11 Jun SUNDAY, JUNE 11, 2023
As Lutherans, we profess to believe and also understand some things quite clearly. For one, we believe and understand that following the letter of the law is not only improbable, but impossible. Second, we believe and understand that faith relies on grace. Without grace, which is freely given by God and undeserved, faith cannot be had.
Our version of Christianity believes and understands that obedience to the law does not come by virtue of our willpower. Think of willpower as exercising human will in an 
attempt to gain power. It’s just another form of taking control or being in control. It’s putting self-reliance at the core of our existence rather than dependence upon God.
Acknowledgment of God’s will and God’s power rather than our willpower allows individuals to pour energy into building a relationship with God and turn attention toward God by asking for help rather than pouring energy into judgment toward self or others. The focus then becomes turning toward God rather than tuning into the voice of condemnation. Condemnation does nothing but accuse and find fault, speciality areas of expertise for Pharisees.
If you combine all of today’s readings with the psalm, quite the sermon has already been preached. But the reason I’m taking time to reinforce what Lutherans believe and understand is because I don’t want anyone to get the false impression that Abraham, his descendants, or anyone slated to inherit the kingdom will do so by their own doing. I don’t want anyone misled by the notion that superior faith produces righteousness.
Whatever meets the definition of faith is always preceded by a thing called grace. Grace, a free gift from God, precedes anyone’s capacity to adhere to the law or share the faith of Abraham. Neither he, nor his wife, nor Matthew, nor the leader of the synagogue, nor a dead child, nor a long-suffering woman, nor we can do anything to achieve what God requires or what God promises.
Do you believe and understand that? We can do nothing to achieve what God requires or what God promises. So let’s look at how this thing called grace comes about. Let’s dissect today’s gospel reading for clues. The first thing we see is that Jesus initiates contact. He’s the first one to show up and speak, giving permission to make contact. He extends an invitation to follow, then leads the way.
Jesus doesn’t tangentially make contact, he invites himself into Matthew’s home and a scene from his daily life. The encounter appears casual, but is intentional. Jesus wants to see where we live, get to know us, our colleagues and friends. His presence in our lives creates a type of intersection where cross traffic allows God the opportunity of delivering responses and making good on whatever seems most pressing: what people request of Jesus as well as the fulfillment of any promises previously made.
The story might have easily read, “As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man sitting in a tree stand, riding his tractor, driving his truck,” rather than sitting in his tax booth. And he said to the man, “Follow me.” 
He might just as easily have said, “As Jesus was walking along, he saw a woman seated at the table, working in her flower beds, walking through the garden, or standing at the counter,” rather than sitting in a tax booth. And he said to the woman, “Follow me.” In any case, what follows after being given direction by Jesus, is choice.
As Jesus sat at dinner in Matthew’s house, many came and were sitting with him and his disciples. The presence of Christ in our home or church will attract others. Something will compel them to come inside and sit. They will want to eat and be served out of a need not only to be fed, but to be taught. They will want to be an invited guest so they, too, can experience Jesus as healer. Opening the doors of our home or church involves extending the offer of a meal. Doing so will call not only the righteous, but sinners.
Anytime one group acts like Pharisees and names another group as unworthy or unsuitable to invite inside, to mingle or share food with, Jesus says, “Apparently, you do not know what it means for God to desire mercy, not sacrifice, and must learn.” Oh, how I am learning not to define love as sacrifice and not to forget the exercise of mercy.
Recently I brought home multiple snack sized ziploc bags holding two cookies each. Some I had saved from my own boxed lunch, others were from extras leftover. Regardless, I gifted them all to Steve. You know how much he likes cookies and pie. 
Whenever we have those, they become his just like I claim other baked goods that tend to be my favorites. I often give Steve the bigger or better portion of things. I don’t mind offering sacrifices of my choosing. But when he fails to act or does something that displeases me, I often feel entitled to complain based on the sacrifices I’ve made. I tell myself that I deserve better care according to my needs.
I forget that like God, Steve can supply what he needs for himself. He can go to the store to buy all the cookies and pie he wants, but he graciously shows appreciation for what he’s given by “me.” What God states as an imperative is that we have compassion and show mercy, especially when another person forgets to do something or does something in ways that displease us.
What really got me recently was applying what the Bible says to a circumstance where I deemed ignoring my preference to the status of lawbreaking. The Bible says, “Where there is no law, there is no violation.” That means that there’s no law that says my way or your way of doing things is how things must be or exactly what must be done.
That means that everyone trying to maintain control or lessen their own anxiety through the exercise of power must realize and remember what the Bible says. “Where there is no law, there is no violation.” As a whole, that one statement explains why Pharisees, and those like them, love to protest and tout the law above the ideal of mercy.
