“I Have Come to Call… Sinners”

A sermon based upon Matthew 9: 1-13

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, BA, MDiv, DMin.

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership, 

Fourth Sunday in Lent, March 22th, 2020

One day three doctors were in a conversation about what they considered to be the biggest contributing factor for most people's poor health.

The first one said he was convinced that the key to most people's poor health was how much food they eat.

The second physician said she did not agree. In her opinion the biggest factor is not how much they eat but what they eat.

Finally the third doctor injected his thoughts on the matter saying, "As important as diet is, the biggest factor in people's poor health is not how much they eat or what they eat. The biggest factor is what's eating them."

And you know, the third doctor was right. Poor habits with food and many others substances has a lot more to do with what’s in our heart which influences what we put in our stomachs.  That is not only true for our physical health but it is also true for our spiritual health.  The Great Physician, Jesus Christ, says that whats really eating us – is unconfessed and unforgiven sin.  It’s something we hardly even talk about anymore, but that doesn’t mean it’s not real.

Last week, we spoke of ‘following Jesus as staying the ‘flow of God’s grace’.

This week, Matthew’s gospel is going to tell us more specifically how to get into God’s forgiving, graceful flow?  Where is flow of grace headed?  Where is Jesus going?  Where does Jesus want us, his people, his followers, and his church to go?  It’s not just to let everything go and pretend that sin doesn’t matter.  Where God’s grace wants to carry us is right here, before us, in this story Matthew tells.   Are you ready to go where Jesus wants you, wants us to go?

YOUR SINS ARE FORGIVEN…

Where Matthew’s gospel takes us, took 9 chapters to unwrap.  In Mark’s gospel the same story happened up front, right after the introduction in the second chapter.  Matthew took a detour, describing Jesus as the new Moses and giving us appetizers.    

But now, as Matthew comes to the main course, he tells us how this miracle happened right in the house where Jesus was staying.   He doesn’t fill us in on all the details like Mark did, but Matthew gets right to the point.  He gets straight to the heart of why Jesus matters to help us know what God is most about.

In the well known story, a paralyzed man is brought to Jesus in hopes of being healed.  Everyone knows that Jesus is a healer.  But the first words off Jesus’ lips isn’t “get up and walk” or “be healed” but it’s the shocking announcement: “Your sins are forgiven”!   

This causes quite a stir because Jesus’ agenda is different than everyone expected.  The sickness Jesus had come to heal is human sin, sin against God, sin against others.   No human had ever forgiven sins like this before.  This was new.  This was bold.  The experts said it was even blasphemous.  Only God could do this.  They were right.

What do we make of this unexpected miracle? 

Well, it really doesn’t matter what we make of it.  The only thing that matters is what Jesus says and does.  I’m not trying to smart, just direct and to the point.  Jesus is revealing his own agenda and his own authority too.  He wants us to know that he has the authority to forgive sins.  This is why he has come.  This is what he’s about.  He’s not come for the primary reason of healing bodies. He’s come to heal souls and to mend the human heart.  He’s getting at what’s eating us.  He’s come to be the doctor of the soul.

The objection to Jesus’s forgiving agenda by this Scribe was quite understandable.  Only God had the power to forgive.  What this Scribe didn’t yet understand is that Jesus is God.  He is God’s Son sent for this this very reason— to forgive our sins.  This is not hidden to us today, but it was to then.  What it means, however, and what it should mean for us, might still be hidden somewhere deep in us.  It might be hidden in us, or we might be hiding from this truth.  This is what this sermon is about.  God’s Spirit is still revealing Jesus’ agenda still today.  This Spirit knows our hearts, even more than we know them ourselves.      

But for now, let’s focus on this Scribe.  We shouldn’t fault him for missing the forgiving agenda of the Christ.  The Bible hadn’t predicted anything exactly like this.  Prophets had envisioned a coming Messiah and a suffering servant.  Most thought this to be Israel.  Israel was suffering under Roman rule.  God would redeem his people from their suffering and sins.  But this Scribe couldn’t yet fully see or know exactly what God was up to.  Who can know the ways of God, right?  God’s ways are not our ways.  His thoughts are not our thoughts!  The Spirit goes where it wills.  God throws curve balls.

