The Rev. Sara Warfield
Scriptures: Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
Things got unexpectedly intense during our April vestry meeting. Every year, we select a theme that will anchor us in our work. We selected this year’s theme at a Vestry Retreat hosted by the diocese resource center in March. The facilitators asked us to read the Baptismal Covenant in the Book of Common Prayer and invited us to wonder which part of it was calling out to us and our work for the coming year.
Much to my surprise, our Vestry—and actually many of the other vestries from other parishes—were drawn to the same part: “Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?” At the retreat, we spent some time discussing this theme in terms of how our ministry teams may have fallen short either recently or throughout our parish’s history. The conversation felt more logistical and practical than theological, which was fine. We didn’t really have time or space for a deeper dive that day.
But when we came back together for our April meeting, there were some new feelings about this selected theme. They were more visceral, more emotional. The words “evil” and “sin” weren’t sitting right for some. In fact, they were downright painful.
I’ll be honest: I did not expect this reaction, and it was hard for me to immediately switch from my facilitator role into a pastoral role. But thankfully, we have an incredible vestry, and one member named what I wasn’t able to in that moment: that some of our members were experiencing the words “sin” and “evil” as an immediate threat to their well-being. It was an automatic trauma response to how these words had been defined and wielded in past church experiences that harmed them deeply.
We were able to slow down the meeting, to hold those strong reactions with love, and to put a pause on our process. It was a hard meeting, and I am so grateful for what it revealed and how our vestry’s honesty and vulnerability helped us to move forward with more care and intention, with a focus on relationship.
Today’s sermon is part of this process.
The words “sin” and “evil” make some of us flinch or flee or fight because previous churches and pastors have told us a few specific things:
First, that our being consists of two separate parts: a spiritual part that is inherently good and godly and needs to be nurtured, and a physical part, our body, our flesh, which is inherently evil and that we must tame and tamp down and deny in order to keep our spiritual part on track.
Second, that God keeps a detailed tally of our sins to determine what we deserve in this life and in the eternal afterlife.
These two ideas are at the core of what came up during our vestry meeting. And I categorically reject both ideas. Not because I don’t like them, though I don’t, or because they make me uncomfortable, which they do, but because when I read the scriptures, I simply find no truth in them.
Last week, we heard, “So God created humankind in God’s image, and God saw everything that God had made, and indeed, it was very good.” Yes, in the next chapters, Adam and Eve go on to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, but that does not change the fact that God created us in God’s own image, and that we are, that we continue to be to this day, very good.
Genesis tells us that by virtue of these bodies that we’re in, we cannot escape God’s goodness. So we can let go of any idea that our body is somehow inherently corrupted or evil. We can let go of the idea that this flesh holds us back from higher spiritual goodness. Now don’t get me wrong, there are things that do hold us back from goodness, but it’s not the existence or desires of our bodies.
But it’s the second point that I think today’s scriptures really speak to: that God keeps a detailed tally of our sins to determine what we deserve in this life and in the eternal afterlife. Or, stated another way: Doing good earns us rewards, and doing bad earns us punishment.
FALSE! says all our scriptures today, though I’m going to focus on the gospel, in which Matthew tells us a few different stories of faith, not merit; of mercy, not sacrifice.
You probably already know this, but tax collectors were not well loved in the time of Jesus. They were agents of the Roman colonizers tasked with collecting money from their neighbors to give to the Romans. And their Roman overlords were only concerned that the empire was getting its due. If the tax collectors extorted the taxpayers for a little extra money for themselves, which most of them did, the Romans didn’t care. And tax collectors were usually locals, usually even Jewish, so they were seen as traitors to and exploiters of their own people. Tax collectors violated the public trust, they violated the communal relationship.
And that’s actually what sin is. The violation of relationship. In fact, that’s exactly how our Book of Common Prayer defines sin. At the back of the book in the catechism of the Church, it says: “Sin is the seeking of our own will instead of the will of God, thus distorting our relationship with God, with other people, and with all creation.” Now when I say relationship, I don’t mean just one kind of relationship—interpersonal, professional, familial, romantic. I mean the endless constellation of connections that make our existence possible, the recognition that we all need each other to survive. That we all need the trees and birds and microbes of God’s creation. And that we need God.
When we can acknowledge that we need each other, it changes how we relate to one another.
Sin isn’t about breaking God’s rules and then being punished, it’s about the neglect or denial of relationship and the injury and pain that comes because of it.
Jesus demonstrates this point with Matthew, the tax collector. If Jesus defines sin as an action worthy of punishment, why would he invite Matthew into his company? Because Jesus knows the antidote to sin is relationship, not punishment. Matthew the tax collector then immediately abandons the sin he is committing against his own people and chooses relationship with Jesus instead. He becomes a disciple. That’s a form of healing, for both Matthew and his community.
Another more literal healing comes just after this when the woman who had been hemorrhaging for 12 years touches the fringe of Jesus’ cloak. Now we aren’t told exactly what the hemorrhaging is about, but many scholars guess that her menstruation hadn’t stopped for 12 years. Those of us who have menstruated know how miserable that must have been for her. But not only that, Jewish women were considered ritually unclean when they were menstruating, which means no one could touch her without becoming ritually unclean themselves. Which means she hadn’t been touched in 12 years. And which means that if she touches Jesus he, too, will become ritually unclean, meaning, he too, will need to be isolated for a time. Being ritually unclean was a big deal for any Jew in that time, including Jesus. Just her being in the crowd would be appalling to her community, as she risks making them all unclean.
Now here’s what Jesus doesn’t do when he senses that the woman is touching his cloak: he doesn’t spin around and say, “What makes you think you deserve healing, especially after making me and maybe a lot of other people unclean?”
No, he sees her intent, which is a desire for health so that she can be back in relationship with the people around her. He sees that she is demonstrating faith in him, seeking relationship with him. And so he turns around and says, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And she is healed.
Jesus doesn’t say, I have made you well. Jesus says, your trust in your relationship with me, with God, has made you well.
Sin and healing are both about the same thing: relationship. Sin is about the neglect or denial of relationship, and healing is about trusting in, the offering of relationship.
We’re all going to stumble sometimes. We’re all going to say sharp words out of anger sometimes. We’re all going to let someone down sometimes. And there are some people who quite willfully deny the goodness and humanity of others, who deny any sense of relationship in their life.
But sin is an action, not a state of being. And the good news is that healing, that redemption, which is a form of healing, is always right there. We can always reach out, as the hemorrhaging woman does to Jesus, with trust, with faith that we are able to be healed. And we can always reach out, as Jesus does to Matthew the tax collector, and offer redemption and healing to others.
And I know this is true, because In these past few months, that’s what our Vestry has shown me. Amen.
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