Date: June 11, 2023
Festival: 2nd Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 5)
Text: Matthew 9:9-13
Preaching Occasion: Zion Lutheran Church, Mt. Pleasant, MI, and CTKLC
Appointed Scriptures: Hosea 5:15-6:6; Romans 4:13-25; Matthew 9:9-13
Sermon Hymn: LSB #611 Chief of Sinners Though I Be
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Why do we get sick? Sometimes it’s our own fault: we eat too much and get a stomachache, we drink too much and become intoxicated, we don’t wash our hands and get some sort of virus, we eat too much junk food and develop type 2 diabetes, we drink too much pop and get a lot of cavities or rotted teeth, we do something careless or risky and break a bone, and so on. By not taking care of the bodies God has given us, sometimes we make ourselves sick. But sometimes getting sick is not our fault. Sometimes we do everything right—we eat a balanced diet, we exercise regularly, we take vitamins, get the right vaccines, and so forth—but still get sick. Sometimes it’s our genetics that work against us—nothing we did was our fault to suffer the way we do. Those who’ve suffered and died from the coronavirus didn’t do anything wrong. Sometimes, bad things just happen for no reason at all. Some of you know what this is like.
It is simply the reality of living in a sinful world. Our bodies are corrupt with sin, as is the rest of creation. Sometimes, things just go wrong in our body and the earth. Our bodies might break down for no given reason or because of old age, or a new plague sweeps the earth for no discernible reason. Sometimes bad things just happen, and it’s nothing you did to make it happen. For myself, I have degenerative disc disease, bilateral shin splints, lumbar spinal stenosis, and lumbar radiculopathy, that last of which is just a fancy way of saying problems with my sciatic nerve. Thank you, Army {sarcastic salute}.
My mother has lupus, which causes various other problems; she did nothing to deserve this. And as you all know, my wife, Emilia, was in the hospital for 3 weeks back in December to undergo three emergency surgeries. The first was to correct a volvulus, which in her case was her small bowel twisted into two knots with her upper colon; the second time was to correct an ileus, which is when the bowels are too weak to do their necessary movements, so stool doesn’t move through; and the third time was to correct an air leak in her small bowel where the surgeon had connected her. Now, she has to deal with an ostomy bag until she can get it all reversed. She didn’t do anything to make all this happen to her. From what the surgeon said, some people are just born with less tissue than others, and sometimes the organs just disconnect and become tied up.
Now think back to the last time you got sick—really sick. Maybe, in retrospect, it was your fault. Maybe it wasn’t. It doesn’t really matter. What are you supposed to do when you get sick? You’re supposed to see your primary care physician; or if it’s a life-threatening situation, you go to the ER. If it’s not too bad, you go to a local drug store and bay some medicine for easy self-treatment. But once you finally see a doctor, what do they do? They do everything in their power to make you well again; they don’t give you things to make you sicker. They give you medicine, they might recommend counseling, a change in your diet, or set you up for physical therapy, or maybe even surgery is required. When a sick person sees a doctor, that doctor’s goal is to make them well again, not sicker.
So it is with Jesus. When a sinner comes to Jesus, His goal is not to make them sicker in their sin but to make them well again through the medicine of repentance. Like all medicine, repentance has a bitter taste, but it makes you well again. In our Gospel lesson this morning, Jesus was found to be reclining at table with tax collectors and sinners. In Greco-Roman culture, when a person “reclined at table” with someone, this wasn’t how we normally sit at a dinner table today. They had these long couches with a table in between them where people laid down—reclined—on their side while they ate. It’s an extremely comfortable position, and one only did this with close friends or associates.
Jesus was doing this with sinners and tax collectors—people nobody wanted to be seen with. Imagine reclining at table with an IRS agent, or a homeless man, an addict, or someone who identifies as LGBT in your own home. These are the types of sinners Jesus was reclining with; and He did it not because He accepted their sin, but to call them to repentance. Again, a sick person sees a doctor not so he can become sicker but so he can get well. Jesus does here what physicians hardly ever do. Jesus goes to where the sick people are—the sinners—not so He can keep them sick in their sin but so He can make them well again through repentance. The Pharisees were saying what many today still say, “Oh, Jesus is sitting with sinners because He approves their sin!” It is a common apologetic people using during pride month to justify their sin. But no, the sick need a physician to get well, not remain sick; sinners need a Saviour to be saved, not remain damned in their sin.
So, Jesus tells the Pharisees, “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.'” So then, let us learn with them. Jesus is quoting from our Old Testament reading today, so the whole context is necessary, beginning with verse 1 of chapter 6, “Come, let us return to the LORD; for He has torn us, that He may heal us.” That seems strange, doesn’t it? God has torn us so that He may heal us? In other words, God wounds us so that He may heal us? What kind of God would do that? Well, a holy one.
