SERMON FOR SUNDAY THE 7TH JUNE 2026
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
In today’s Gospel text, Chapter 9 opens with Jesus encountering a tax collector named Matthew and Jesus saying, “Follow me.”
Tax collectors were not very well liked – they were often regarded as not very nice people. They took from the poor, were greedy, dishonest, collaborators with the Roman oppressors, betrayers of their fellow citizens. It may not have been all of them, though that was their reputation. They are the kind of people that are often and quickly judged and condemned. But Jesus didn’t do that. I wonder what he saw in Matthew, the tax collector.
I wonder what Matthew experienced within himself when Jesus saw and called him. Hope, self-worth, forgiveness, acceptance, new life? What happens next to Matthew is a powerful shift in his thinking.
We hear that Matthew followed Jesus to a dinner and found a place at the table with other tax collectors, sinners, and the disciples. Everyone had a place at the table. It didn’t matter who they were or what they had done, except to the religious authorities. We enter the scene, starting at verse 9, where the religious authorities interrupt Jesus at the dinner, wanting to know why Jesus would “eat with tax collectors and sinners.”
It’s easy and tempting to assume that we would have done differently. It is possible that we might not have agreed with the company he mixed with that day.
We can separate ourselves from “them” who are not righteous. But that’s not what Jesus does. He doesn’t do that to the dinner guests or to the religious authorities.
Jesus had every right to call out the religious authorities barging into the mealtime and interrupting Jesus in front of others. However, Jesus does not respond with harsh words. Instead, responds to their question and says, “I have come,” he says, “not to call the righteous but sinners.” “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” Do you hear what he is doing? He’s equating sinners with patients who are hurting and in need of healing.
Have you ever thought of sin as a medical condition rather than a legal issue? What if sin is less about the actions we usually focus on and more about the wounds or hurts that cause us to act out? What if we could see our own sins and the sins of others in that way? Maybe we would desire, learn, and practice mercy instead of sacrificing others and ourselves. And who among us doesn’t need some mercy now and then?
We hear Jesus using a phrase that is one that is to help and not offend the religious authorities. It is a phrase that is important to all who were gathered. Jesus says in today’s gospel reading (Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26): “‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” The Pharisees were complaining about Jesus eating with the wrong people, in their eyes. It does show the problem of extreme religion and the pitfalls of making themselves superior whilst looking down on others.
Jesus says, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” It is good advice and is an important quote from the Old Testament when the prophet Hosea says this.
In Hosea 6:6, we read: “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice.” Steadfast love is what God desires. It is in reference to mercy being central and linked to the whole understanding of attitude in offering sacrifices.
The Hebrew word Hesed that is very hard to translate into other languages.
Hesed
Hesed is used hundreds of times in the Old Testament. In fact, it is used over a hundred times in the Book of Psalms alone. It is used in some of my favourite verses. Like Micah 6:8 – “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness (hesed) and to walk humbly with your God?” Or Lamentations 3:22 – “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Or the end of Psalm 23: “Surely goodness and mercy (hesed) shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
‘Hesed ‘is really important to God, and so it should be to us. Whilst hard to capture what this word means in English, it is translated mercy, but it is sometimes translated steadfast love, or goodness, or kindness, or compassion, or even loyalty. And all of these are attempts to capture what this word, hesed, really means. So, Jesus is saying to the religious leaders that God desires kindness, and goodness, and loyalty, and God desires our steadfast love.
Sacrifice
Sacrifice meant a lot to the religious leaders of the day. The sacrifice of animals that was an important part of worship in the Old Testament. In an agricultural economy, tithing is less about giving money and more about giving part of our crop or our herd to God. These gifts would be given to God and used to support the priests leading worship. It was a way of forgiveness of sins. T
We are used to dealing in money, though we can probably cast our minds back a couple of generations to the time where people gave some part of the produce of the land – such as food or small animals to pay for something – or in this case as a way of giving thanks to God.
My mother related how her auntie was a district nurse and midwife during the second world war years and people would pay her auntie in kind. He auntie would arrive back with a chicken or a bag of potatoes. Harvest services years ago literally meant the offering. It meant as much as tithes and offerings do today. Offering is a sacrifice. We give part of who we are and the things we do unto God.
