Mercy, Not Sacrifice

We are reading this passage this morning.

We're gonna be looking at Matthew chapter nine

and then the reading from Hosea that Evan read a moment ago.

And we do have our elementary age kids in here,

so I'd like to welcome you.

And hopefully as you came in,

you received one of these packets.

And I invite you to use this to kind of follow along.

The reading that you just heard from Matthew nine

is actually in here.

Along with some questions and activities,

you can use this.

If you're anything like me,

whenever I sit and listen to a sermon,

I need something to do with my hands.

I fidget a lot.

And so I need to be scribbling or drawing

or taking notes or something in order to focus.

And so if you're like me, use this.

And so this is not only for kids,

but also for grownups if you need help in focusing.

We're gonna be looking at Matthew chapter nine primarily.

At this point in Matthew's gospel,

we're beginning to see that Jesus

is not just another religious leader.

We're beginning to get a sense in Matthew's gospel

that Jesus is not just a social reformer.

Jesus is, it's beginning to be clear

at this point in Matthew's gospel

that Jesus is doing something entirely new.

He's not just starting a new religion.

He's not just amending an existing religion.

But it's starting to become clear

that Jesus is subverting all religion.

He's subverting the mechanisms

that drive religion itself.

And we see this in his encounter

with a man named Matthew

and then a meal that they share

at the home of Matthew.

And if we understand what this passage tells us,

what we see here is that Jesus is establishing

a new kind of spiritual community

that blows apart all existing categories.

And what this shows us is the reason

why the gospel alone has the power

not only to heal individuals,

but it actually has the power

to heal the social fabric of society,

which is something that we all desperately need.

Those of us in here, we desperately want that.

Those of us, all of the people out

around this building all want that.

We all want that kind of world.

This shows us why the gospel alone

has the power to give us that kind of world.

So what we're gonna see is this,

a new social order that is made possible

by a new spiritual foundation.

So we'll look at it in that order,

a new social order,

and then what makes it possible,

a new spiritual foundation.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for your word,

and we thank you for your presence with us.

And we know that apart from your grace,

your word falls on rock,

and that what we need is for your Holy Spirit

to till up the soil of our hearts

to make it receptive to your word.

And that we pray that you would plant your word in us,

and that it would take root and grow,

and that that new life would grow up into our lives.

Lord, that you would pour your life

into our lives through your word.

We pray this in your son's holy name.

Amen.

Amen.

So first of all, a new social order.

Let's ask this question just to get started.

What does a meal have to do with the social order?

What could this possibly have to do with the social order?

We need a little context here.

In the ancient world,

table fellowship was a very big deal.

Because table fellowship had a symbolic power.

It reinforced the lines of inclusion

and exclusion in society.

And all of those lines were running through society.

And meals were a big way that people in the ancient world symbolized

where those lines were drawn.

So there were strong social boundaries in place

that determined which kinds of people it was acceptable to eat with.

Eating with the right kinds of people

could raise your status in the social hierarchy.

Eating with the wrong kinds of people

could lower your status in the social hierarchy.

Now, in our culture, for a lot of us,

meals don't have that same level of significance.

We have become accustomed to eating meals in our car

while we're driving somewhere.

They're just not as significant.

But the lines of inclusion and exclusion

are still very much in place

and arguably stronger than ever.

We have an innate tendency as human beings

to divide the world into two basic groups of people.

People like me,

the kind of good, acceptable, reasonable people,

and then the other people.

People not like me.

People who I'm suspicious of

and don't regard as highly

and don't prefer to spend my time with

and in some senses find to be offensive and unlikable.

So two groups of people,

people like me and everyone else.

And this really has to do with how our brains are wired.

Remember in Harry Potter, there's the sorting hat, right?

Where kids come to Hogwarts

and the first thing that happens is

they're brought up front

and they put the sorting hat on them.

And the sorting hat just takes a minute or two.

And just after a minute or two,

it can tell which group that child belongs in.

And then the child is sent off

to spend the rest of their formative years

with this group they've been assigned to.

Human beings all sort of have

a kind of internal sorting hat.

Our brains are actually wired to operate that way.

We have an internal sorting hat.

And so our brains tend to do these activities all the time.

We tend, for instance, to see people not as individuals,

but we're actually wired to see people

as part of a group.

We see people as members of a group.

And our brains have evolved to sort people

into those two basic groups, us and them.

