offers sacrifice.’ (Sirach 35.4)

Allowing mercy to shape and determine our lives is the prescription that Christ the Physician gives.

St Paul, who began life as a Pharisee, got all this when he wrote:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. (Romans 12.1)

Jesus did not die on a Cross because people were basically okay but got a few things wrong here and there.

He died on the cross, a sacrifice for sin, to save us, to heal us, to make us holy: the healing remedy is to seek His mercy, on your knees in confession of your sins, and to reveal his mercy, in loving service to your neighbour, especially those you find distasteful and uncomfortable.

At the end of every Eucharist we are commissioned with the words, ‘Go in the peace of Christ’.

We might also hear that as, ‘Go in the mercy of Christ’.

As you go remember, ‘Christ came not to call the righteous, but sinners.’

That’s you and me, as much as ‘them’ out there!