June 7, 2026

Sermon Transcript

Jesus said, “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 have come to call not the righteous, but sinners.”  (Matthew 9:12-13)

One of the most moving stories in all of literature occurs in Victor Hugo’s great novel, Les Miserables.  Jean Valjean is an ex-convict, released from prison after serving nineteen years: five for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family, and fourteen more for attempting four escapes.  Once he’s finally free he receives no welcome anywhere.  Innkeepers turn him away.  Even a dog drives him out of a kennel where he tries to sleep.  Finally, Valjean knocks on the door of the local Bishop, who welcomes him as if he were Christ himself.  The Bishop prepares a meal for Valjean, sets the table with silver, dines with him, and then provides him with his first real bed in nineteen years.

Despite the Bishop’s kindness, Valjean awakes in the wee hours, steals all the silver he can carry, and flees into the night.  He remains a fugitive for but a few hours.  The long arm of the law reaches out and brings him back to the Bishop, just as the household staff is discovering the theft.  Upon seeing Valjean hauled into his house with the police, the old Bishop instantly sizes up the situation and declares, “So here you are!  I’m delighted to see you.  Had you forgotten that I gave you the candlesticks as well?  They’re silver like the rest, and worth as good as two-hundred francs.  Did you forget to take them?”

For Jean Valjean, the Bishop’s unexpected and extraordinary act of mercy was almost more than he could comprehend.  It changed the course of his life.  At the very end of the novel, the two candlesticks provide the last light that Jean Valjean sees before he dies.

Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.  In today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew, we’ve heard Jesus quote the prophet Hosea.  Jesus spoke these words to the Pharisees in reference to a man named Matthew.  Even though Matthew became one of the twelve disciples, and has traditionally received credit for writing one of the four Gospels, we know next-to-nothing about him as a person.  The Gospels of Mark and Luke tell much the same story we heard this morning, but use the name Levi in place of Matthew.  Furthermore, Mark lists Alphaeus as Levi’s father.  And we read elsewhere (Matt. 10:3) that another disciple named James was also the son of Alphaeus.  So Matthew, otherwise known as Levi, was the son of Alphaeus, and may have had a biological brother among the twelve.  Unfortunately, none of this information will get you anything except a head full of Bible trivia.

More useful is Matthew’s occupation: a tax collector.  In the time and place of Jesus, tax collectors represented an especially despised group of people.  They worked ultimately for the Romans who occupied the land and needed revenue to keep the peace, build the roads, and feed the empire.  The Jews hated paying taxes, not only because they believed it idolatrous to give tribute to Caesar, but also because the system was entirely corrupt.  In pursuit of taxable items, a man in Matthew’s profession at any time could rummage through belongings and strip search whomever he chose.  Tax collectors could then impose whatever tax they wanted, few of which had anything to do with the Roman government.[1]  Much of it went to line their own pockets.  So most tax collectors thoroughly deserved the disdain of the people.

We can understand, then, the reaction of the Pharisees when Jesus called Matthew to follow, and then went to dine at his house with other tax collectors.  Pharisees, as opposed to tax collectors, were generally good, respectable people who were deeply committed to the practice of the Jewish faith.  They worked laboriously to interpret and keep the Laws of Moses.  As such they represented the epitome of Judaism.  So we can perhaps even sympathize with their grumbling to the disciples of Jesus: “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”  Why the special treatment for the scoundrel?  Why does this person – this thug – who deliberately disgraces everything the Jews hold dear receive the attention of Jesus, rather than those who try to honor God?  Matthew deserved rejection, not respect.  He needed scolding, not counseling.  Matthew should be barred from their Sunday School picnic.  He should not be allowed to play in any of their reindeer games.  If you see him coming, hide your lunch money.  Hide the silver. Keep him out.  When Jesus overheard the Pharisee’s complaint, what came to his mind was the prophet Hosea, whom he quoted when he commanded the Pharisees, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’  For I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners.” 

Who was Hosea?  Hosea was an ancient prophet from 800 years before Jesus.  Hosea came to understand his own troubled marriage as a parable for God’s relationship with Israel.  The Old Testament reading we’ve heard today is a fragment of the much larger story between Hosea and his wife, Gomer.  The Book of Hosea is a challenge to interpret, but the general consensus seems to be that Gomer would not have been the obvious choice of bride for a respectable Jewish man.  Yet Hosea loved her and took her as his wife.  After bearing Hosea’s three children, Gomer committed adultery.  Divorce was the result – a painful, angry, tearful, impassioned divorce.  Gomer lost everything.  Nevertheless, Hosea had mercy.  The Hebrew word we render as “mercy,” or “steadfast love” is Hesed.  Hesed is one of the most difficult Biblical words to translate, but it entails “the loyalty manifested by a stronger party toward someone who is in a weaker position.”[2]  Hosea could not shake his hesed, or mercy, or steadfast love for Gomer, and that love drove him to seek reconciliation.  Hosea took her back and restored the marriage.