And our brains are also wired to do this

using the least amount of energy possible.

So you have an internal sorting hat

that has as its sole job

to sort people into groups

using the least amount of time and energy possible.

And this actually increases when we feel stress,

when we feel fear,

when we feel anxiety.

The sorting hat kind of goes into overdrive

because it's essentially a survival mechanism.

If you can determine very quickly

whether someone is a friend or an enemy,

your chances of survival are going to go up, right?

And your sorting hat is dramatically influenced

by all kinds of things.

Your upbringing, your education,

your life experiences,

all manner of social and cultural factors.

But the point is,

when you meet somebody for the first time,

you automatically put on your sorting hat

and you automatically begin to categorize them.

And most of the time,

we're not even aware that we're doing it.

It's not a conscious thing that's happening.

But your brain goes to work

looking for signals

to help it determine what group that person belongs to.

So we look at their appearance.

We look at their clothing,

things like their shoes, their watch.

Are they put together?

Do they look disheveled?

We listen to their accent.

We look at their posture,

their eye contact,

their behavior,

their word choice,

their cultural references.

And all of those things are cues

that our sorting hat is using

to categorize that person.

Right?

So in the ancient world,

table fellowship was a clear indicator

of group identity.

That helped you sort somebody really quickly.

Oh, that's that person's group.

Right?

But we rely on other symbols.

Right?

So we rely on looking at

what people post online, for instance.

You read a couple of tweets

from somebody's account

and you can probably categorize them.

Or at least you try to.

We look at their word choices.

We look at their cultural references.

A lot of people wear symbols

that act as indicators

to self-identify as part of a group.

So a MAGA hat or a pride flag

or a BLM t-shirt or something like that.

You're wearing a kind of symbol

that is self-identifying.

I want you to see me

as a part of this group.

Right?

And so there are all these kinds of ways

that we do it.

And based off these cues,

we immediately start making assumptions

about these people

that we encounter for the first time.

We're trying to determine

what are their values?

What are their beliefs?

But ultimately,

there's the only question

that really matters

for our sorting hat is this.

Is this person like me?

Are they one of the good people?

Or are they not like me?

Or are they an other kind of person?

And here's the thing.

Usually within a few seconds,

your brain delivers the verdict

and it moves on.

Because as we said,

it's trying to do this

as efficiently as possible.

And our natural tendency

is to move away from people

who we identify as the other

and to gravitate toward people

we identify as being like me.

And this impulse, I would argue,

this impulse sits behind religions

that sort people into good people

and bad people.

It sits behind political polarization.

It sits behind race and class divisions

in our society.

Behind all of those things,

you will find this in-group, out-group,

like me, not like me,

sorting hat activity driving things.

So let's ask this.

That's a little bit of a context here.

What would the sorting hat

say about someone like Matthew?

Matthew was a tax collector.

What does that mean?

Well, Rome had conquered

much of the known world.

By this point,

they were the occupying force in Palestine

and they required

all of their subjects to pay taxes.

So they required the Jews

in Palestine to pay taxes.

And in order to collect taxes,

they would hire the locals.

They would hire local Jews

to collect taxes from other Jews.

And in order to collect the taxes,

these Jews would have to go around

to their fellow neighbors

and demand that they pay what they owed.

But here's the real nasty part

of the business.

The incentive for the tax collectors

was this.

They would say,

the Roman officials would say,

after you've collected what we need,

anything extra that you're able to collect,

you can keep,

and that's your commission.

So, of course,

what does this incentivize them to do?

Well, it incentivizes them

to collect a lot more money

than was actually required.

So they're incentivizing Jews

to extort their own people.

And so tax collectors got rich,

literally,

from the oppression and injustice

perpetrated against their own people.

Matthew is someone who makes a living

by working for the oppressors

and extorting money from his fellow Jews.

So he's,

not only is there a kind of

systemic injustice happening,

but he's knowingly getting rich

because of it.

So most Jews would have seen Matthew

and immediately the sorting hat

would kick in

and start sounding the alarm.

This man is a traitor

against God's people.

He's a traitor against God.

He is unclean

because he spends all of his time

with Gentiles.

He's worse than the Romans.

He's evil.

Matthew likely did not have many friends.

But,

Jesus comes along

and Jesus sees Matthew.

And a respectable Jewish rabbi

seeing somebody like Matthew

with the sorting hat would say,

you need to head

to the other side of the street.

