Pentecost 2A
June 11, 2023
Hosea 5:15-6:6
Matthew 9:9-13, 8-26
INTRODUCTION
We’ve now entered into the long “ordinary” season of Pentecost – ordinary, meaning, we have no big festivals until October. We will work through Matthew’s Gospel, encountering Jesus’ ministry and teaching. Today, we will first hear about the calling of Matthew, the tax collector, and then about a couple of miracles, healing stories of two female characters: an allegedly dead little girl, and a woman who has been bleeding for 12 years.
But there is also, tucked in there, a bit of teaching, as the Pharisees challenge Jesus on his propensity to hang out with people like sinners and tax collectors. And Jesus directs them to “go and learn what it means” that God desires mercy, not sacrifice.
Turns out, Jesus is quoting today’s reading from Hosea. How many of you love Hosea?? … No one? Well, you may not find it embroidered on any throw pillows, but I do know multiple people who claim it as their favorite. Hosea was an 8th century BCE prophet, a contemporary of Micah, Amos, and Isaiah. By “prophet,” I don’t mean someone who is predicting the future, but rather, someone who is giving a direct word from God to God’s people – in this case, those in the northern kingdom of Israel. The book is set up with a marriage metaphor, in which the wife repeatedly breaks the husband’s heart with her unfaithfulness. The bit that we will hear today presents as a back-and-forth between God and Israel: first God says he’ll sit back and wait for Israel to see what they’ve done wrong, then we’ll get three verses from Israel, sure that God will take them back (but with no repentance to be seen), then God again, now lamenting how fickle Israel is. The bit that Jesus quotes is in the last verse: “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice.”
I hope that helps orient you on this difficult text. Together, our texts remind us that faith in God is not about “doing the right thing” so much as it is about the state of our hearts – our love, compassion, and mercy for one another, and our love of God. Listen for how these difficult texts might speak to your heart this day. Let’s listen.
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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I have, over the course of my ministry, referred many times to verse 12 in our Gospel reading: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” I’ve put it out there, admittedly, without really thinking too deeply about it. But this week, when I read it, I suddenly felt very convicted by it, like a smack in the face. If that’s true, if I really believe that, then one of two things must also be true:
Either, I am as good a person as I like to pretend I am, and thus I don’t need Jesus, or even, Jesus didn’t come for me, because I am already in good shape.
Or… I am sick with sin, and in need of a physician.
Neither option feels great to me!
Truth is, of course, that I know Jesus did come for me… because I also know that I am just as sick with sin as every one of you is, and everyone out there is, too. And though in the end we are an Easter people, rejoicing in the resurrection, and not a Good Friday people, wallowing in our guilt, I think it is also okay, now and then, to really sit with this reality: that yes, God loves us dearly, and, we are a bunch of sinners, in need of a physician.
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| The Prophet Hosea, by Duccio di Buoninsegna, in the Siena Cathedral (c. 1309–1311) |
To be clear, the connection between sinfulness and sickness is not a cause-and-effect thing, as in: you sinned, so now you are sick. The state of sin-sickness is one that every person, every body, every heart, lives with. Sin does not discriminate based on one’s ability or make-up. Every last one of us is a sinner in need of grace, a patient in need of a physician.
And so into this reality, Jesus gives us a dose of medicine, and it comes in the form of his reference to Hosea. He says, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” Now, it is my opinion that when Jesus says, “Go and learn this,” we ought to go and learn that! So, off we go, then, to Hosea… (You might want to have the text in front of you for this next part, since I’ll be referring to it and I’m guessing this is a less familiar passage for you!)
The first 5 chapters of Hosea have articulated all the ways Israel has been like an unfaithful, adulterous spouse – worshiping other gods, but also he mentions cursing, lying, killing, and stealing. And this behavior, he says, has resulted not only in hurting themselves and their relationship with the God of Israel, but hurting the community as a whole, and even the physical land and animals around them. “The land mourns,” Hosea writes in chapter 4, “and all who live in it languish; together with the wild animals and the birds of the air, even the fish of the sea are perishing.” In other words, the sinfulness pandemic from which Israel is suffering is destroying not only their own relationship with God, not only their relationships with each other, but the earth itself.