In theological terms, we say God sometimes does His alien work so that He can do His proper work. God’s proper work is to give us His grace and love—that He forgives us our sins and provides all we need out of His Fatherly love for us. Sometimes, God will do His alien or strange work, or the work He does not want to do in order to do His proper work of love and grace.
By way of analogy, the medical doctor’s proper work is to heal people. Yet sometimes, she might have to do the alien work of saying, “I’m sorry, there’s nothing else we can do. Your disease is going to take your life. Here are the steps we can take to help make you comfortable.” The doctor’s need to break this bad news to her patient is an “alien” work—something she does not want to do—but she must if she wants to do what’s best for her patient. It’s the same with surgery. Emilia’s surgeon always tells us that surgery is always the last option, but sometimes it is the only option we have. Believe it or not, the last thing a surgeon wants to do is cut you open because there are so many risks involved. But sometimes surgery is necessary to do the proper work of healing you.
Sometimes, this is how the Lord works. In order to bring you closer to Him and receive His love and grace, sometimes God will permit you and I to suffer in weakness and frailty so that we can receive our strength from Him alone, or to realise our sin and repent and receive His mercy. Common Christian experience tells us it is not when things are well that we know God best, but when things are terrible that we know God best. Just read the Psalms.
So then, who knows why the sinners with whom Jesus is reclining are suffering the way they are? For some of them, maybe it’s their own fault. For others, maybe it’s not their fault at all. But through the alien work of their suffering, they came to know who Jesus is for them—the Great Physician of their souls to give them the grace and love of His forgiveness. So it is with all of you—whether addict, LGBT, kleptomaniac, quick to anger, greedy, whatever. Maybe your sins are your own fault; maybe at other times they’re not. And these sins do not keep you from Jesus, nor does He approve of them, but rather He desires that through these you draw even closer to Him to receive the cure of His grace.
So then, here comes the crux of the matter for Jesus, which He wanted the Pharisees to learn, from Hosea: “I desire steadfast love [which can also be translated as mercy] and not sacrifice.” This is also an odd statement. God laid forth many laws in the Law of Moses concerning the various sacrifices the Israelites had to make for atonement, so how can God say He doesn’t desire sacrifice? King David says it best in Psalm 51, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” Let me read that again, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” In the Old Testament sacrifices, God is not interested in people just going through the motions; He is most interested in a broken and contrite heart, that is, a repentant spirit. Not pride, but godly sorrow and humility. It is not so much the ritual that makes the sacrifice, but the repentant heart that is broken and contrite in their sin.
What are the Pharisees—and we—supposed to learn from this? These sinners have offered the sacrifice of their broken and contrite hearts, and God—in the very presence of Christ’s table fellowship—has given them mercy.
These are the types of sinners who are welcomed to the Lord’s Table. Do you feel broken? Are you contrite over your sins and temptations? Good, because that means the Lord’s Table is your place to dine with Jesus to receive His mercy for the forgiveness of all your sins. It is His alien work to draw you closer to Himself so that you may receive His proper work of grace. It doesn’t matter if they’re your fault or not. Christ’s blood has been poured over them all. If you’ve failed to fear, love, and trust in God above all things, His invitation to the Table calls you to trust in Him now, and He forgives you all your sins. Have you taken the Lord’s name in vain? At the Table is the power of the Gospel in Christ’s name to forgive you. Because you’re here, you’re keeping the Sabbath, because you know this is the place where God gives you forgiveness.
Or have you disobeyed and dishonoured your parents? At the Table, Jesus gives you the mercy and forgiveness of God the Father. Have you committed murder in your heart by hating someone, or have you had an abortion? There is forgiveness even for these through the body and blood of Christ. Have you committed adultery, or premarital sex, do you lust, or do you suffer from some LGBT sin? Jesus invites you to the Table to be forgiven of these as well and receive His purity. Or have you stolen, or gossiped, or slandered, or coveted? Again, Jesus offers the elixir to all these sins.
“I came not to call the righteous, but sinners,” Jesus says. This is Good News because each of us here are sinners in our own way. That means Jesus came for you. And all sinners are called to recline at table with Jesus, not because He approves of your sin, but because He desires to give you mercy. So then, as we continue the service, I invite you to kneel at the altar and offer the sacrifices of your broken and contrite hearts to receive mercy in Christ through the elixir of His body and blood, to whom belongs all the glory, forever and ever. Amen.
Bibliography
Many thanks to Rev. Dr. Rick W. Marrs for the analogy of God’s proper and alien work from his work Making Christian Counseling More Christ Centered (Bloomington, IN: WestBow Press, 2019), 45-46.
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