Out of this crucible of love and betrayal, Hosea believed he had learned something of the intense and agonizing steadfast love that God must have for his people.  Hosea would write about Israel, captive in Egypt, as an unlikely nation to be the chosen of God.  Yet God rescued them and took them for his own.  God took them in as Hosea himself had taken in Gomer.  God took them in as the old bishop took in Jean Valjean.  And just as Jean Valjean turned and betrayed the love shown to him, just as Gomer had been unfaithful to Hosea, Israel had strayed again and again from their covenant relationship with God.  Nevertheless, God could not shake his steadfast love for these people, and that steadfast love would drive him to win them back.

It was this same divine steadfast love, this mercy, that Jesus now focused squarely on Matthew the tax collector.  When the Pharisees objected, Jesus quoted Hosea because he wanted these so-called people of God to remember that they themselves had been the beneficiaries of the same divine mercy.  It was not their slavish keeping of the law that stood them worthy before God.  It was entirely God’s mercy.  They were Gomer.  They were Matthew.  Thus, what utter nonsense it was for them to begrudge the rescue of one like Matthew.

Imagine a hypothetical scene, if you will: a great storm capsizes a ship, and throws hundreds of people into the raging sea, where they are drowning.  Miraculously, a rescue boat arrives and begins hauling them aboard.  Then, when the rescue boat comes upon still others struggling in the water, those who have already been saved smugly berate those who are perishing: “Look at those people: they don’t know how to swim.  They don’t know enough to come out of the water in a storm.  Why should the captain waste a perfectly good lifeline on the likes of them?”  How quickly they have forgotten their own rescue, and who accomplished it.  Sadly, it happens all the time – this amnesia of those already on board.  Go and learn what this means, said Jesus to the Pharisees.  I desire mercy, not sacrifice. 

What do you think Jesus hoped the Pharisees would discover when he commanded them to go and reacquaint themselves with Hosea?  What do you think he hopes we, today, will discover?  Two things, I believe.  First, Jesus wanted the Pharisees and us to acknowledge the true Source of our life and salvation.  As Paul implies in today’s reading from Romans (4:13-18), God has called us into existence out of non-existence.  God wants us to have in remembrance Christ’s blessed passion and precious death, his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension that have brought us out of death into life.  God’s mercy is the ground of our existence.  But how easily we forget.  How easily we conclude that we have somehow called ourselves into existence, and made ourselves worthy to stand before God.

Years ago, in one of the churches I served before coming here, a prominent member of the parish had died.  He was an elderly man who had been a mover and a shaker in church and community.  He liked to boast that he was something of a rags to riches type of person, even though he was prone to much exaggeration.  Nevertheless, he became a success in business, married a wonderful woman, and raised a fine family.  It was that fine family with whom I met to plan the funeral.  At first, all seemed to be standard fare: readings from the Bible, hymns from the hymnal, and prayers from the Book of Common Prayer.  Then came a request from out of left field.  “You know, Dad was a self-made man,” said his son.  “Yes, and he loved Frank Sinatra songs,” chimed in his daughter.  Thus, they reasoned with themselves, that as their father’s coffin was borne from the church, we should play a recording of “old blue eyes” singing, “I Did it My Way.”

It will come as no surprise to you that my answer was no.  “No, you may not play “I Did it My Way” at your father’s funeral.”  The reason had nothing to do with musical style.  It’s just that as you leave the dugout for your exit interview with Jesus, “I Did it my Way” is not what you want as your walk-up music.  May I suggest instead, “Lord, have mercy upon us?”  Or how about “Amazing grace that saved a wretch like me?”  Or even, “Drop kick me, Jesus, through the goal posts of life.”  “I Did it My Way” just isn’t true for any of us, and such a belief can too easily lead to the smug superiority of the Pharisees, guarding the inside of faith against all outsiders.  Jesus wanted the Pharisees and us always to remember the true story of our salvation as people of God.  That’s the first learning.

The second discovery in reacquainting ourselves with Hosea is simply this: when we stay close to how utterly dependent we have been and remain on God’s mercy, we will be more able and eager to extend a measure of that mercy to others.  To whom, you may ask?  Matthew was neither hungry nor homeless.  He was not physically ill, or dying, or in pain.  He was not the type of candidate we normally think of as needing the mercy of Jesus.  Who in your life needs to encounter the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit?  How, in humility, can you be an instrument in showing God’s mercy?  Who needs you to show mercy?

Toward the end of Victor Hugo’s novel, Jean Valjean, the one who received great mercy, shows great mercy.  Throughout his life a merciless officer of the law pursues Valjean in the effort to place him again behind bars.  When the two finally come face-to-face, Valjean gains the upper hand and has the opportunity to eliminate his enemy forever.  No one would ever know.  Rather than snuffing out his life-long nemesis, Valjean has mercy and sets him free.  The one who receives great mercy also extends great mercy.

Shakespeare declared that “The quality of mercy is not strain’d.  It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath.  It is twice blest: It blesses him that gives and him that takes. (The Merchant of Venice, IV. i)

And Jesus commanded, Go and learn what this means.  I desire mercy, not sacrifice.  For I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners.

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[1] Barclay, William.  The Master’s Men, Abingdon, 1976, p. 61.

[2] Anderson, Bernhard W.  Understanding the Old Testament, Prentice Hall, 1986, p. 308.