But what does sacrifice look like for us? We give generously and we also give in another sense through our time, talents, and treasure. We give our time and talents by serving on a committee, or singing in the choir, or helping with the good causes. We serve our community by helping with Community. All of it is important to God, though here is the added that Jesus calls into the light – that these need the understanding of God’s mercy in the first place.
That may seem strange to say. Though. Let’s suppose that we give of our time to a soup kitchen. It is a sacrifice. But suppose, that you or I do this and we are judging everyone we are serving, or gossiping about the people you’re working with, or not being kind. Do we judge people’s circumstances (and God forgive me I have and am sorry that I have) and forget to do what we do in mercy and respect of those we seek to help.
This is where Jesus is not the 3d hologram of distant holiness. Instead, Jesus is real and tangible and relatable. God reaches us in mercy and redeems us with steadfast love.
God wants us to sacrifice our time, our talents, and our treasure, but not at the sacrifice of our mercy. None of these can substitute for our steadfast love toward God, and our kindness, mercy, and steadfast love toward our neighbour.
God’s Hesed
When this word for mercy, hesed, is used in scripture, it is just as much to describe God’s relationship with us just as it is used to describe our relationship with God.
In other words, God shows us this kind of steadfast love and mercy, this hesed, over and over again throughout Scripture, before ever asking it of us. We are not being asked to do something which God has not already done for us.
There is a story about Mahatma Gandhi in India. He was of course a beloved and influential person in India and throughout the world. One day, a mother approached him and asked him if he would talk to her son about the importance of eating right and cutting down, or even giving up, eating sweets. He agreed to talk with her son about this, and she went away pleased. But several weeks went by and he still had not talked to her son. She became frustrated and approached Gandhi again and asked him why he had not yet talked with her son. He said that he still intended to talk with her son, but that he was having a harder time giving up sweets than he expected. She was puzzled by this for a moment, and then realized that Gandhi could not and would not ask someone else to do something that he was not already doing. He could not ask her son to give up sweets until he himself had already done it.
I think that simple story about remaining humble.
Jesus, shows the mercy and love of God in the flesh. It is shown as this account in Matthew Chapter 9 continues as Jesus is interrupted again to help a mother in desperate need for her daughter. The daughter was believed gone and the mother’s grief tangible. Before Jesus reaches the house of the girl, he heals a woman who had suffered from blood loss for many years.
We hear in the verses that the little girl, thought dead, is restored to life by Jesus. The accounts speak of mercy rather than strict rules and God operating in those rules. It asks the question – what rule for mercy? Jesus showed mercy and loving kindness to whoever needed it – Jewish leaders and lepers, Pharisees and fishermen, the wealthy and the poor, the tax collectors and the so-called sinners. Jesus showed that same mercy to those who believed, and those who didn’t believe. His mercy is steadfast and it is unconditional, and it is for all of God’s children. It is why Jesus was born – to show us that love. To offer us that mercy. God’s ‘hesed’.
Closing
Today’s gospel account sounds like a series of interruptions. Sometimes interruptions can be points of realignment?
All along the way Jesus was aligning himself in two directions. He aligned himself with the people, events, circumstances, concerns, and needs that were before him regardless of who they were or what it was. We might think of this as his alignment with the horizontal axis of life. And he aligned himself with whatever was being called for in the name of God: love, acceptance, forgiveness, meaning, hospitality, mercy, hope, healing, life. We might think of this as his alignment with the vertical axis of life. Do you see the picture I am describing? It’s the way of the cross but it’s also a person with a face, a name, and a need.
‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’” Jesus said. But it turns out that we don’t have to go anywhere to learn what this means. It is best taught from Jesus himself. He shows us hesed throughout his life on earth. And one day he will show us hesed face-to-face. In the meantime, what are we to do? First, as we accept God’s merciful love, it is important to remember to share the mercy we find in God’s love others who don’t think they deserve it. All who need God’s mercy. And isn’t that all of us?
References to:
It’s Just One Thing After Another – A Sermon On Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26 Published by Michael K. Marsh on © Michael K. Marsh and Interrupting the Silence, 2009-2026, all rights reserved.
Mercy, Not Sacrifice: My Sermon on Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26 Pastoral Ponderings Sermon on the 9th June 2023.