Sometimes the life of a priest is about prayer, worship, pastoral care, and all the other things many people think about when they wonder what clergy do.  Often it is also about boilers, budgets, broken pipes, roof leaks, personnel issues, or paperwork.  But once in awhile, it offers a special little gift to this priest – the joy of children in our Nursery School on the day of graduation.

This past Friday, my dog Lexi and I participated again in our preschool graduation ceremony, bidding farewell this year to 11 children heading off to Kindergarten, including Sophia Reynolds.  Professor Lexi, in her cap and gown, not only leads the procession, but offered up a few words of advice to the graduates: “do not be afraid to snag the treats and be sure to take time for belly rubs.” She then helped to clean up the floor of all the cake and icing that happened to fall. Thankfully, I stopped a child from sliding her a whole cookie. 

So, while following the call of Christ into ordination isn’t always what one expects, it is always filled with far more joy than we could ever imagine.  Call is like that – it begins with a willingness to enter into the unknown. And, these kids are leaving behind the teachers and friends they have come to know so well to begin a new adventure too.  Based on the test scores our students achieve when they graduate, I know they are, as they sang in their song “Ready to go!”

Today we hear about some other call stories – the one of Abram and Sarai in Genesis, that of Matthew in the gospel, and perhaps some others that will emerge for us as we do a deeper dive.  And today, I want to focus on the passage from the 9^th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew.

In the first part of the text we just heard, Matthew is sitting in the tax booth when Jesus walks by and says “Follow me.” While the text doesn’t say it, tax collectors in those days were not the beleaguered public servants of our day.  They were ones who collected the taxes due to the emperor– and then some – lining their own pockets.  So, as you can imagine, they aren’t particularly well liked in the community.  Was Matthew one of those crooked types who got rich off the backs of others?  The text doesn’t say. 

Yet when Jesus invites him, he leaves that booth and becomes a disciple.  Apparently, so did a few other tax collectors, as the text tells us.  What must that have been like for them?  They would lose all their income.  They did not really know what lay ahead for them – neither, for that matter, did any other follower of Jesus.  I mean, imagine if Jesus just walked into some CEO’s office, said “follow me,” and they got up – leaving laptop and everything else behind, and walked out the door with him?  That sounds crazy, right?  Well, that is what Matthew did.

But there is more going on here, because people like Matthew were understandably considered traitors of the people.  Imagine if that CEO had been in charge of a pharmaceutical company that profited off the opioid addiction and death of millions.  Jesus, what are you thinking?  Well, that is what Jesus did.  But wait, there’s still more…

Matthew and others like him – tax collectors, other pharma CEO types, and the like, end up having dinner with Jesus too.  And – here’s what we sometimes miss – this isn’t in some town far away where Jesus is traveling.  This is in his hometown, in his own home.  The opening of the chapter begins in this way: “…and after getting into a boat he crossed the sea and came to his own town.”  This Matthew may have been the very guy who ripped off Jesus and his family through the years – who profited on the backs of his friends and relatives in town.  It kinda puts the next part in perspective.

The local religious leaders were not happy about this and question Jesus about it (I have to wonder if there were more than just those Pharisees who thought that way too).  And to them Jesus 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.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” 

Now, this is where it pays to actually read the text, not just hear it.  When he says “Go and learn what this means,” he isn’t referring to what he just said – that bit about “Those who are well have no need of a physician…”. He is referring to what he is about to say: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” 

One thing I have to note here before I continue is that this is not Jesus condemning Judaism as a faith.  In today’s context, he would say the same thing to many, many, Christian leaders, to be sure.  That absurd antisemitic reading of the passage aside, a better translation might be this: “I desire mercy, not purity,” which makes the next part more understandable: “For I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners.”  And folks, that’s a good thing for us all.

Because if Jesus didn’t eat with sinners, he’d be eating alone!  The same is true for all of us.  If folks are looking for perfect people, they better look elsewhere, because they sure as heck won’t find them in a church.  And the truth is – they won’t find them anywhere else either. 

God didn’t create perfect people, but God become incarnate to dwell among us that we might come to know that perfection isn’t what God desires of us.  We aren’t meant to be perfect – we are meant to love – radically and unconditionally.  And that leads us to the rest of the story, because that type of love is what Jesus was offering in that moment, and it opened doors even he did not expect.

As he walked along, a temple leader came begging him to revive his daughter who had just died.  With the same words that were used for Matthew, Jesus got up and followed him.  As he walked along, “a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak.”  She did this because, as the text says, she believed that just by touching something that touched him, she would be made well.  And – she was.  But more than that, Jesus turned to her, looked at her, and affirmed her.

There is a lot packed into these twin stories, but one thing that needs to be understood is that these two people are different in more than just their gender and situation.  The man had agency to come right up to Jesus, the woman did not.  A woman in that time and culture who was bleeding was considered impure.  She would have been kept out of the temple those 12 long years, and most likely pushed to the margins of society.  It was a brave thing for her to do – going into a group of people on the chance of touching even just the fringe of Jesus’ cloak. Bravery born of desperation – for inclusion, for grace, for mercy, for love – but maybe she also heard about the radical welcome Jesus had given to Matthew and the others in his own home.