What happens next describes another interesting turn of events. A religious leader kneels before Jesus and says his daughter has died. A person approaches Jesus rather than Jesus approaching them. Rather than the person following Jesus, Jesus follows them. That person, the religious leader, does as the psalmist wrote for the people of God according to God’s own desire.
Listen. Offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving. Give God credit for what Jesus is capable of doing. The leader of the synagogue said to Jesus up front, “I know that if you but come and lay your hand on her, she will live.” He offered a sacrifice of thanksgiving. Then, by taking his heartache and grief to God, he in effect, demonstrated what is asked of us by God: to call upon God in the day of trouble.
In doing so, the psalmist tells us that God will deliver us from the day of trouble and by calling upon God, we honor God in a way much preferred to making sacrifices, sacrifices that amount to a bunch of things God would never ask for, sacrifices that if God had need for could be supplied from everything that is God’s anyway.
So remember, we can never give God anything because everything already belongs to God, our lives, our children’s lives, our stuff, everything we think of as sacrifice or gift came from God in the first place, like those cookies I gifted to Steve, lol, like the money any of us gives to charity or puts in an offering plate.
Don’t feel condemned. Listen to the grace about to show up. Suddenly a woman who had been suffering for 12 years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his coat. God gave her not only the strength and desire, but the real opportunity of coming up behind Jesus and touching him.
God initiates, permits, and makes encounters possible.
Grace empowered the ability to say to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” This was no different that any of us realizing at any moment that we must pick up the phone and call somebody, that we must say a prayer for someone we know, that we must make a move or make a change, we must apologize, we must be different or do differently because we have been shown or been given the grace, the inspiration and power from God that makes such things possible.
Here’s where we are in the woman’s place. Jesus turns. We hear him say, “Take heart, daughter or son; your faith has made you well.” In this moment, there’s no reason for us to doubt that like the woman, we, too, may instantly be made well of something from which we have suffered a long time, something that has plagued us for more than a decade, something that has drained the literal life blood from us on a regular basis.
“Take heart, your faith, which has come to you through the gift of grace, and not your own doing or own inspiration, not only can make, but has made you well.”
Finally, the gospel reminds us that others may delay or get in the way of what Jesus intends to do. Jesus arrives at the religious leader’s house. People are there as part of a prescribed social ritual while others are present to do their job. To Jesus, their activity and behaviors are described as commotion: chaos, confusion, disruption of a more important task.
The task to be done was not to signify or bemoan her death, to note displeasure or loss. It was to show mercy and invite restoration of life. Jesus invites anyone who is not there to do that to go away. He tries to explain why what they are there to do makes no sense but they don’t get it. They are too convinced they are right and what Jesus wants to do is laughable.
What they think is irrelevant. They are put out. Jesus goes in, takes the dead person’s hand and she gets up. Once again, put yourself in her place. What is it that keeps you from living to the fullest extent?
Is it your definition of what should be happening versus what is? Is it your desire to be right? Is it your desire to prove yourself or offer sacrifices so you feel good or worthy? Is it a desire for control or willpower? What would be the first thing you could stop trying to do independently and instead turn to God and ask for help? That would honor him, you know.
One final gem in today’s reading is this: The law brings wrath. Breaking the law even makes God mad, but being mad isn’t what God desired when it came to being in relationship with us. It’s not what God desires for us being in a relationship with each other. That’s why God made it possible for Jesus to not only dine with sinners, but save them.
In the Book of Romans we read that Abraham did not weaken in faith when he considered reality. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God. He grew strong as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Everything he did was also demonstrated by the leader of the synagogue and the woman who suffered from hemorrhaging.
According to Paul, the words, “faith reckoned as righteousness,” apply not only to Abraham, but to us, as well. Faith reckoned as righteousness will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. To come full circle, what we believe and understand is that Jesus was handed over to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
Therefore, we can believe and understand Jesus as the sacrifice that makes other sacrifices unnecessary. In truth, we must acknowledge that every gift we could possibly give is but a regifting of something, especially forgiveness and grace that we ourselves have been given.
Grace makes mercy not only possible and desired by God, but a requirement that fulfills the joy of love that has traveled full circle. Let us pray.
What more can we ask, Lord, but that we enter into this full circle of love and joy that has come from you? Help us to fulfill your will by asking, depending, believing and understanding that only you are capable of inspiring, empowering, restoring, healing and renewing us, our relationships between each other and toward you. We acknowledge all your gifts as sacrifice, and offer nothing but ourselves. In Your Holy Name We Pray, Amen.