So yesterday I
preached on Matthew 9:9-26. If you happened to catch it, awesome, if not, DL
our App HCLConnect or hit up our website
for a listen- it’s under “Take Heart”.
Anyway, so within
the reading, there is a great line that Jesus uses to scorn the Pharisees who
are asking Jesus’ disciples why he has chosen to eat with so many ‘less than
acceptable’ people. Jesus jumps in, saying:
“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.”
That’s Matthew
9:12-13 and it’s an awesome line, right? Jesus gets to the heart of the matter
with these religious elitists- I’m after something different than what you
think God is after.
Now, frequently,
when I’m looking for the real force of a verse like this, one with such a
dramatic statement, I’ll look at the Greek or at various other English versions.
When I did that, I found the Message had a great way of summing up that last
line:
“I
have come to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders.”
I think this
line sums it up beautifully- because many of us may not really understand the
nuances and scope of all the rules and regulations that must have been upheld
to be deemed a righteous person. We don’t really understand everything that was
required, and so we lose a little bit when we simply read ‘the righteous’. But
language like ‘insider’ or ‘outsider’… that we can understand. We can probably
understand it on a deep level.
For years in
middle school I was cast out of all sorts of social circles- I played soccer,
but I played the flute, so each didn’t include me because of the other. A kid in
7th grade decided that he and his buddies would make my life a
nightmare- and for the most part succeeded for the majority of that year.
Social pariah or nerd or loser or whatever name you prefer, I understood the
insider/outsider language.
Fortunately for
me, I had a group that considered me an insider- the church. I found inclusion
not only from God, but from a family of kids and adults that would support me
when I was cast out. My hope within that context was that everyone that felt
cast out would be able to find a home and family like the one I found in my
community of faith. But I knew that wasn’t the case for so many people.
And yet, especially
in the church, the lure of being an insider comes in subtle and powerful ways,
even when I preach. Here’s what I mean- in the course of preparing my slides
for my sermon, one particular slide used these two versions of verse 13. I
typed each version in the slide along with an additional explanation. I
reviewed the slides several times, and sent it off for the Sunday slides.
Now, imagine my
surprise at the 8am service on Sunday, when I got to this particular slide,
looked up at the screen, and read the line:
“I
have come to invite insiders, not coddle outsiders.”
Take a second,
read it again, because I couldn’t believe I had typed that. Not just typed it, but
reviewed it, looked at it again and again, and it didn’t even register on my
radar.
Do you see what
I did? Unintentionally or subconsciously, I inverted what Jesus said.
This little
Freudian slip is such a typical example of the Pharisees’ desire for their
religion, and indeed, for many people today with religion. We on the inside
want to be confirmed, we don’t care about those outside.
If we’re on the
inside, we want Christ to invite us to the table, and forget everyone else. Who
needs them? We’ve gotten into the inner circle and we want to stay here. This
little grammatical slip is responsible for so much pain and trouble in our
world today. It is so much easier to live in an insider invitation world… if
you happen to find yourself on the inside.
But just because
it is easier, or seems to happen even without us knowing, doesn’t mean we can
allow Jesus’ words to become inverted like this. We must remember that Jesus
invites the outcast to the table, and calls us to step outside of our little
inner circles, wherever they happen to be, and find those who have been left
out, cast out, or told to simply get out.
I hope that the
slip was merely accidental, I did not knowingly put it in there. And yet, if I
do that with words on a screen, how much more do I do it with my actions and
speech? How much do we all? This week, watch out- it’s slippery out there.
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| Pastor Jon |
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