Pentecost 3 2005.June 5th.
Genesis 12.1-9, Ps 33.1-12, Romans 4.13-25, Matthew 9.9-13, 18-26.
I can imagine Jesus using sarcasm.
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. `For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”
It’s a line made for sarcasm, because it’s a line that works on different levels. Simplistically, it is reassuring those who think they’re righteous that they are indeed righteous and are correct to think that way. I mean, they knew Jesus didn’t come to heal them, because they don’t need it, do they. They knew, I imagine, that they were ok, healthy, righteous. Jesus knew that they wouldn’t receive the Gospel, because they were full of the knowledge that they didn’t need it. The unclean, the outsiders, the tax collectors and sinners, the sick and suffering, they would receive it. Because the Gospel joins them to the Kingdom of God, which is based not on a plethora of laws and regulations, but on those 2 great commandments, that say nothing about tax collectors being unclean and menstruating women being untouchable. In the Kingdom of God, they can belong.
Tax collectors were untouchable because they were doing a rather distasteful job. It wasn’t just that they were collecting taxes which people have always begrudged paying. It was that they were collecting taxes for an occupying enemy of the Judean state, and to make money for themselves to live on they had to collect more than the amount that was required by the Romans. This extra was theirs to keep, and I’m sure that many of you will know that already. The woman who had suffered bleeding for 12 years, a chronic gynaecological problem, was unclean under Jewish law. Leviticus 15.19-30 spells it out. In essence, it says that a woman who is menstruating is unclean, and is to be shut out from the community for 7 days, and everyone who she touches, or who touches her is also to be shut out, and everything she touches is also unclean. It almost sounds laughable, a bit like the old lower primary school “girl’s germs” thing, but it was taken very seriously. This passage prescribes that on the eighth day the woman shall take two doves or two young pigeons and take them to the priest to make a burnt offering to God for atonement. That is, to make up for her sin of bleeding which is a natural part of her God created state!!!! I hasten to add that this is a characteristic of many old religions – the prophet Mohammed has a bit to say about it in the Quran, for example.
Its interesting that the in our reading this morning episode of the raising of the girl and the healing of the bleeding woman come straight after Jesus says this – “Go and learn what this means – “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”. This is very significant.
Sacrifice is for atonement. In almost every culture in which it has happened, it has been done in order to make up for sins, to appease an angry god, to extract a blessing from a god. It’s about correcting wrongs. In our society, when someone commits a crime they are punished. They sacrifice their freedom, or money, or time, in order to make up for the wrongdoing. It doesn’t correct it, but it is supposed to make up for it. The sacrificing of two doves then is supposed to be atonement, something to make up for her sin. Does this seem a bit unfair to you?
It looks like it seems unfair to God as well.
This sentence ““I desire mercy, not sacrifice” comes from the book of Hosea. It is God speaking of an unrepentant Israel, who offer sacrifices yet do not turn from the ways that go against God’s love for God’s people. It is saying that the sacrifice is not important, indeed that it is not wanted by God, and perhaps won’t have the desired effect of exonerating the people of Israel. God is saying that mercy is what God desires for the people, that atonement for sin requires people to change their ways. I guess that’s the thing about sacrifice – there is an attitude at times that once you have paid the price, that’s over and done with, and you can do it again, and pay the price again. It’s almost like paying a toll. Do the crime, serve the time, then get out and do it again. But mercy is something much more radical than that.
Mercy breaks into the cycle of sin and sacrifice. Mercy makes all people clean – not perfect, I hasten to add, but forgiven, included. Mercy means loving all. That doesn’t mean we should empty the prisons as such, but it does mean that we should treat prisoners a bit better. And it means for this woman who was bleeding for 12 years that she has suffered enough.
God doesn’t want us to suffer. No matter what we read in the Old Testament, God doesn’t want us to suffer. Most of all, God doesn’t want us to suffer the pain of separation, both from God and from society. To appease the desire to make sacrifice for sin, God gave his only Son. Humans sacrificed him, and in this, all believers are made whole, are granted mercy. No one has to sacrifice any more pigeons, least of all those for whom their only sin is to menstruate, and those for whom their only sin is to be afflicted with ill health. Jesus didn’t berate the bleeding woman for touching him and making Him unclean. What did he say to her? He said “Take heart, daughter, your faith has made you well.” She is whole, she is free from her affliction, she is restored to society. She is healed in mind, body and spirit. She is one of God’s people.
There is another symbolic action to all this as well. The blood. Blood, to the Jewish people, was the life of a creature. Leviticus 17.14 says that the life of a creature is its blood. Perhaps the bleeding that this woman has experienced can be seen symbolically as her losing her life, becoming less alive. On Stargate Atlantis, a science fiction television series, there are creatures known as the Wraith, who feed on their victim’s life force. This feeding causes the victim to age in a matter of seconds as their life force is drained. We know that when life is tough, it’s not just hard on the body. It saps the energy. Grieving people will often feel tired. Depressed people don’t have energy for anything, sometimes staying in bed for days on end. There is no zest for life, no energy, no life force, no soul. Jesus, in healing this woman, in restoring her to life in the community, has stopped this draining of life. He has restored her to life, just like Jairus’s daughter, the 12 year old girl, who seems to have died. Both of these women are raised from death, restored. Both have a second chance. Jesus gave them back their souls. And the tax collectors – well, imagine doing a job, living a life where everyone hated you, a job that you hated yourself, but did it because it made you money and helped you support your family. Perhaps some of you have been there, I know I have. It sucks the life out of you. Even a job you enjoy is like that at times, especially when there just doesn’t seem to be anytime for anything but work. But Jesus, in being with us in the midst of that, shows us the important things, the things we could all do well to remember, those things that are life giving. Family, friends, recreation, rest. Eating a meal with others, being social, being alive. When we die, we won’t regret not spending enough time working. No, what we will regret is not spending enough time enjoying life, being with our loved ones, having fun. Reclaiming our lost souls, our lost life.
God has given us back our lives, just as he gave back the lives of the bleeding woman and Jairus’s daughter. God has done this through Jesus Christ. Its there, Gods mercy, and it’s offered to us. Can we now show God’s mercy in kind to others? Can we be Jesus to the sick, to help others to receive from God their souls, their lives? You betcha! Praise the Lord who gives us life, and saves us from death. Alleluia!
