Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "Is There a Doctor in the House?"

Text: Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

or perhaps I should say, these stories?

Do you feel like the tax collectors and sinners …

people privileged to share fellowship with Jesus,

but feeling somehow unworthy?

Do you sometimes feel like the Pharisees …

having spent your whole life behaving according to the rules,

and wondering why this teacher spends so much of his time

with people who don’t?

Are you like the synagogue leader, or the woman in the crowd …

sick, or grieving, or somehow in need,

and hoping that Jesus can fix it?

Are you like the crowds of bystanders,

watching and curious,

but not wanting to be directly involved?

Or are you like Jesus,

meeting some expectations, confounding others,

and providing a healing touch to those who are suffering?

The author Scott Peck asked this question once at a conference,

just about the second half of the story.

He asked the audience to raise their hands

to indicate what they thought,

who they most identified with.

As you might expect, his listeners were divided pretty evenly:

about half identified with the needy people,

and about half, with the bystanders.

Only 6 people in a roomful of 400 Christians

identified with Jesus.

Peck concluded that the contemporary church,

which is after all supposed to be the body of Christ in the world,

is having a significant identity crisis.

Now, psychologically speaking,

it makes some sense that we are leery about

identifying ourselves too closely with Jesus.

After all, people who go around

saying and thinking that they are Jesus

usually end up in a locked ward somewhere!

Identify with Jesus?

Isn’t that a one-way ticket to a rubber room?

Furthermore, for those of us who are at least relatively sane,

it seems more than a trifle egotistical

to say that we identify ourselves with Jesus.

I personally have never performed a miracle …

Sometimes I can resist temptation; but other times, no way.

Sinless I ain’t …

and I doubt that any of us would make that claim about ourselves,

even in our most pharisaical moments.

So what does Scott Peck mean;

what am I trying to get us to think about,

when I suggest that perhaps we ought to think a whole lot more

about identifying with Jesus?

Only this:

that when we answer Jesus’ call of "Follow me,"

just like Matthew did at the beginning of our story today,

what we quickly learn is that following Jesus

means doing the things that he does, insofar as we are able.

He expects us to identify with him.

To eat with tax collectors and sinners,

and share the good news with them.

To be a healing presence in people’s lives,

and a witness to the power of God.

After all, as he reminded the Pharisees,

"Those who are well have no need of a physician,

but those who are sick."

One can argue whether the Pharisees and other religious leaders

were in fact well, and needed no healing;

or whether they were sick like everyone else, only they didn’t know it.

Both sides of that question have some good supporting evidence,

but that’s another topic for another day.

What does seem clear is that they believed

that the job of a faithful religious person

was to keep him- or herself "pure,"

uninfluenced by the many temptations to sin that are out there …

to know what the rules for living are,

and to abide by them.

Not just the "big" rules, like "Thou shalt not kill,"

but also the more detailed ones,

about what may and may not be eaten,

and with what it may or may not be eaten,

and about aspects of life that are clean and unclean,

and what to do about them.

And even though in retrospect we tend to see them as the bad guys,

still, in fairness we have to say that they

were trying to live out the faith

in the way they thought they were supposed to.

But back to Jesus.

We see him, at the beginning of today’s story,

passing by the booth of Matthew, the tax collector,

and saying simply, "Follow me."

And Matthew gets up and follows him.

It’s that simple.

I mean, it doesn’t even say that he called out to the nearest Roman soldier

to come and get the cash box!

"He got up and followed him."

Just what is an alleged religious leader doing,

calling a tax collector into discipleship?

I guess the closest thing to it in our day and time

would be an unscrupulous debt collector …

the kind who calls you at work and tries to embarrass you,

or who threatens to have dire things happen if you don’t pay up.

Or what about this dinner party with the "tax collectors and sinners"?

How would we feel about a fellowship dinner for which

we popped over to Fort Worth Ave.

and rounded up a dozen hookers or so,

and maybe a few kids dealing drugs to support their own habits,

and brought them back here for a good meal and some table talk?

