Sermon for Sunday, July 14, 2024
The Rev. Megan Collins
We’re in a sermon series called “Things people said to Jesus.” In this series we are looking at different things people said to Jesus during his ministry and how he responded to them.
Today we will be reading a story from the gospel of Matthew, chapter 9.
“As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him. And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax-collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?’ But when he heard this, he said, ‘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.’”
Let’s talk about Matthew for a minute. Matthew was a tax collector. That’s not a great job today. If you are at a dinner party with someone, and you ask what they do, and the answer is “I work for the IRS" literally no one is going to say “Oh wow, that’s so great! I LOVE the paying taxes!” Being a tax collector is not a popular job now. In Matthew’s time, tax collectors were hated. They were notoriously dishonest. They were sent out to collect people’s taxes personally. It was well known that they would add a little (or sometimes a lot) to what was owed and pocket the difference. They were dishonest and they were thieves. No one liked them, especially the religious leaders like the Pharisees.
Matthew is one of these dishonest thieving tax collectors. Jesus looks around in the crowd, sees Matthew and says, "Come, follow me." It’s not like Jesus didn’t know who he was. Matthew was sitting at the tax collectors’ booth. But still, Jesus calls him over. Then Jesus goes to dinner at Matthew’s house, not only with Matthew but with a bunch of his tax collecting friends.
Jesus, the son of God, having dinner with some of the worst people around.
The Pharisees have a fit. They question the rest of the disciple and really Jesus too. “Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?” Why on earth is the leader you are following around eating with those thieves?
When we read a story in the Bible, we tend to naturally identify with one of the characters in it. I’d love to think I’m like Jesus but, in general, we’re never Jesus in these stories. I would even love to be Matthew in this story. But I’ll be honest . . . I could be with the Pharisees. If Jesus were here today, and I saw him at a table with some people I knew were making a fortune off stealing from my friends, I would have some questions about the company Jesus was keeping. But look at what Jesus says to them
“Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick. . . I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”
That’s what I’d like us to talk about today, Jesus’ response to their question. "Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick. I have come to call the righteous not sinners.” The Pharisees don’t get why Jesus is eating with a bunch of sinners, but that’s not even the biggest problem for the Pharisees here. Their real problem is something else. It’s why I think I am like them, and why I think you are too. Not only do the Pharisees not understand why Jesus is having lunch with the “sick”, the sinners, but the Pharisees don’t realize that they are sick too.
The Pharisees think they are doing pretty well. They are following the law. They are as righteous as it gets. They don’t need forgiveness or grace or all those other things Jesus talked about. They're spiritually healthy (or so they think). The Pharisees don’t think they need Jesus, because they don’t think they are sick. You and I? We don’t either.
We can’t admit that we are sick.
There is a show many of you have seen called Friends that was really popular back in the 90s. There is one scene when Monica, one of the characters, gets sent home sick from work. I’d like us to keep in mind what we just talked about, as we watch.
This is us. With our sin.
We aren’t sick. We don’t have sin to deal with in our lives.
We are fine-d! We are fine.
Our friends see our sin, and tell us we are sick.
Our coworkers see the mess in our lives, and tell us we are sick and ask us to go home.
Our sin starts oozing out of our nose and someone offers us a tissue.
But we aren’t sick with sin!
Having sin is for weaklings and pansies!
I’m fine!
But you are not fine.
We are not fine.
We are sick, with sin.
I don’t know what that sin looks like for you. Maybe it’s a little sniffly sin, like a little too much gossip, a little envy of the people in your neighborhood. Maybe it’s a full blown sin flu. You are cheating on your spouse. You are harboring hate in your heart toward a group of people. Your anger is off the chain. Some of you are at the scratchy throat stage of whatever sin has got your number. It’s there but you can’t really see it yet. Some of you are having a raging fever of sin. It’s taken over your life. But all of us, you and I, and every human, are sick from sin. No one is perfect. Everyone has sin in their life. Even though everyone struggles with it, we don’t want to admit it, because we are fine. We enable each other in this denial. We are in a group of people, and one of us has the courage to admit something we struggle with. The others, who struggle with the same thing, jump in to assure you that it’s not a problem. If you are sick, they are sick too, and no one wants to admit it.