But what we can and should fault this Scribe for, and often us too for that matter, is how we also fail to acknowledge Jesus’ claim of authority on our lives.  This Scribe witnesses this paralyzed man healed, but it doesn’t move him to have faith or to follow this Jesus or to accept this new agenda.  He’s stuck on what he chooses and refuses to believe. He can’t allow himself to be drawn into God’s new flow of grace.  Rather than rejoicing with the man who now could walk, he grabbing the limb of the law and deciding to resist what he’s against. He won’t let go and try to discover who and what God is for.   Will you?

Does anything keep you from being drawn into God’s saving agenda today?  We can even agree with it, but fail to be drawn into where it should take us.  We can be stuck in our own agendas, our own perspectives, our own prejudices, and all our own stuff.

Our minds and hearts can be clouded and crowded, so that we fail to find the flow Jesus is calling us to step in to. 

For not only does Jesus forgive sins, he wants us to forgive each other too.  God forgives us as we forgive.  This is how the current of Grace flows.  Jesus makes God’s work, our work.  He came to make God’s ultimate concern, our ultimate concern.  Jesus came to invite us to step into the flow of forgiving grace and forgiving love.  And this is not only a saving grace for when we die, but Jesus dies to call for us to make forgiving grace our agenda for our living too.  How do we do this?

IT’S THE SICK WHO NEED A DOCTOR.

The Scribe didn’t want to step into the flow but Matthew, the tax collector did.  Can you see how this story is put together?  Jesus was saying ‘follow’.  The Scribe didn’t, but Matthew, the tax collector did.  This is his story that he’s just got to tell.  Matthew had a lot to lose, but he found even more to gain, so he’s drawn right in.  He’s made dizzy by the swirl and flow of God’s Grace and the love that is being offered to him through Jesus.  He’s ready to dive in, not just as a spectator, but to go in head over heels, as we say.  Jesus says ‘follow me’ and Matthew leaves everything to get into the current of God’s saving, redeeming grace. 

Matthew takes Jesus’ offer ‘hook, line, and sinker’.  He even invites others to join him too. He’s telling this story his way, hoping to invite maybe even you too.  Can you see it?  Matthew throws a dinner party, inviting his friends and other ‘sinners’ to the table.  Now, they are all together sitting with Jesus around this table called grace.  The Scribe has already turned away, but now its a Pharisee who’s watching like a hawk.  Seeing Jesus strange new agenda, this Pharisee asks:  ‘Why does Jesus sit around and eat with sinners?”  What’s up with this?  He doesn’t join in, and he can’t understand why this is happening.  Can we?  Do you?

What this Pharisee doesn’t realize is that he’s also welcomed to join in the party. Though he won’t admit it, at this party he’s just a sinner too.  He also needs this doctor of souls, like everyone else.  He needs to be nourished this table too.  But he’s not going to join in the party.  He’s going to refrain and to refuse.  He’s got his own agenda and his own view of things.  But he doesn’t realize what he’s missing.  Maybe he doesn’t even care.  The table was set for him too, but by refusing to eat with the sinner, he’s denying his own place around the table of God’s grace.

What keeps you from this table?  What keeps you from sitting down with sinners?  What keeps you from following Jesus to God’s table that has been prepared to rescue anyone whose life is wrecked by sin and hate?  Could you put yourself in this story?  Could you see what the Scribe and Pharisee failed to see?  Could you see how God’s table is sit for you?

Let me pause and read something that expresses this better than I ever could.  It tells us who gets to sit around Jesus’ table.  It sounds very familiar and goes:   

“I stand at the front door of the church. It is Sunday. I like to stand here and watch people entering the church. What unites them? Sinners come in the church.

Some are still in their mother’s arms. Sleeping, they come, but not of their own volition. They look innocent enough, but they are still sinners. Though outwardly cuddly and cute, they are among the most narcissistic and self-centered in the congregation. When they wake up, they will cry out, not caring that the rest of us are about important religious business. When they are hungry, they will demand to be fed, now. Cute, bundled up, placidly sleeping or peevishly screaming. Sinners. Sinners come to church.

They are being led by the hand. They do not come willingly. Though they put up a fight an hour ago, a rule is a rule, and there they are. They have said that they hate church. They have said things about church that you wouldn’t be allowed to have published in the local newspaper, if you were older. Ten years old they are, and they lack experience and expertise, but not in one area: they are sinners. Sinners come in the church.

Sullen, slouched, downcast eyes. They were out with friends last night to a late hour, and the incongruity between here in the morning and there last night is striking. They know it and it is only one of the reasons why they do not want to be here. Dirty thoughts. Desire. Things you are not supposed to think about. These thoughts make these sinners very uncomfortable at church.