As an aside, this insight hit hard this week. After breathing in smoke from massive forest fires in Canada (something our friends in the west are all too familiar with), it is hard not to hear this and think of the ways our sinfulness today has affected the earth itself. We haven’t worshiped at the throne of the false god Ba-al, like the Israelites, but we have worshipped at the altar of convenience, and ease, and consumption – and add to that the practices of corporations keeping up with our demands (and creating new ones), and all of this impacts our planet in big ways. We normally don’t endure the impacts of this in such a direct way as we did this week. Effects like rising sea levels and severe weather tend to affect people on the coasts, and poor nations that can’t afford the infrastructure necessary to endure these changes in our climate that result in things like drought and fires. But this week, the very air we breathed reeked of the communal sin that has been harming our planet, and many of us experienced quite literal sickness as a result.
Back to Hosea: after the prophet has laid out the sins and effects of the unfaithful and “adulterous” Israelites, he describes God sitting back and listening for Israel’s response, and that’s where today’s reading begins. “I will return again to my place,” God says, “until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face. In their distress they will beg my favor.” And they do beg God’s favor – they always do, when they are desperate! They are just sure that God, who they know is eternally faithful, will not discard them. But conspicuously missing from their plea is what God hoped to hear: any acknowledgement of guilt, or any expressed desire to know, truly know God. They want the forgiveness and the relief from their ailments, without actually making an effort to change their hearts or their ways.
Well, God is not fooled by this. In verse 4, I can practically hear God sighing. “*sigh* What am I gonna do with you, O Ephraim, O Judah?” He goes on to lament how fleeting and vapid their devotion is. They love when it is convenient or easy, or when they will get something in return (like safety from the enemy), but just as quickly, “like the dew that goes away early,” their hearts have turned again to their own interests, to pursuit of other gods, to the same symptoms of their sinfulness that damaged their relationships, and their land, as before.
And here, finally, we get to the line that Jesus quoted, in reference to his coming not for the well, but for the sick: “I desire steadfast love, and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
You see, the people of Israel, when they “returned” to God, did so only with empty rituals. They went through the motions of proper worship (in this case, animal sacrifice and burnt offerings), but their hearts remained devoted elsewhere. They didn’t approach God with a desire to know God, but rather, to get what they needed from God and then go about their merry way. And what God desires instead, is steadfast love (or “mercy,” as Jesus says), and the knowledge of God – by which he means, faithfulness to God’s laws, to the covenant. In other words: God desires for them to live a life centered on love of God, and love of neighbor, plain and simple.
Now let’s bring it all back to Jesus, in Matthew’s Gospel. The Pharisees ask, why is Jesus eating with sinners and tax collectors? Because, a life of faith is one that is driven not be defining who is in and who is out, or which sinner is the worst kind of sinner, but of showing mercy to the outsider, of loving those deemed unlovable. Knowing and loving God means touching the untouchable, and lifting up those who are dead in sin and in need of new life. It means mercy above empty ritual, and seeking God rather than seeking personal gain.
All this we do not in order to gain favor with God, or get something from God – but because God already did this and more for us. We who are in desperate need of a physician, we who too frequently fall into unfaithfulness, we who are often quick to judge and slow to show mercy, who love well in the ways that it is easy, but not so well in the ways that are a challenge. Jesus shows mercy to us, loves us, and invites us to eat with him at his table. We are the sick, in need of a physician. And by his mercy, we are healed.
And so let us get up from our tables, and follow him, showing that love and mercy to all who are in need of a physician. And by that mercy, God’s mercy shown forth through us, may we find healing for a sin-sick world.
Let us pray… Great Physician, we come to you acknowledging our need for healing, our need for you. Grant us your mercy and steadfast love, so that we might love you in return, and offer mercy to a world in need. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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