Matt. 9:9-13 & 18-26

Follow the Call!

Who has written the text we have read now? The evangelist Matthew. If we would believe the common explanation, he was one of the 12 disciples of Jesus. Luke and Mark call him Levi. He was head-hunted for the inner circle of Jesus one day while he sat at the tax house in Capernaum. In other words, it’s small glimpses of autobiography that Matthew here gives us. It’s about his personal and very decisive meeting with Jesus Christ. The tax station in Capernaum was hardly a place people approached with joy. The ones who came by sea, had to go there to pay taxes for the goods brought over the Sea of Galilee. And goods that had been brought over land were taxed in the same way. But it was not enough that the merchants had to pay taxes. The tax collectors had a very bad reputation of corruption. Often, people had to pay more than they should. Often, people mentioned tax collectors together with sinners. To defend Matthew and his colleagues we have to admit that later times have done them injustice by saying they were betrayers in Roman service. That’s hardly the truth. The border city of Capernaum, for instance, was under the governor Herod Antipas, and he was not directly subservient to Rome. But the same is surprising enough as it is. Jesus went to the tax station, not to pay any taxes, but to receive the one who should be one of the corner stones of the Christian church. In other words, Jesus saw the possibilities in people who others only had disgust for. I think it must have happened on a normal day. Matthew sat and collected money and wrote numbers in long columns. In the tax station he was in charge. And then Jesus came and turned everything upside down. "Follow me!" Jesus said. What in the world got Matthew to get up and follow Jesus? We don’t know, but in some strange way Matthew must have understood that this was his life’s chance. So he got up and followed Jesus.

Have you heard the call of Jesus to be his disciple? Have you left everything and followed him? Some times we hear people tell about radical departure. I think of people who have had problems with drugs and crime. Some of them tell dramatic stories about how Jesus called them out of degradation and changed their lives. It is good to hear such stories. Others have as Matthew experienced that Jesus called them to leave a solid career and begin something new. Some of those who work in churches have such a story. But even though the most common will be that being a disciple of Jesus is not that dramatic. You and I were called to be disciples of Jesus when three hands of water were poured over our heads in the name of the Father, the Son and The Holy Spirit. The call of Jesus to follow him is also like a headline over this very day of your life. It's a call to serve. We’re not supposed to write a gospel, as Matthew did. But our lives are even still chapters in God’s history of the world. The task of "Being fruitful, be many and fill the earth and subdue it" (Gen. 1:28) is not withdrawn. That means that you serve the Lord also through your work. Life in this world, in jobs, family and society should be seen as part of God’s call for us. Then it becomes as Luther said: that service happens both in the stable and the church. God calls us to live according to the Ten commandments. We are called to love God and our neighbor as ourselves. In the New Testament we have the exhortation to live a holy life. And God is our Maker, and in our union with Christ Jesus he has created us for a life of good works, which he has already prepared for us to do. (Ephes 2:10). All our life is a call to follow Jesus. The prayer we have after the offering expresses this so beautifully: Yours is the earth and all that fills it. Everything we possess, belongs to you.

The call to be a disciple of Jesus is a call to service. But even though it is first and foremost a call of salvation, to belong to the crucified and risen Jesus Christ and believe in him, as it is said in baptism.

The story about Matthew puts us on the right track when it comes to that. Jesus says some words that I know have been of great comfort for many. He was criticized for lack of judgement when he sat at the table together with tax collectors and sinners, and in that situation it comes: "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick… I have come to call not the righteous but sinners." This is good news for us who do not manage to serve God as we should. We sin against the Ten commandments, we do not love God above everything and our neighbors as ourselves. The story of Adam and Eve who were chased away from the fellowship with God in Paradise follows us like a fate. I think each one of us has felt left out sometimes. It might have been at a party or a church coffee where we were left alone. No one made contact or talked to us. We don’t like to be treated like air. We need to be seen. We long for a confirmation of our value. When Jesus ate with the tax collectors and the sinners, he went to the ones who were outside. He cared about people who were so undernourished with love that they had only contempt left for themselves. Jesus came with forgiveness of sin. He gave it without any promise of getting something in return. He reestablished the contact with God, and he gave people back faith in themselves. We don’t know what was on the menu when Jesus ate with the tax collectors and the sinners, but we do know that it was a taste of the kingdom of God. At the heavenly banquet there will be forgiven and restored sinners around the table. Jesus gives us back life exactly as it was intended, by God, when he first created it. The hymn of the month here at Mindekirken "Så grønn en drakt," is a beautiful text about this theme. "He gives us all back" we sing there.

I think this is the light in which we should read the fates of the two women today. The little girl was dead. Jesus came and interrupted the funeral ceremony. He threw out the crowd and the flute players who were making a commotion. Then he woke up her little body. This was a foreshadowing of Jesus’ resurrection on Easter Day, an appetizer of the resurrection of the body as we confess every Sunday. We also hear about an adult lady who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. It had damaged her health, ruined her economy and kept her outside the celebration of the service. A bleeding woman was regarded as unclean, and we can hardly imagine what 12 years of bleeding had caused to her self-image. In her lonesome despair she forces her way toward Jesus, and she reaches for his cloak. She comes anonymously but the touch causes a healing power. Jesus sees her, and more than that, she gets to hear: "Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well." We should not regard this as magic, but as a voiceless prayer. Her despair forced her to stretch out her hand toward Jesus. Words were not necessary. Jesus saw her in her despair, and he gave her back her life. Salvation, Biblically regarded, includes the whole human being. Spirit, soul and body. Healing and salvation are linked together, but not necessarily in time. The little girl died later. The woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages got other illnesses later. We are all subjected to futility. We’ll all die. But even though we have gone from death to life, we shall rise to everlasting life one day. Jesus says: "I live, and your shall live!" (John 14:19)

Glory be to God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit who is, was and shall be, one true God now and forever.