Perhaps we can hold these two stories – of Matthew and this woman – in our hearts and minds in these difficult days.  Let’s give her a name though, she deserves one.  Let’s call her Leah, a Hebrew name which can mean weary or grieved, for she was certainly that, not only from her physical ailments, but by the marginalization it brought her.

Matthew and Leah are two different call stories – both are the story of the church today.  Matthew is all of us – flawed people, who have erred along the way, hurt others intentionally or not, and perhaps have been deeply hurt ourselves.  Jesus called to us and we followed.  Jesus welcomes us to this table, and we eat. 

Leah is called to Jesus too, for healing and for love, but approaching him seemed dangerous – the doors of the church have not always felt like a welcome place for her.  She is the trans teen, the gay man, the addicted executive, the immigrant or refugee, the homeless woman, the elderly WWII vet with PTSD, the child with autism who is louder than some think they should be, the lonely, the infirm, the lost, and the last of our society.  They are in our hometown too, as Leah and Matthew were in Jesus’, yet sometimes it is hardest to see clearly what is too familiar to us; or, even more likely, they have been pushed into the shadows so we don’t see them at all.

As for their call and ours, Matthew certainly was not worthy of the call of Jesus – none of us are.  That’s when we need to remember this quote by the late and great Bishop Barbara Harris: “God doesn’t call those who are worthy.  God makes worthy those whom God has called.”

And like Leah, our healing by Christ, here at this table, will give us all that we need to lead the life he calls us into when we leave these doors. 

Which is a good thing, because Jesus is saying to each of us today the very thing he said to Matthew: “Follow me.”  He is turning to affirm our desire for grace and love as he did with Leah that we may be healed and live into our lives as his followers.

And, when Jesus calls us – it isn’t into a life of safety, but of dangerously prophetic witness.

When Jesus calls us – it isn’t into a life of ease, but of discomfort with injustice.

When Jesus calls us – it isn’t into a life of purity, but of unconditional love born of redemptive grace.

When we answer the call of Jesus to follow him, it means we leave from here – from this table – to seek him out in the world.  In this very gospel, he told us where he could be found – and it was in all those society and the church has for so long cast aside.  We must, as Jesus did, search to find the Matthews yearning for a new path.  We must turn toward the marginalized who seek healing and affirm them with love as he did with Leah. 

Today that means we hear the cries of those in concentration camps like Delaney Hall, and call for their immediate release.  It also means we see the Matthew there too.  I remember standing just about 15’ from the federal agents outside of that horrific facility and looking directly at each one of them.  This was in the hours before that close contact was cut off.  I prayed for a turning of their hearts, and for a change in the nation toward compassion and mercy.  Perhaps these agents believed in what they were doing.  Perhaps they were in need of the signing bonuses our government was offering to enlist them.  Just like with Matthew, we will never know.  Just like with Matthew, I will pray that they hear the call of Christ toward a change in life.  

And inside the cells we will find Jesus, from where we will hear him call to us to follow him.  For it is Christ himself who is given rotted and infested food.  It is Christ himself who is, like Leah, in need of medical care and suffering for so long. He is reaching out from those cells in the hope that we will see him and hear his call to offer love and grace to the suffering inside.  And we will answer that call and stand in solidarity with them, their families, and against our nation’s hateful and oppressive acts.

We will stand too with LGBTQ+ people in this Pride Month, that they may know deep within that we see them, we affirm them, we love them, and we welcome them.

We will stand with people of color across our nation whose voice is being eradicated by new Jim Crow voting maps.  This after fighting and dying through decades upon decades for the rights our nation’s highest court has now stripped away from them, and whose history of oppression our nation’s leaders want to eradicate.  We will not allow them to be pushed aside so that white people can feel more comfortable.  We will not stand by while they are stripped of their voice. 

We will stand with women and listen to them as much as we have listened to powerful men.  We will hear their stories of being victimized, assaulted, abused.  We will not allow convenience or political expediency to privilege men’s voices over theirs. We will turn to them, affirm them, and offer grace to them.

And when others, particularly the ones who seek to align Jesus and our country with power and wealth and whiteness – the so-called Christian Nationalists – come to us denouncing what we are doing, we will say:

“Go and learn what this means,

‘Jesus desires mercy, not sacrifice.’ For Jesus wants us to welcome the immigrant, love the oppressed, and heal the brokenhearted.  What part of that did you not understand? 

We will say, “Go and learn what this means…

For Jesus came to call not the righteous but sinners,” and you, my brother or sister, might want to consider which of those two categories you find yourselves in right now, as we pray deeply for you.  

We will say, this is what it means to follow Jesus! 

This is our faith, our baptism, our call, our life!

And we are ready to go!

Come and follow him with us – it is not too late.  It never is.

Amen.

The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox

Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge

June 7, 2026

The Second Sunday After Pentecost – Year A/Track 1

1st Reading – Genesis 12:1-9

Psalm 33:1-12 

2nd Reading – Romans 4:13-25

Gospel – Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26