But Jesus moves directly toward him.

He goes right up to Matthew

and looks at him

and he says,

I want you to follow me.

And it says,

Matthew immediately gets up

and goes and follows Jesus.

And that evening,

Jesus has dinner at Matthew's house.

We know that from the other Gospels.

And Matthew invites the only friends he has

who are Matthew's friends.

Well, other tax collectors.

Right?

The only kind of people

who are going to hang out

with somebody like Matthew

are other people

who do the same job.

So they all hang out with each other

because they don't have any other friends.

And an assortment of other people

that are just identified as sinners.

Now that,

in this context,

that means just notoriously sinful people.

People who,

everybody knows,

that's just a dirty,

rotten, awful person.

And so all of these people come

and they're having dinner with Jesus.

And the religious leaders are horrified.

Why on earth

would a respectable Jewish rabbi like Jesus

eat with unclean people like that?

Because as we said earlier,

in their world,

there were good people,

the morally faithful people,

the clean people.

And then there were

the unclean,

dirty,

evil people.

And associating with unclean people

would make you unclean.

So if you're a clean

and respectable member of society,

just standing with an unclean person

and having a conversation,

that would taint you

and make you unclean.

So they're horrified.

But what we see here

is that Jesus is very clearly

establishing a new social order.

This table is a microcosm.

It's the slightest glimmer

of the kind of world

that God is building.

With Jesus,

people who would otherwise

not even speak with one another

are coming together

around the same table.

And this, my friends,

is exactly the kind of world

that we need.

A new kind of community

where all of the old lines

of division

between insider and outsider

are broken down.

This is the kind of world

that many people long for,

religious,

non-religious.

This is the kind of world

that many people devote their lives

to trying to build.

So what makes this kind of thing possible?

That's the question

this passage really wants to answer.

So we see a new social order,

but what makes it possible?

It's this new spiritual foundation

that Jesus brings.

What do I mean by foundation?

Well, everybody has a foundation.

Everybody has a place

that we look to

to get our sense of worth

and value and identity.

How do I know

that I'm okay in the world?

Whatever I look to for that,

that's my foundation.

And there are really

only two options down deep,

two kinds of foundations.

And the first type of foundation

that people build their lives on

is the foundation

that's sort of the default

for most of humanity.

This is the one

that we're naturally wired to go to,

which is the foundation

of what we might call

moral performance.

In other words,

the moral performance foundation says,

the foundation of my identity

or the way that I know

I'm a good person

is because of what I do.

It's because of the things

that I do in the world,

the way I live.

So if you're a traditional

religious kind of person

like the Pharisees,

you might say,

well, what's my foundation?

Well, I know that

I'm a righteous person

because I read

the scriptures faithfully.

I pray every day.

I go to worship services regularly.

I obey God's law.

I keep myself clean.

Good people go to heaven

when they die.

I'm a good person.

So with the moral performance narrative,

your sense of righteousness

or rightness

comes from the fact

that you're a devoted,

morally upright person.

But that's not the only kind

of moral performance foundation

you can have.

This is going to change

based on your beliefs, right?

So you can have a non-religious,

secular, progressive person,

and they might have

a moral performance foundation,

but it's defined very differently.

They might say,

well, I know I'm a good person

because I believe in things

like tolerance and inclusion.

I'm very open-minded

and I think that everybody

should live their own truth.

And in that case,

you still have a sense

of righteousness,

but that righteousness

comes from a different

set of variables, right?

It comes from the fact

that you believe in tolerance

and inclusion

and you think of yourself

as open-minded.

The point I want to make

is that even though

these groups look completely

different on the surface,

underneath they're actually

all operating according

to the same principle,

which is a foundation

of moral performance.

I'm the traditional

religious framework

and the secular

progressive framework.

He's subverting the mechanism

that drives both

of those foundations.

He's turning the entire thing

upside down.

And we recognize that

because of this exchange

with the Pharisees.

When the Pharisees ask,

why would Jesus associate

with sinners and tax collectors?

Look at what Jesus says.

He says, like a rabbi would say,

go and learn what this means.

And then he quotes Hosea.

I desire mercy

and not sacrifice.

Now, is he saying

that sacrifice is no good?

No, no, no, no.

The main concern

in the book of Hosea

is that God's people

have become totally focused

on moral performance.

