A Sermon on Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

Preached June 9, 2002

First Christian Church, Corpus Christi, Texas

By Donald M. Tuttle

I discovered this week that my mother was a Pharisee.

Oh, not officially, of course. She isn’t Jewish and the Pharisaic party died out years ago. But that doesn’t change the fact the Mom shared at least one trait with these religious leaders. Like any good Pharisee, Mom was concerned about the company people keep.

When she found out that a kid who lived down the road had been picked up on our baseball team, her instructions were clear. "You stay away from him," she said. "He’s trouble, and I don’t want you in trouble with him."

And when she saw a neighbor boy riding on a motorcycle with a teen-ager known for his mischief, she observed: "I should have guessed. Birds of a feather flock together."

And, of course, she always had the general warning to offer, "If you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas."

Like any good Pharisee, Mom was concerned about the affect of others on the people she loved. She was afraid that her children might be negatively influenced if they hung around with the wrong crowd. She was afraid that our lives would somehow be tainted by associating with them. And it was her job to keep us from them. I guess that makes her--and maybe even most moms--like the Pharisees. They too were always trying to keep people from falling in with the wrong crowd.

We need to thank our mom’s for that guidance. It is important. And in large part, it has worked. Most of us have learned how to discriminate between those with whom we ought to spend time and those we ought to avoid. Most of us now know the difference between good company and bad.

Yet I wonder if the good that has been done hasn’t been overdone. I wonder if maybe we have so internalized that wisdom that it has shaped the way we do ministry.

In the early days of Christianity, there were four words that summarized the mission of the church. They were "proclamation," "service," "fellowship," and "worship." While mission had four parts, it was all of one piece, all were interrelated. Christians shared the good news with those they served and with which they fellowshipped so that all might worship the one God together. Everything about mission focused on bringing people--all kinds of people--together under the banner of Jesus Christ.

Yet somewhere--and I am not sure exactly where--but somewhere along the way, I think Mom got to us and we started separating proclamation from service, sharing the faith from serving others. We have even codified the separation in our church structures. We formed Evangelism or Church Growth committees for bringing people to Christ and into the church and Outreach or Community Service committees to minister to the needy. We urge Evangelism Committees to use the "principle of homogeneity," the idea that the easiest and best way to grow is to attract people just like those already in the pew. We have them target people of which our moms would approve.

Then we give Outreach Committees responsibility for serving people. Through them, we send generous checks to worthy social service agencies and ministries, we drop off at distant locations clothes for the poor, we man the Salvation Army Canteen, providing much needed food for the hungry. All of that is good and right and noble. But notice that the result--if not the intent--has been to keep a clear line between those we think we should associate with and those we don’t. Heeding the counsel of our moms, we carefully discriminate between those who we want to hang around church with and those we don’t.

What is incredible about Jesus is that his model was not the Pharisee but the Physician. He didn’t live with the premise that the sinful, the sick, the needy would infect him. He lived with the premise that he and the Gospel he proclaimed could make them whole.

Matthew was a tax collector. That, almost by definition, made him a sinner. Every day he would sit at this tax-booth, collecting the fees owed by those traveling through his area. The way it worked was this--Rome had already determined how much he had to collect. The government had already told him what he was responsible for paying. So anything more that he could ring or extort out of the people was profit for him and his boss. As you might imagine, tax collectors like Matthew were not beloved. They were not faithful to Judaism. They did not observe the Jewish law. They were, in effect, agents of the oppressive Roman government and anyone associating with them was automatically seen as a bird of their feathers.

But Jesus, as he walked along, looking for followers, looking for disciples, looking for people with whom he would share his entire ministry, called to Matthew, "come and follow me." He did not choose to address him from a distance, to preach at him from a far, to make him whole with only a word and no contact. Instead, he invited Matthew to come with him, to hang out with him. And, of course, it was not just Matthew. Jesus joined other tax collectors, other sinners, for dinner and fellowship.

While the Pharisees saw it as defilement, as Jesus lying down with dogs, Jesus knew that any good physician must stay with the sick if they are to be healed.

For a dozen years she had been afflicted. Her hemorrhaging was a slow death--physically and socially. Because of the nature of her illness, she was considered constantly unclean according to the Jewish law. That meant that not only was she banned from participating in the community of faith, it meant that anyone who came into contact with her, anyone who touched her or was touched by her, was equally unclean, equally unwelcome in the social and religious activities of the day.

But when she made her way through the crowd and touched the tassel on his prayer shawl, the shawl that set him apart as an observant Jew, he was not upset. Jesus did not turn and rebuke her. He did not upbraid her for making him unclean. He rejoiced that between her faith and his power she was healed, made whole, restored in body and to the community.

And then there was the daughter of the synagogue leader. She had died, but her father refused to give up hope. "Come," he begged, "Come, Jesus, and lay your hands on her and she will live." It was an audacious request. The mourners had already gathered. The burial was only hours away. For Jesus to go there was one thing but for him to touch the dead was another. To do so would make him unclean. It would taint him. He would not--according to the law--be able to go into the temple or synagogue or share in the life of the community. You may recall that is why in the story of the Good Samaritan the priest and the Levite avoided the man who had been attacked. If they went to his aid and found that he was already dead they would be tainted, unable to serve in the worshipping community.

But Jesus did not care. He went to the girl’s home, ordered the mourners away, took her dead hand and raised her to life. He made her whole.

While the Pharisees were busy keeping those in need at arm’s length, while they refused to associate with the wrong crowd for fear they would taint them, Jesus plunged right in, knowing that he and the Gospel he proclaimed could forgive the sinful, heal the sick, and raise the dead. Like a fearless physician, Jesus went among those most in need so that they could be cured.

Rita Springer is a contemporary Christian singer of some note. Recently she was featured in the magazine "Worship Leader." She told of her beginnings, what she hoped would happen because of her music, and how she approached it. But the most significant thing she said was at the very end of the interview. She said:

It is a good question to ask. What would happen if we ignored Mom and deliberately sought for Christ and for his church here not just those who live in homes but those who live on the street, not just those who serve on boards but those who hang out in bars, not just those who have it all together but those who are falling apart?

What might happen if we took our lessons not from the Pharisees but from the Great Physician and sought out the sick? Could it be that we both might be made whole?