Saint or Sinner?

A Sermon preached on Sunday June 7 (Proper 5, Year A, Track II) at St. Augustine’s, WI

Hosea 5:15-6:6, Romans 4:13-25, Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

We are back in what the church calls Ordinary Time again, the liturgical colour is green, which we will be using from now all the way until October! Ordinary in this case does not mean conventional or normal. It comes from the Latin word ordinalis (meaning numbered or ordered) and is used as the weeks are counted in sequence, so this week is proper 5 (and the 2^nd Sunday after Pentecost). We also now return to taking our first reading from the Old Testament or Hebrew scriptures again, rather than from the Acts of the Apostles as we have been doing during the Easter season. There are two different tracks, as we call them for the Old Testament readings: One is called semicontinuous as it follows major stories and themes, read mostly continuously from week to week. Even then we can’t read all of the books as the Old Testament is considerably longer than the New! The other track, the one we are using this year, is sometimes called the Gradual or Related Track because the passages chosen are directly tied or related to the Gospel for the day.

This morning, for example, God’s words in the Book of the Prophet Hosea “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hosea 6:6) are used by Jesus (albeit with a slightly different translation) in Matthew’s Gospel when he tells the Pharisees “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” (Matthew 9:13) The Hebrew word translated as love or mercy is Hesed, when used in the Psalms it is traditionally translated as "loving kindness" in most English translations.

The context in which these words are used is a little different. In Hosea we hear a call to repentance. God is disappointed with God’s people and threatens to withdraw from their lives until they repent and truly seek him. However, when they do call out to him, apparently seeking healing and restoration, God doubts their sincerity. The people are very sure that God will return; God’s appearance is as sure as the dawn after the night, as certain as the spring rains after the arid winter period! And yet they see no need to change their ways, they assume they have a right to God’s protection as long as they go through the motions. Ironically in God’s response, the theme of water is picked up to express God’s lack of conviction that Israel is really seeking Him: “Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early.” (Hosea 6:4) That sounds beautiful and poetic – but simply means that the prophet, speaking for God, fears their love will melt away – it is here today, gone tomorrow. It is not consistent, not steadfast, not heartfelt.

The context of Jesus’s use of the phrase is the calling of Matthew (in other gospels named Levi) as one of his disciples. Matthew is patently unsuited to be a follower of a good Jewish rabbi. He is a tax collector and therefore both a collaborator with the occupying powers and someone who usually made extra money for himself by collecting too much! Clearly this person can be classed as a sinner. How dare Jesus accept a tax collector as a disciple, how can he invite such a man, a sinner together with other outcasts to the dinner? Jesus responds to this criticism from the Pharisees by quoting from the Hosea passage. “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’”

What are they supposed to learn? On the one hand that this is how God wants us to behave; Jesus reminds them that mercy - compassion and a loving heart - matter infinitely more to God than sacrifice, empty religious rituals or strict rule-following. You may remember Episcopal Bishop Marian Budde invoking this call to mercy in her sermon at the national prayer service at Washington National Cathedral on 21 January 2025. Speaking directly to President Trump, on the day after the inauguration, she said: “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.” When Jesus invited Matthew to join him and other outcasts of his society at the table this was a visible and outward sign of such love and mercy. And as it turned out, not misguided at all! Matthew became a faithful disciple and for centuries he was even identified as the author of this Gospel. Steadfast love and mercy are however not only what God desires, but also what God promises to those who believe and trust in Him. In the passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans we also heard from this morning, Paul writes at great length about God’s promise to Abraham and through him to us that depends on faith and not on rule keeping! And in the second half of the Gospel passage, we see God’s mercy in action in response to faith when Jesus heals the women with haemorrhages (who actively disobeys rules by reaching out to touch the hem of Jesus’ cloak) and brings the girl back to life. The father and the woman showed both great trust and humility.

In his response to the Pharisees Jesus adds: “For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” Based on this, and often attributed to St. Augustine (of Hippo), there is a famous phrase that “The church is not a haven for saints; it is a hospital for sinners.” So, are we all sinners and need healing? Well yes we are, at least we all have the capacity and inclination to sin in all its varieties. The service of Baptism certainly assumes this tendency. One of the questions we will ask today and that Sophie’s parents and godparents will answer on her behalf is: “Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God?” And then in the Baptismal Covenant, that we all renew, we have another question about sin. “Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?” It assumes that many of us, if not all, will succumb to our sinful desires and reminds us that even, or rather especially then, God’s mercy is available: if we genuinely seek it and seek God!

I think Jesus is also being a little ironic when he uses the word righteous. It is the self-righteous that he did not come to call, that is those people who think or are sure they are already in the right because of who they are, their position, their nationality, their party affiliation, or even because they are rich – which is surely a sign of God’s favour? They do all the right things, while ignoring the stranger, the poor and the weak. And that is not who Jesus wants. He wants the sinners, he prefers those who know their own weaknesses, who know they can’t just rely on themselves, who know that other people need and rely on them, who offer and seek mercy, and who know that they need to turn – again and again – to what is good in the person of Jesus Christ. To quote from another prophet, Micah (6:8): “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Amen.