June 8, 2008
Text: Matthew 9:18-26
Pr. Robert Goldstein
Those Who Dare

What great stories of life in this Gospel reading on this lovely sunny morning!

Jesus dares. In the helter skelter of the hoopla of his fame lighting up dreary backwater villages, the intrigue of ambitious disciples, and the suspicions of insecure religious leaders who are beginning to think feloniously, there's Jesus. The hero is beginning to emerge. Jesus dares to dine with tax collectors. Jesus dares to dine with so-called "sinners -usually both women and men who can't or won't observe all the rules and regulations of their religion, or who are ill or suffering bad luck (which were interpreted as the result of prior sins). May God save us from reducing access to Christianity by respectability, socio-economic class or just good fortune!

Jesus dares to dine with the outcasts because it is an opening for healing -both personal and community. He dares to teach his awesome vision of a new humanity -over bread and wine. A joyous meal inside. But outside, miffed clergy confront the followers of Jesus. "Why does your rabbi eat with tax collectors and sinners? He's breaking all the rules!" Jesus, at table and, in the mirth of wine and compelling hilarious irony, responds:

Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.

The irony in Jesus' words translates this way, "These outcasts may appear sick, but I am healing their sickness -especially the sickness of being excluded by clergy from life, society and God. God no longer wills such barriers. So those who ask the question, the clergy and their followers, are far sicker in their self-righteousness!" And, as a true rabbi, Jesus dares the prophet Hosea's words to feed on, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice." May the Holy Spirit open their eyes to the new presence of God and humanity in their very midst!

St. Paul makes the same gracious and inclusive point of this new age in Christ. Just as Jesus included all who were excluded from Jewish society, Paul dares to include the Gentiles. Paul argues that Abraham and Sarah became righteous in God's sight simply because they believed in God's vision that they would be the parents of many nations. They simply trusted the Word God spoke to them. That faith in God's promise gave them the courage to dare to believe that at 100 years of age they could have Isaac. Now that would be the work of God!

So Paul is arguing: if our paragons of the Jewish religion were justified by faith alone, not by any work on their part, even of bearing Isaac, then we, Gentile or Jewish are justified by faith alone when we believe in the vision of Jesus Christ. On the cross Jesus became the righteousness of God for us all. We receive that righteousness when we believe. We are baptized into that righteousness so that our sins are washed way. So Paul dares with faith to bring the inclusion of the Gentiles in the new era of the Real Presence of God just as Jesus brings inclusion of all Jews in his generation and ministry. A great story, but Jesus has more for us.

The leader of the local synagogue dares to interrupt Jesus and plead for the life of his very own child. From inclusive and gracious daring come compassion, mercy and healing. That's the miracle to this father's grief, fear and hope against hope. Then there is the hemorrhaging woman. As Jesus was hurrying to the grieved father's home, a woman dares to push her way up behind him and touch the fringe of his cloak believing not in herself but in Jesus' power to heal her. An incredibly little incident that plays forth so powerfully in this story. According to the local religion, which Jesus is trying to loosen up into mercy and grace, this hemorrhaging woman is absolutely unclean and is to be avoided at all costs. To further insult the clergy, Jesus doesn't castigate her or banish her yet again, but instead in joyous words to her ears he responds: "Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well." Daughter, not even woman, not even unclean woman who has just violated his ritual purity, but daughter he calls her. Such daring brings healing then and now. A new daughter of Jesus.

This is the time for women. Yes, we added Sarah to the text on Abraham and Sarah. We dare to do that because we know that there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female in Christ. We dare in the spirit of Jesus and the prophets. But we do it too because it is the time of women. Some of the so-called "sinners" with whom Jesus dined were no doubt women. A daughter's death brings her grieving father to his knees before Jesus. A hemorrhaging woman is welcomed as Jesus' daughter and is healed. This is the time for women.

I have a treasured photograph of women assembled around the great Susan B Anthony in Washington when they addressed the Senate Select Committee on Woman Suffrage, March 7, 1884. Of the 12 women gathered from around the world with Ms Anthony, on the far left is Vida Goldstein from Australia and on the far right is Emma Evald of of Chicago, my last parish. (I placed the picture downstairs for you to view). Emma dared to want to be ordained in that rigid Swedish Lutheran Church but, barred from that, she blazed a trail for women's rights in church and society as much as she could -daring to butt against the old bulls. Dear Emma and Vida, and Susan, Sarah and those unnamed women of the Gospel reading, we have reached the time for women at last because you all dared to believe the vision of Jesus. Among you we count our mothers and Hillary Clinton who made it clear that a woman could not only run for the presidency but could be commander in chief. By the grace of God, we hail you all.

And I feel joy that the America to which I once swore allegiance, the America of moral leadership and a vision for the family of nations is returning. This kind of America is our best weapon against terrorism. Thank God for all who have dared in church and state to follow Jesus' vision of the Real Presence of God amongst us and all nations. Thank God when you and I dare in faith too. Amen