So much of today’s church has, quite unintentionally,

become the Pharisees of old.

We’re hearing it in a lot of public discourse,

and national-level debate.

There are many, many sincere believers out there

who truly think that the way to honor God and to be faithful

is to live strictly by the rules,

to enforce those rules even in the lives of those who don’t share their faith,

and to shun sinners until they see the light.

It sounds very persuasive.

And it’s exactly the opposite of what Jesus did.

Jesus shared meals with sinners.

Jesus shared meals with, talked with, called into discipleship

people who were thought to be sinners,

even if that really wasn’t the truth.

Take, for example, the woman in our story

who has had hemorrhages for twelve years.

Not only would that be a constant nuisance,

not only would it probably make her anemic and weak,

it also made her "unclean."

She might as well have had leprosy.

It meant that she was cut off from normal contact with other human beings,

or if people did touch her, hug her, help her get up when she fell,

they immediately had to go and wash.

How do you suppose that would make you feel?

"Here, let me help you with that heavy water jar …

now please excuse me while I go scrub you off or me."

She would have been an outcast, treated as a sinner,

even if she had kept the rules her whole life long.

She touches Jesus …

and he doesn’t run screaming to the nearest well to clean up.

He turns and sees her, and says, "Your faith has made you well."

Faith.

Not keeping the rules about clean and unclean,

but faith.

Jesus is a physician …

He comes to heal the sick,

and to offer restoration and fellowship to those

who have been called sick, but aren’t.

In my experience,

this congregation is more like Jesus

than we sometimes let ourselves think.

We’re not perfect …

if y’all were perfect, I’d have to leave,

because I’m not.

But taken as a whole,

this congregation seems to me to have a very Christ-like spirit

when it comes to questions of welcoming sinners,

of including people who are often shunned and called sick

by other people in other congregations,

of being intentional about recognizing Christ’s call

in the life of any person who finds their way to us.

So far as I know,

none of us has miraculous healing powers …

if we did, I suspect there would still be more of us in the pews,

and fewer of us at Laurel Land.

So in that sense,

we can’t be a physician or a healer in the way that Jesus was.

But in another way,

which is equally important if not more so,

we can and must do his work,

be his body and his voice here and now.

We must allow ourselves to identify with Jesus and his work,

because there are far too many who claim to be his followers,

but don’t walk his walk.

This congregation has an astonishing history

of compassionate ministry with people who have mental illnesses.

With people who are homeless,

or trying to leave the state of homelessness.

With people who have HIV and AIDS.

With people who struggle with addictions.

Many of us in this congregation have had lives that were and are fairly traditional;

we’ve lived by the rules because they’ve worked for us …

But we haven’t let that keep us from welcoming people

who seem to live faithful lives according to a different set of rules.

And we seem to be open to learning from each other,

about what discipleship means to someone who is "not like us."

Overall, this congregation does an awesome job

of including and loving people who have been

beat up on by other Christian people, and by life itself.

You all don’t always get to hear people’s histories in the way that I do,

some of it very personal, and private, and painful ..

but I can tell you,

that the way in which you offer welcome and care and compassion

has made a huge difference to dozens of people that I know of …

some of whom have joined this church,

others of whom have ended up elsewhere,

but who have come back to church

because of the warmth and acceptance they felt here.

Those of us who have "always" been in the church

may not realize what a healing thing that is,

and the power we have to make a real difference to people.

When we are sick, as Jesus notes,

we do need him as physician.

But when we are well,

we have to be the physician.

Psychologically speaking,

we need to be cautious about identifying ourselves with Jesus …

But theologically speaking,

he is our identity.

We are his body.

We are the only body he has in this time and this place.

If we don’t offer healing to the world,

it can’t and won’t happen.

Is there a doctor in the house?

You bet. We’re it.

Scrub up, and let’s get to it.

Amen.