In other words,

they've become totally focused

on external religious rituals.

As long as they observe

the rituals

and do the sacrifices

like the Bible tells them,

then they're going to be

right with God.

And Hosea is basically saying

they've forgotten

what it's all about.

They've forgotten

the heart of God.

So we might rephrase it this way.

God is saying,

I desire mercy,

not moral performance.

I desire mercy,

not moral performance.

We say, okay,

well, what does that mean?

What do we mean by God's mercy?

God's mercy,

put another way,

is God's eternal desire,

because it comes out

of his very nature,

his eternal desire

to give people

what they didn't earn,

what they don't deserve,

what they could never repay.

It is God's eternal nature

to give people

what they didn't earn,

don't deserve,

and could never repay.

See, the moral performance

narrative says,

I'm a good, upright person,

and God surely considers me

one of the good guys

because of that.

Right?

On a curve,

I'm probably in at least

the upper third

of good people.

Right?

But Jesus says,

deep down,

no one is okay.

All human beings,

as he says here,

are sick

because of sin.

And he represents himself

in all of the gospels

as the great physician

who has come to heal humanity

of this sickness.

But the point he's making here

is that only people

who know they're sick

are gonna come to the physician.

Only people who know

they need mercy

are going to ask

and cry out for forgiveness.

And this is why we said

at the beginning

that Jesus came to subvert

all religion.

Religion divides people

into good people

and bad people

based on what we do.

Traditional religions

have one way

of doing this.

The modern secular religion

of political activism

has other ways

of doing this.

But down deep,

the moral performance narrative,

if you build your life

on that foundation,

one way or another,

depending on your values,

you're gonna be dividing

the world

into the good people

and the bad people.

Jesus throws the entire paradigm

of good and bad

out the window.

Jesus' community

is not based

on moral performance

at all.

It's based on mercy.

It's based on mercy.

It's a new spiritual foundation

to build your life on.

According to Jesus,

the fundamental difference

between human beings

is not based on what we do.

It's based on whether or not

we know we need God's mercy.

It's based on whether or not

we know that fundamentally

we're not okay.

That there is something

deeply wrong

in the human condition.

And that we need something

outside of ourselves

in order to fix it.

Right?

So at the heart of God's mercy

is God's love.

In fact,

in the Old Testament,

the word that is often

translated as mercy

can actually also be translated

as steadfast love.

Chesed.

So the same word,

God's steadfast love,

means God's mercy.

That's why God is merciful.

And because of that,

this offers a hope

unlike anything else

in the world.

Because religious traditionalists

will say,

if you want to be accepted,

you have to change.

If you want to be accepted,

you have to change.

You have to get your life together.

You have to start living

by God's law.

And then we will accept you

into our community.

And that's a kind of judgmentalism

that offers no hope

because it crushes people.

It's like saying,

in order to come to the physician,

you have to be well.

In order to be served

at this restaurant,

you have to have already eaten.

Right?

In order to come

and wash in this shower,

you have to already be clean.

It offers no hope.

On the other hand,

the kind of secular progressive view says,

we will accept you as you are,

come one, come all.

And how dare you say

that anyone needs to change?

How dare you suggest

that anyone needs to change?

But I think deep down,

we know that that's a kind

of shallow sentimentalism

that really doesn't offer any hope

because deep down,

we all know we need to change.

If human beings didn't need to change

in some fundamental way,

then why is society so broken?

Why is there so much poverty

and injustice and violence and racism

if we don't need to change?

And it's easy to think

that the other person needs to change.

But if we're honest,

do we really believe that?

And what we see with Jesus

is that because of the love

and mercy of Jesus,

the gospel is able to say

both of those things

at the same time

in a way that's only possible

because of mercy.

Another way of putting it is this.

Jesus loves us so much

that he always takes us as we are,

but he never leaves us as we are.

He always takes us as we are,

but he never leaves us as we are.

And all of that is summed up

in two words in this passage

where we see mercy on full display.

Follow me.

Because at the same time,

it is saying both.

On the one hand,

Jesus says to Matthew,

follow me.

And that is an invitation

to be accepted as we are.

You don't need to get your act together.

You don't need to go spend a year

pulling your life together

and then apply to be my follower.

I want you to stand up

and come with me right now

and from this moment forward

before there's been any visible change

in your life,

you're one of mine.

You belong to me.

You'll no longer be known

as a traitor to your people.