You can’t get better if you don’t admit that you are sick.
The first step to dealing with the sin in your life is admitting it’s there, not making excuses for it, not blaming someone else in your life for your behavior, not shoving it down and pretending it’s not there. But just being willing to admit it, being willing to say “I am sick.”
The next step to getting better is this:
You have to go to the one who can heal you.
That’s what the people at Jesus’ dinner were able to do. The tax collectors and sinners at Matthew’s table for dinner that night weren't pretending they were good people who had their lives all together. They were tax collectors. They knew it. Everyone else knew it. But they had come to dinner with someone who could help them make a change. Sometimes sniffles take care of themselves. But when you are really sick, you need to go to the doctor to get better. You have to go to the one who can heal you. When it comes to sin, that’s Jesus.
It sounds so simple, but we find all kinds of ways to make it more complicated than that, and we end up still stuck in our sin. Let’s talk then about those obstacles, the things that keep you from actually getting well.
You go to the wrong place.
When it comes to sin, the only one who can actually heal us is Jesus. Jesus wants you to bring it all to Him. I know it’s gross. I know our sin is like the disgusting stuff that comes out of our nose when we have a cold. Why on earth would we want to show that to Jesus? He’s so good and righteous and we are so gross and sticky. But Jesus wants you to bring all your sin to him. He has asked you to do that, and He is the only one who can forgive you and then help loosen its hold on your life. But more often than not we pass right by Jesus and go to something or someone else.
Maybe we’re a little sick, but we don’t need to get Jesus involved.
We’ll go looking for healing somewhere else. Maybe you go looking in the world. It tells you if you just buy one more thing, then you’ll be happy and won’t envy other people anymore.
So you try it. You buy one more thing, and for a few minutes, it works! You feel satisfied. You’re healed! But then a week later, envy creeps back in, and the guilt that comes along with it. Then you’re right back where you started. When we deal with the sin in our lives based just on advice from the world, it’s like taking a potion from some weird friend of yours when you are sick. Maybe it will help, but it will probably just make you sicker. It matters where you go to find healing.
My primary care doctor is truly amazing. He is thoughtful and brilliant and offers excellent medical advice. Most doctors are thoughtful and brilliant and have great medical advice. But the last time I was sick, instead of going to the doctor I knew I could trust, I went to a clinic. Again I’m sure most of the doctors there are very good, but this is how the conversation went with the person I met:
Me: Hi. I have this cough that I can’t get rid of and I’ve been pretty sick with it for three weeks.
Doctor: What do you think it is?
Me: I don’t know . . . that’s why I am here.
Doctor: Well, what do you want me to prescribe you?
Me: What do you think I need?
Doctor: What would you like to take?
Me: Ummmm…. A steroid I guess?
Doctor: Sounds good. Anything else?
If you really want to be healed, you need to go to the one who will tell you why you are sick, and how to get better, not just ask you what you want to do. When it comes to sin, only Jesus can do that. The next thing that gets in our way is this:
We don’t follow the prescription.
Maybe you have admitted you are sick with sin. You can see clearly the mistakes in your life and how it is hurting you and other people. You know you need Jesus, so you lay all your sin and brokenness at his feet in prayer. When you do this, you will be forgiven. You will experience the life changing grace of Jesus Christ who took all of your sin to the cross so that you could be forgiven. (Thanks be to God!)
Maybe you feel the weight lifted from your shoulders. You feel the relief of knowing how much God loves you. You remember that God loves you so much that no matter how much sin is in your life, you can be forgiven. Amazing.
