"As Jesus was walking along . . ."

 

 St. Mark's Episcopal Church

Pentecost II - Proper V
June 11, 2023

 

“As Jesus was walking along . . . .”

So begins our gospel lesson today, which sounds so casual, so nonchalant, that we cannot possibly be prepared for the incredible things that are about to unfold. This include, the calling of Matthew and what Matthew witnesses as he decides to follow Jesus:  The healing of a young girl so sick she is presumed to be dead and the healing of an elderly woman suffering for twelve years with hemorrhages.

Now, when you stop to think about it, the calling of Matthew to be a disciple was pretty amazing. He, himself, was a Jew who was a tax collector. That meant he worked for the Romans, the occupiers and oppressors, extracting unfair taxes from his fellow Jews and being paid an annual salary what was probably more than his fellow Jews would make in their lifetimes.

 

To say that tax collectors were hated is to make an understatement. Even the Pharisees, who had an unhealthy relationship with Rome, hated the tax collectors and complained to Jesus when they saw him sharing a meal with them “and other sinners”. And here, Jesus calls one of them, a man named Matthew, to be one of his disciples. And, wonder of wonders and miracle of miracles, Matthew follows him. Here’s what Matthew sees:

 

“As Jesus was walking along . . . .” suddenly a leader of the synagogue called to him, begging to come and heal his daughter whom he presumed was already dead. He assures the man that she will live and “as Jesus was walking along” to go and cure her, he is suddenly approached by an elderly woman who touches the hem of his cloak in hopes of being healed.

 

“As Jesus was walking along . . .” he stopped and turned to her and said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well.

It’s almost dizzying, isn’t it? So many miracles packed into – let’s see, 1, 2, 3 paragraphs. And all of it happened, “As Jesus was walking along.” It’s all so casual that you might have missed the golden nugget of a lesson Jesus provides in the midst of all of these nonchalant miracles.

 

Jesus says, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’”

Woah! Hang on! Let’s hear that again: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”  That’s a pretty heavy lesson he’s nonchalantly dropped into the midst of nonchalantly performing three miracles.

 

I confess that, over the years, I’ve probably lost count of the number of times I’ve preached on this gospel passage, but I don’t think I’ve ever been struck as hard by these words. I think I’ve preached on Jesus saying, “Follow me” and the significance of the call to Matthew, the tax collector, and what it means to follow Jesus. I’m sure I’ve preached on the healing of the little girl and no doubt the healing of the elderly woman.

 

Maybe, in the midst of all that’s happening in this Gospel, I’ve missed – or, perhaps more accurately, avoided – the words of Jesus to the Pharisees, “Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

 

For our Roman Catholic friends as well as those in the Episcopal Church who understand themselves to be Anglo Catholics, today is the Feast of Corpus Christi, also known as the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, celebrating the Real Presence of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus in the bread and wine of the Eucharist.

 

In medieval times in many parts of Europe, but especially in England, Corpus Christi was a time for the performance of mystery plays. The plays in York, England were performed on Corpus Christi Day for some 200 years until their suppression in the sixteenth century during the Protestant Reformation.

 

The observance of this day is frown upon by many as a relic of the kind of religion that moves the Eucharist to the status of an idol to be worshiped – too much emphasis on the “sacrifice of the mass” and not enough on the mercy of Jesus. 

 

I’ll leave that question to be debated by theologians as well as basic questions like, How is mercy different from sacrifice? What is required of mercy that is not required of sacrifice? And, what could any of those words, spoken to some ancient religious men mean for us today?

 

No, I’m not going to run to the dictionary and I’m not going to give you an exegesis on the passage. I could do that but this is a sermon meant to inspire more than instruct. I’ll leave all the classroom stuff to a weekly bible study or adult education class where it rightly belongs.

 

No, I want to talk about Ted Lasso. Does anyone in church today know who I’m talking about? For those of you who don’t, here’s the basic plot: American college football coach Ted Lasso  heads to London to manage AFC Richmond, a struggling English Premier League football team, which was part of the divorce settlement of a very wealthy British woman, Rebecca Welton, whose husband left her for a younger woman.

Why would a British divorcee ask an American football coach from Wichita, Kansas to coach a British soccer team – which is nothing like American football – you ask? To destroy it and therefore hurt her ex-husband who loved the team and get her revenge. Pretty dark, right? I’ve known divorces that were darker and messier and meaner. Trust me.