You'll no longer be known

as an exploiter of the poor.

From now on,

you're gonna be known as my follower.

You're gonna be associated with me.

You're gonna be defined entirely

by your association

with my new community

as my disciple.

It's a new identity for you.

In fact,

you know,

he has two names

and one theory is that

Levi was his sort of

pre-conversion name

and that Jesus may have given him

the name Matthew

to clarify

this new sense of identity.

The Pharisees thought

that uncleanness was contagious.

They thought that

to be spiritually dirty,

that that was contagious

and if I'm a clean person

and I associate

with an unclean person,

I'm gonna catch it

like catching COVID

and so they practiced

social distancing.

They stayed away

from all of the unclean people.

Right?

But with Jesus,

it's the opposite.

With Jesus,

holiness is contagious.

contagious.

Cleanness is contagious.

The most sort of

wretched person

in the eyes

of the Pharisees,

the most unclean person

imaginable,

just by associating

with Jesus

by faith

is made clean.

Jesus' holiness,

his righteousness,

his cleanness

is transferred

onto that person

simply by associating

with Jesus

in faith,

believing that Jesus

is who he says he is.

Believing that Jesus

can do what he says

he can do.

Holiness is contagious.

So on the one hand,

follow me.

He says,

come as you are.

I accept you as you are

and just by being with me,

you're going to be made holy.

But then on the other hand,

Jesus loves us so much

that he takes us as we are

but he loves us so much

that he doesn't leave us

as we are.

On the other hand,

he says,

follow me,

which means a call

to a radically different

way of living.

Leave your old life behind.

He doesn't continue

to collect taxes.

He leaves his business.

Make everything secondary

to me.

Hold fast to me.

Make the focus

of your daily life me.

Walk with me.

Become like me.

It's a call

to transformation.

And he's not just saying,

you know,

these parts are okay

but these parts

need to change.

He's saying,

by follow me,

he's saying,

everything about you

needs to be rebuilt

from the foundations up.

But that's gonna happen

by following me.

So this is how Jesus

establishes a new social order

built on a new

spiritual foundation.

Right?

When the foundation

of your life

is moral performance,

you will always tend

to divide the world

into good people

and bad people,

insiders and outsiders.

You will always tend

to prefer the company

of people like you

and you will avoid

and look down on

and condemn people

who are less like you.

But when the foundation

of your life

is mercy,

it changes the entire way

that you see

other human beings.

You will become

more and more

the kind of person

who is compelled

not to avoid

those unlike you

but to move

toward them

intentionally.

To move toward those

who are outside the camp,

who are outside the circle,

who are on the margins.

to move toward the people

that other people

in your group

might want to avoid.

And the reason is

because you know

that there was a time

when you were that person

and instead of avoiding you,

Jesus came into your life

and he called you

and he said,

follow me.

And you've experienced

that love that says,

I'm going to accept you

as you are

but I'm not going to leave you

as you are.

You're going to become

the kind of person

who's able to both love

and accept people

as they are

but also the kind of person

who's able to strive

to become more like Jesus

and encourage others

to do that.

You're going to be able

to talk honestly

and openly

about your moral failings.

And you're going to be

the kind of person

that other people

feel comfortable

doing that with

because your life

is built on a foundation

of mercy.

And I know I can share

that kind of thing with you

and you're not going to

sort me out of your group

because we both recognize

that we're sick

and we're both going

to the same doctor

to get well.

God's mercy makes it possible

for there to be a community

where anyone can belong

as they are

and yet everyone

is striving to become

what they were created to be.

Let's pray.

Our Heavenly Father,

we thank you for your mercy.

we pray that what now

may just be words

would become something else.

They would become

that whatever of this

is from you,

that this would become

flesh in us.

That the soil

that you have tilled up

would receive the truth

and the promise

of your mercy.

That whatever there is

in our lives,

whatever foundation

we have built

on our own morality,

whatever that may be,

I pray that that would be

that you would use

the jackhammer

of the Holy Spirit

to tear that out

and that you would build

a new foundation

of mercy in us

that we might become

a people

defined by your mercy.

We pray this for our good

and that we might be

the kind of salt and light

in the world

that you call us to be.

We pray your blessing

on those in this room

and all those outside

these doors, Lord,

that all would come

to know your love

and your mercy.

We pray this

in the name of your Son,

Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Amen.