Maybe you went to God and prayed, poured out your sin and asked for forgiveness. Then you start to close out your prayer with a grateful Amen . . . and God pulls you back into the examination room.
Before you go, let’s talk about how to make some changes in your life to make sure you get healthier.
Repentance doesn’t just mean admitting we are sick and asking for forgiveness.
It means turning around, and going in another direction, making changes in our life so we don’t just get the same sickness over and over again. Jesus writes you a prescription of the things to work on, to change, to deal with, to really get healthy spiritually, then we just don’t it.
We don’t follow the prescription.
I get it. I am notorious for getting a prescription from my doctor and not wanting to take what was prescribed. Sometimes I don’t like the way the medicine makes me feel. I don’t want to do another test. I don’t want to eat more vegetables and work out every day.
But if you really want to be healed from sin, you have to try to follow the prescription.
The good news is these prescriptions aren’t a mystery. You don’t have to wait for God to tell you what to do in prayer. The Bible is full of them.
Some great examples from Jesus can be found in Matthew 5.
21 ‘You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not murder”; . . . 22But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister,* you will be liable to judgement; and if you insult* a brother or sister,* you will be liable to the council; and if you say, “You fool”, you will be liable to the hell* of fire. 23So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister* has something against you,24leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister,* and then come and offer your gift.
Diagnosis: anger
Prescription: Go reconcile with the people in your life
27 ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.”28But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.*30And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.*
Diagnosis: Lust and adultery
Prescription: Pluck out your eye? Not literally. But get rid of anything that is tempting you: Those lingering glances with a coworker. Those text messages that have gotten a little too friendly. The media you consume. Pluck it out.
If we don’t follow the prescriptions, we’ll just end up back sick all over again.
Let's talk about one more thing that gets in our way. Let’s say you have admitted you are sick with sin. You have gone to Jesus as the one who can heal you. You even are trying to follow the prescription. The last thing that gets in our way to be truly healed from our sin is this:
You think you are the doctor.
There is nothing more tempting than someone else’s sin. Look how sick that person is. I bet I could heal them. This impulse is good. We should all want to support one another in dealing with the sin of our lives. But here’s where we get it wrong: we are not the doctor.
It is not up to you to diagnosis other people.
It is not up to you to heal the sin in someone’s life.
You are not the doctor, or the judge, or the healer.
We are fellow patients.
Here is how we can help. You can, as a fellow patient, tell them what made you well. There are people in your life who are sick, just like you are. You can see it because it’s always easier to hand someone else a tissue than address your own sin. But maybe you really do care about them. Maybe you can see how they are struggling. You can see the hold sin has on their life. You start to think “You know, I saw Jesus help me with my sin. Maybe that would qualify me to fix theirs.”
It doesn’t. You did not redeem anyone through your death and resurrection. You do not have the power to redeem someone’s sin. Your judgment of them is not helpful. You are not a doctor. As a fellow patient, what you can do is tell them your story. Tell them about the sickness and sin that is in your life, and how Jesus is helping you get well.
You’re probably already doing this about actual medical things. If you get great medical care somewhere, you are definitely going to tell people in your life. "Hey, I had a pain in my knee like that too! I went to this great doctor, and she did surgery and it really helped me. Now I’m starting to feel better. "
You can share your story with them . . .but you don’t offer to do knee surgery for them.
We aren’t doctors. We are fellow patients, who are helping other sick people to find healing, when they’re ready.
A part of doing this well is remembering how long it took you and I to admit that we were sick when we got started in our walk of faith. Remember how long we insisted we were fine before we finally asked God for help. Your job is to tell other people who is helping you get well not to heal them yourself, and not even to throw them in your car and force them to go to an appointment People will come to God on their timing, and God’s, not yours.
You and I, we are not fine.
But the good news of the gospel is that God came for us,
Exactly as we are,
Gross and sticky and sick,
Because you are loved that much.
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