Second Sunday after Pentecost-June 7, 2026

Prayer of the Day
O God, you are the source of life and the ground of our being. By the power of your Spirit bring healing to this wounded world, and raise us to the new life of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord. Amen.

Gospel: Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
9 As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.
10 And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with Jesus and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

Sermon:
Bishop Larry’s sermon last week helpfully reminds us that this second half of our church year pivots to explorations of the life of the church as it’s informed by the life of Christ. This shift invites us to read this week’s Gospel through the lens of faith community. The faithful question that follows is, what might Matthew’s Gospel be saying to today’s church?

In just a few words, Matthew describes a seismic shift in one person’s life that goes far beyond a career change. Historians believe that Matthew’s specialty in a port town like Capernaum was to tax transported goods. If there were ever an opportunity to gouge somebody for money, this was it!. Tax collectors were equated with robbers, brothel owners, and corrupt officials. Matthew’s leaving his post leaves jaws dropping for two reasons. First he disrupts his own life built around exploitation and greed. Second, he ghosts more than an employer. Not much of a chance that there was cake in the break room as a farewell for Matthew when he left the tax collecting racket to follow Jesus. Even less chance that Roman management issued the blasé memo wishing Matthew the very best in his future endeavours “thank you for your attention in this matter.” Taxes fed the imperial beast’s insatiable appetite. Everyone was expected to feed the beast one way or another. Matthew stops playing along. Imagine the stand Matthew takes and the personal risk he assumes when he follows Jesus.

More questions: What about Jesus is so compelling that at a word, Matthew leaves his post? Just where is it that Jesus is going and wants Matthew to follow?

The disapproving muttering among the religiously respectable signals that where Matthew is going TO is even more revolutionary than what he has left behind. We’ve been clued in that tax collectors are outcasts. Jesus’ other dining companions are “sinners”…sort of a blanket term for outsiders and those judged to be too far gone for redemption.

And Jesus eats with these people? On purpose? Absolutely on purpose. In Jesus’ culture and in his day your dining companions were those you identified with and befriended—reputations were thought to rub off on each other. So where is Jesus going? To the margins of society! What’s he up to? He enacts and embodies the insistence that there is no such place as outside the scope of God’s love. This is the “new place” Jesus leads Matthew. And us.

This week I read work by the Rev. Dr. Danny Zacharias. Reading his biographical notes was a treat—He is Associate Dean and professor of New Testament Studies at Acadia Divinity school in Wolfville Nova Scotia. He’s originally from Winnipeg and is Cree-Anishanabe and Métis…so I was intrigued to hear what an indigenous person from Turtle Island might have to say about Matthew and his community.

Professor Zacharias speaks of indigenous ceremonies as being more about relationship that rubric. And indigenous ceremonies are carefully curated so the emphasis on relationships is truly inspiring. Through his cultural background Professor Zacharias sees what he calls God’s restorative mercy as communities are formed and nurtured. He goes on to say that such mercy isn’t pretty words; it’s tangible actings showing what the kin-dom of God ought to be like.

The professor also invites the church to put itself in Matthew’s place—as those profiting from present and past injustice to others and to the planet. When Jesus calls the church to follow we work to leave those ways behind and to join Jesus as he embodies the scandalous message that there is no such place or thing beyond the reach of the love of God. Amen.