Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
June 11, 2023
“My heart is full.”
That’s what my dear friend, Alisa,
wrote to our planning committee at the end of our high school reunion last
weekend. We were in a group text, thanking one another for the hard work, time,
and planning that went into making the weekend happen after planning for just a
few short months. Due to some last minute hiccups, Alisa was only able to make
it to the Saturday and Sunday events, taking a quick flight into Nashville
Saturday afternoon, and another quick flight out on Sunday night. So, she was
especially grateful that she had gotten to see us and our classmates. And as
she wrote to us, her heart was full.
I understand her sentiment. I’ve
felt the same way all week. My heart has been full. My heart has been full of
gratitude – not just because we pulled it off and people enjoyed themselves at
each gathering and more and more people attended as the word spread. My heart
has been full of love for the people I traveled with through school. One friend
came only on Sunday, and we hadn’t seen each other since graduation. But we
were in school together every year from kindergarten through senior year, and we
couldn’t believe that we hadn’t seen each other in so long. It was so good to
see him and talk with him and see where our lives have taken us.
That’s a big reason why my heart has
been full. It’s been 40 years since we graduated, but on Sunday at the picnic
in the park, I was talking to people and taking pictures and at one point I
looked around and saw all these different, diverse folks gathered together,
laughing, eating, celebrating, enjoying the day and one another, and it felt
for a moment like we were in this timeless place. I know that sounds strange
and weird, and it’s difficult to explain what I mean by that. But for a second
the years we’d all lived fell away and we were once again the teenagers we used
to be.
Yet at the same moment, I could see
all the life we had lived too. 40 years is a long time, and life has happened
to all of us. The powerful thing about coming together after 40 years is that
what divided us in high school, the cliques and categories and labels that we pinned
on one another, the walls we built around ourselves back then don’t matter so
much anymore. Life has happened to all of us.
There
have been divorces and deaths and disappointed hopes. There have been failures
and successes. We’ve struggled to raise our children and we’ve cared for aging
parents. Some of our classmates didn’t live long enough to make it to this
reunion. Some of us have grandchildren, some of us have no children, and some
of us have families somewhere in-between. Some of my classmates have moved far
away, and others never left Nashville. But there we were, in this place, in
this moment, called together by our memories and our shared experiences, and
our gladness at still being here, still kickin’ after 40 years. For a moment, I
was able to look around at all the people gathered in that place, and I caught
a glimpse, a small one to be sure, and as quickly gone as it came, of what the
kingdom of God might just look like – people of all races and genders,
ethnicities, and classes, gathered at picnic tables, laughing and talking and
grateful to be together. My heart is full.
I come to this passage from
Matthew’s gospel today with my full heart and my infinitesimally small glimpse
of God’s kingdom, and I wonder if the kingdom can be found here as well.
At first glance, this does not seem
to be a series of stories about the kingdom of God in particular. We read both
a call story and stories of healing.
Jesus is walking along, and he sees
Matthew, a tax collector, sitting in his tax booth. As one commentator wrote,
he may have been sitting near the place where the fishermen would gather after
selling their catch. Before they could use whatever small amount of money they
earned to provide for their families, Matthew the tax collector was there to
make sure Rome got its take. But Matthew’s dubious profession did not prevent
Jesus from calling him. Jesus called Matthew and Matthew followed.
After this, Jesus, and his
disciples, which now includes Matthew, are eating dinner with many tax
collectors and other assorted sinners. The Pharisees who saw this asked Jesus’
disciples why he ate with such people. Jesus answered,
“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.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”
Then we move forward, past what we
don’t read today, the lesson Jesus gave about new wine into old wineskins, and
a synagogue leader – a man who would have been of great status – stops Jesus,
kneeling before him, pleading with him to bring his young daughter back to
life. The man called to Jesus and Jesus responded as Matthew did. He followed.
While they were on the way to the synagogue leader’s house, the house where his
little girl lay dead, a woman came up behind Jesus. She had been bleeding for
12 years, and she only wanted to touch the fringe of Jesus’ cloak, knowing,
trusting, that just touching a small part of Jesus’ clothing would make her
well.
But if the woman thought she could
escape Jesus’ notice, she was wrong. Jesus turned and saw her, and said,
“Take heart, daughter; your faith
has made you well.”
And she was well.
They reach the leader’s house, and
the mourners are already there offering up their best mourning wails and tears
and gnashing of teeth. Jesus tells them all to go away. This girl isn’t dead,
he says. She is only sleeping. They laugh at him, but their laughter doesn’t
stop him. He sends them out of the house, and he takes the little girl by the
hand. At his touch, the little girl got up, as alive as you and me. I suspect
that when her father saw her, his heart was full, full of love and
thankfulness. I suspect that when the woman was healed after bleeding for over
a decade, her heart was also full, full of hope for a better and different
future. It seems that anyone at that dinner party who heard Jesus’ words about
being there for the sick, about being there for mercy, left the meal with
hearts that were full; full of wonder at this man’s teachings and preaching and
full of hope that they were also included in the promise of God. And I would
think that when Matthew, a tax collector, was called by Jesus to follow, to be
one of his disciples, his heart was also full for all the reasons given above.
Maybe the kingdom is here in these
stories after all; not stated outright or proclaimed, but here just the same.
People leaving behind their old way of living and following Jesus – isn’t that
a glimpse of the kingdom? People who are otherwise categorized as not welcome
sitting at table with Jesus, basking in the mercy of God, isn’t that the
kingdom? Two people, one a religious leader, the other a woman of unknown
status, might have had little in common in their daily lives, but sickness and
death, heartache and grief, placed them on common ground. Faith that Jesus, by
one touch, could bring about healing brought them together. Surely this healing
and wholeness, new life, new possibilities, new futures, are all signs of God’s
kingdom on earth as well as in heaven!
In Genesis, we read of Abram being
called away from all that he knew and promised by God that his descendants
would be vast, and through him all families of the earth would be blessed. And
in the gospel, we read of Matthew’s call by Jesus, and even more of Jesus
fulfilling the promise of mercy, of healing, wholeness, and new life. It seems
to me that both stories remind us that just as Abram and Matthew and so many
others were called, we are also called. God calls us together to follow, to
trust, to receive mercy and, even more importantly, to show it.
That is part of the work of the
kingdom, and we are called together to do that work, to lay aside what divides
us, and to increase and grow the common ground on which we stand. We are called
together so that together we can recognize the glimpses of God’s kingdom that
are right here in our midst. We are called together to follow Jesus, and we are
called together to trust that Jesus also follows us into the heavy places and
sad places of our lives, the places where grief and suffering lives. Jesus
walks with us in those shadowed valleys.
We are called together into remembering
our past, living joyfully and mindfully in the present, and into the promise
and possibility of God’s future. Let us give thanks that we are called together
into God’s kingdom on earth and in heaven, and may our hearts be full of hope
and faith and love. May our hearts be full together.
Let all of God’s children say,
“Alleluia.”
Amen.
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