Sinners come to church, and they have put on some weight, middle-aged, receding hairlines, “showing some age.” They are holding on tight. Well-dressed, attempting to look very respectable, proper. Youthful indiscretions tucked away, put behind them, does anybody here know? A couple of things tucked away from the gaze of the IRS. And a night that wasn’t supposed to happen two conventions ago. These sinners are looking over their shoulders. They are having trouble keeping things together. Maybe that is why there are so many of these sinners here, coming in the door of the church.

Sinners come in the church, and the doors at last are closed. The last of them scurry to their appointed seats. The organ music begins, played by an extremely talented, incredibly gifted artist, who is also a sinner. And the lyrics to that first hymn, something about “Amazing Grace,” sung, appropriately, by those who really need it, need it in the worst way. They sing in the singular, but it ought to be in the plural. “Amazing grace that saved wretches like us.” Sinners come into church.

And now for the chief of them all, the one most richly dressed, most covered up, the one who leads, and does most of the talking. Some call him pastor. Down deep, his primary designation is none other than that of those whom he serves. Sinners come into the church, and now their pastor welcomes them, their pastor, the one who on a regular basis presumes to speak up for God, making him the “chief of sinners.”

 Sinners come to church, all decked out, all dressed up, all clean and hopeful. Sinners, sinners hear the good news, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1: 15). Jesus called as his disciples Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Mary and Mary Magdalene. Sinners. Only sinners.

And Jesus got into the worst sort of trouble for eating and drinking with sinners. Only sinners. Sinners. Jesus saves sinners. Thank God. Only sinners. We sinners.” (From The Best of William Willimon: Acting Up In The Name of Jesus) .

GO, LEARN WHAT THIS MEANS…

Do you really want to learn and know what all this means?  As our text today comes to its end, Jesus is giving homework. It’s food for thought right off God’s table and it’s take home food for us too.   He says:

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means:

 ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’

For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

In one one the greatest human discussions of sin, grace and Jesus, one of the greatest Christian minds of modern times, who was a sinner too, wrote that the only way we are be told about sin in the Bible is after we are told about Jesus, God’s Son who comes to forgive our sins.  God doesn’t tell us our sin, to guilt us, or only give us knowledge of sin.  We only gain knowledge of sin so we can come to know the forgiver of sin, Jesus God’s Son.  He wrote:

 ‘He took our place as Judge. He took our place as the judged.

He was judged in our place. And He acted justly in our behalf. (Karl Barth).

The central message of the Bible is that we too are the sinners Jesus calls.  It would be a great party of laughter and joy, if we would also come.

Bruce McInver tells just how hilarious this party that welcomes sinners can be. It’s one of those stories he couldn’t tell when he was a pastor.  Now, he tells all in a book.  One day, at the close of the service they came down the isle to request membership.  They were all shocked.  The pastor whimpered. 

During the next few weeks, the pastor did all he could to try to help them understand what it meant to be a Christian, to join a church, and to be baptized. 

“We’re ready to be baptized,” Alfred claimed.  His wife, Ernestine, nodded in agreement.  The pastor could only hope this was one of those miracles in ‘the real world’.  Maybe, just maybe.

Everything was made ready for the big day.  The organ played softly.  The lights were on the baptistry.  Ernestine was to be baptized first.  She came down to the water with dressed in a white robe, with an angelic shine on her face.  The pastor reminded himself,  this is really a miracle.  He quoted the words from Romans, as he put Ernestine into under the water;  Buried with him in his death.  Raised with him to new life.”  Ernestine had started her new life in front of all.  The pastor thought, this is real.

Then as Ernestine went back up the steps, her husband Alfred came down into the water.   The music played softly.  The attendant told Ernestine she could turn and watch her husband being baptized.   Then, in the quiet of the moment, after the pastor said the words once more.  ‘Buried with him in his death!’.   He heard Ernestine shout to the top of her lungs as her husband went under.  “I HOPE HE DROWNS!”   

Can you learn what this means?  God only saves sinners.  This is why God desires mercy, not sacrifice.  Jesus came for sinners.  We are all sinners before he came.  We were all sinners when he came.  We are still all sinners now, after he came.   But count me in.  Jesus calls sinners to reach out to sinners.   This is what the party is all about.   Amen.