 

Except Ted Lasso is no ordinary coach. He embodies the kind of American can-do spirit some of us have forgotten about, given all the negativity that swirls around us today. He is unphased by his first loss as coach – and, his second. When the press asks him about it he says something that is quite remarkable.

 

Ted Lasso says that if coaching a sports team is only about winning and losing then a team will never win. In Lasso’s mind, a great team is created by helping each player understand who they are and learn to work with their abilities and limitations and by becoming the best person they are, they can be the best team player. For Lasso, it’s all about relationships.

Hold that thought.

So, a few episodes later, Lasso’s star player, Jamie, is sidelined for disciplinary reasons and Ted puts a new player, Daniel Rojas in his place. Daniel proves to be even better than Jaime but during practice, he is felled by an injury.

“It’s the curse of the treatment room,” someone gasps.

 

Turns out, in 1914 the club teased young men to join the club to trick them into enlisting in WWI. Over 400 men enlisted. Very few returned. Those injured from the war who did return ended up in the treatment room. Ever since, it is said, the room and the team have been cursed.

 

Ted is determined to ‘reverse the curse’ and asks the team to meet at midnight in the treatment room and bring with them something of value to them which will be burned. At midnight. In the hopes that Daniel will be healed and return to the team.

 

What follows is nothing less than astonishing. Roy, the team captain begins by bringing the blanket that was given to him as a child when he came to London. It was his “security blanket” which connected him to his family when he felt alone and scared.

 

Another player – Jamie, the bully who was sidelined for disciplinary reasons – told the story about how his mum encouraged him to play soccer and bought him his first pair of football shoes. But his dad, he said, encouraged him to be tough. He said, “Sometimes, I think I focus too much on being tough for my dad and not enough on why I came into football in the first place.” In went the football shoes.

 

And so on, one player after the next, sacrificing what was of value to him, letting go of old memories, and all for the sake of the health and healing of someone else.

 

You all are smart enough to know where I’m headed with this. I couldn’t provide a better illustration of what Jesus means when he says, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Because, you see, for Jesus sacrifice is not about the suffering. For Jesus, sacrifice is about what you do – a piece of yourself you give up and contribute – in the service of others. Which is an act of mercy.

Which brings us to the “real presence” we celebrate in “Corpus Christi” – the Body of Christ. We are asked to “make a sacrifice of thanksgiving” and place it on the altar. In so doing, the true, real presence of Jesus comes to us in the ordinary elements of the bread and the wine.

 

It’s not magic but it is mystical. And, admittedly, a profound part of the mystery of our faith.

 

I have no power but I have been given the authority of the church and your trust in me to gather up all the broken pieces of our lives – the petitions we make in the Prayers of the People, said silently in our hearts or a loud, along with the worried lines I see buried deep in your brow, the tears I see welling at the corners of your eyes, the grimaces you make when you sit down or stand up, the whispered worries you give me in the sacristy or at the entrance to the church about an upcoming surgery or doctor’s appointment, the suffering of a relative or friend or neighbor, your grief at the death of someone near and dear to you.

I gather up ALL those broken pieces and lay them at the altar and together, we pray over them, remembering the great sacrifice Jesus made for us and the mercy he had for us. And, we ask Jesus to make of them his Body and Blood and for him to be truly and really present to us. We ask him to nourish us with the Bread of Heaven and the Cup of Salvation.

 

A sacrifice of mercy for our sacrifice of thanksgiving so we may be merciful to others.

“As Jesus was walking along . . .” a lot of stuff happened, according to Matthew. Turns out, lots of stuff happens in the midst of the ordinary, mundane events of our lives, which we can see if we but slow down just a bit and pay it some attention.

 

Jesus takes our pain and our sorrows, our worries and our anxieties, our fretting and concern along with our happiness and joy, our celebrations and commemorations, our triumphs and successes and all those things are changed and transformed and become for us his real and true presence.  And we are changed and transformed and become, for him, the Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ.

It's nothing short of a miracle, I tell you, all sandwiched into a regular, routine, Sunday in something on the church calendar we call “ordinary time,” which begins when we, like Matthew, decide to follow Jesus.

Amen.

EK+