This sermon was preached
on the transferred feast of St. Matthew at St. John’s Church. The readings
which inspired the sermon were the following:
Proverbs 3:1-6
2 Timothy 3:14-17
Matthew 9:9-13
Psalm 119:33-40
“Go and learn what this means,
‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but
sinners.” (Matthew 9:13)
Today we celebrate not a saint,
but a sinner—a tax collector even. Nobody—then or now—likes a tax collector.
We’ll bend over backwards to elect a politician who is utterly scum if their
opponent has run on the platform of raising taxes. And, those who figuratively
come to take our hard earned cash. Well, we do not like anybody coming in and
taking something away from us. So it is surprising that today we remember a greedy
good-for-nothing.
Today is the transferred feast
day of Saint Matthew. And, somehow it feels fitting to be celebrating a
despised tax collector just two days after quarterly taxes were due to the
Alabama Department of Revenue and the IRS. In his day Matthew was near the top
of Israel’s Most Hated list—if there were such a thing. Sure some of the hatred
towards tax collectors gets passed down to us, but back then it was even more
intense.
In Jesus’ day a tax collector
did not have a starting salary or an hourly wage. Instead, they made their
money by taking more than was allocated for the imperial tax. Devout Jewish
folk did not like tax collectors because they were making their living
dishonestly. Patriotic Jewish people living under the yoke of the Roman Empire
hated Jewish tax collectors, like Matthew, even more because they were working
for the enemy occupiers. No wonder throughout the Gospel accounts we find that
tax collectors were the social outcasts of the day. They were lumped together
with prostitutes, adulterers, and anyone who had done something to deserve
getting leprosy (as though it were under their control). But, that was not how
Jesus saw them.
The last words Jesus spoke in
today’s Gospel lesson point us in a challenging direction. This path, which we
are called to walk, leads us to responding to those sinful, wretched, and hated
ones of our own day not with vengeance, but with mercy. Through Christ we hear
God challenging us to have mercy on others instead of extracting sacrifice from
those whom we loathe. Of course, this is not easy, but as the bard, William
Shakespeare himself wrote:
The
quality of mercy is not strain'd./
It
droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven/
Upon
the place beneath. It is twice blest:/
It
blesseth him that gives, and him that takes./
'Tis
mightiest in the mightiest;/[1]
Mercy is a double gift that is most powerful in the most
powerful. It is a quality that extends from God’s own Trinitarian nature. And
yet, we live in a world that is obsessed with proving ourselves right and
others wrong. We seek to extract justice in the form of vengeance instead of
practicing forgiveness and reconciliation. We persecute the tax collectors of
our own age, even if it is simply by avoiding them or speaking in hushed tones
about them. In short, we have not gone and we have not learned that God desires
mercy, not sacrifice.
During a midweek sermon a few years ago the Rev. Evan Garner
spoke about the tax collectors and lepers of our own day. Who are the people we
avoid as a result of what they do? In our society who is it that we ignore?
What persons do we completely isolate simply because of who they are?
The answers in our culture within the Southeastern United
States appear vast. Yes we still don’t like tax collectors, but more notably we
want nothing to do with pedophiles, sexual offenders, and murders; some of us
have trouble with Muslims, While Supremacists, the Alt-Right, the Alt-Left,
Socialists, Feminists, and really anyone who has a different view from our own;
we don’t want to socialize with adulterers, criminals, certain types of
rednecks, most Yankees, and almost all foreigners; we do not know how to
approach those with special needs, those going through divorce, those who have
lost their job, those suffering from dementia, and often anyone who is not like
“us.” We may not have problems with Jesus having dinner with a tax collector,
but we sure will get squirmy if we have to sit down with our modern day version
of “them” to break bread. But, that is precisely what we must do.
Not too long ago in this part of Matthew’s Gospel account,
Jesus made a challenge. He told those who struggled with the sin they saw in
someone else to get the plank out of their own eye first. Then, and only then,
so maybe never, for none of us will ever be sinless, can we address the sawdust
in the other’s eye. As we follow Jesus this is the only way. We must seek
mercy, forgiveness, and reconciliation for ourselves and with others. That is
the true path of peace, the true course of Christ, the way of love.
On this day when we remember a Saint who was also a sinner
(hint: that was true of all of them), let us hear again Jesus’ challenge. We
are to seek mercy not retribution, for none of us is worthy to dine with our
Savior. Still he invites all of us to the table. And all who turn around and
come to meet him here, regardless of their sins, will not be turned away. Everyone
is welcome here. For that, thanks be to God.
[1] William Shakespeare, “The Quality of
Mercy” www.PoemHunter.com
accessed September 19, 2018 https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-quality-of-mercy/
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