Scripture Readings: Jeremiah 28:5–9 | Psalm 89:1-18 | Romans 6:12–23 | ​Matthew 10:40–42

“For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.” (Romans 6:19).
 
What kind of things come to mind when you hear the phrase: “Too good to be true?”
 
Right now, our world is facing a whole lot of complicated and serious challenges: struggling economies, political systems and international relationships under deep tensions and strain… climate change and severe weather events… technological revolutions like the rise of A.I., that threaten to upend and destabilize our societies even further… not to mention all the age old issues we humans have struggled with like greed, prejudice, inequality, and war.   
 
And whenever we’re faced with complex and serious challenges, there often seems to be a whole lot of people ready to step in and offer us some sort of optimistic and simple solutions… over-promising spectacular results, but ultimately failing to deliver. They might say the things that we want to hear… but their words are too good to be true.

But what we need isn’t simple and easy answers… what we need is the truth, even when it’s hard. Even when it asks a lot of us. Hard truths are much better than easy but empty lies.
 
This was the kind of conflict at work in our first reading today, from the Book of Jeremiah, when the faithful prophet of God confronts a literal fake-news false-promise prophet named Hananiah, whose message of peace and an easy recovery for God’s people turned out to be too good to be true.
 
At the time, Judah had just been dealt a terrible blow: they had suffered their first defeat at the hands of Babylon… with the king of Judah, the sacred Temple vessels, and many of their leaders carried off into Exile, leaving behind a large portion of God’s people, struggling to make sense of their painful situation. Had God abandoned them? Was this the end of their nation? Was there any hope for them now?
 
And in this dark and confusing time, Hananiah stepped up to try and offer some good news… some hope that their enemies would soon be overturned… saying God would step in to intervene and fix things very soon. That this whole situation was only a minor setback, soon to be resolved.
 
In Jeremiah 28:1-4, Hananiah proclaimed “in the house of the Lord, in the presence of the priests and all the people, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. Within two years I will bring back to this place all the vessels of the Lord’s house, which King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took away from this place and carried to Babylon. I will also bring back to this place King Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim of Judah, and all the exiles from Judah who went to Babylon, says the Lord, for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.”
 
Sounds like good news to me. Yes, things were rough right now, but according to Hananiah, God said that real peace was just around the corner. The problem was, of course, that God had said no such thing! Hananiah’s words were truly too good to be true. And as unpopular as it would be to challenge this hopeful message, it fell to Jeremiah to stand up and speak the truth, and call out this empty promise.

Hear again Jeremiah’s response to the false hope offered by Hananiah: “Amen! May the Lord do so; may the Lord fulfill the words that you have prophesied, and bring back to this place from Babylon the vessels of the house of the Lord, and all the exiles. But listen now to this word that I speak in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people. The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms. As for the prophet who prophesies peace, when the word of that prophet comes true, then it will be known that the Lord has truly sent the prophet.” (Jeremiah 28:5-9). In other words, Jeremiah says to him: “Peace sounds great, but we’ll believe it when we see it!”
 
Jeremiah knew that the hard truth was this first defeat was just the beginning. Soon Babylon’s armies would return and completely destroy the Temple, and torch the whole Holy City, shattering their entire world. Soon the rest of God’s people would be killed, taken off into Exile, or scattered among the nations. Instead of returning soon to the status quo, the people of Judah would spend generations in a land not their own… strangers in a strange land… serving at the mercy of new masters… apparently abandoned by God, and cut off from their future as God’s holy people.

I say apparently because as hard as this truth about Judah’s future was, their Exile was not actually evidence that God had abandoned them… but rather that God was committed to correcting them. Disciplining them, as a loving parent does with their wayward child… not out of spite or cruelty, but out of the deepest devotion and compassion.
 
In the centuries leading up to this point, God’s people had steered so far off course from their covenant partnership with the LORD, and had adopted all sorts of unjust, and oppressive, and evil practices, that God allowed them to face the dire consequences of their choices… the death of their whole way of life. Their society, their sacred traditions, their sense of identity… all of it was shaken to the core… in order for God to restore His people, and begin to turn their hearts and lives back to Himself.

And this work of spiritual restoration would take more than a moment… more than a few years even. It was going to be a slow but essential process if God’s people were going to learn to trust and follow Him again. To learn that, even when everything else is lost, that they could depend on the Living God, and that walking in His holy ways really does lead us into life.  

In our own moments of devastation, or times of great difficulty, it can be really tempting to turn to those like Hananiah who offer us easy answers and the hope of rapid results. But the danger of easy answers is that they usually end up being too good to be true. Not only leaving us disappointed and disillusioned… but also distracting us from the necessary truths that we need to engage with. The truths that might be hard, but that offer actual hope, and that can help us to get through the tough times before us… helping us to find a better way forward, even if it’s not the easiest path. After all, what’s best for us is rarely what’s easiest.

And the truth is, the Good News is far better than any false hope that we could dream up or imagine! The Good News that the Living, Triune God truly loves us, and our world… and wants us to share in the blessed life of His Good Kingdom through Jesus Christ the Risen Lord… graciously forgiving our sins, and drawing us into a new fellowship of faith. This new life is not always easy, and it invites us into a life-long journey of learning and growing… but even so, it is so worth it. It is so good… and thanks be to God… it is also true. 

But there is also the real danger of taking something wonderful and true, like the Good News of God’s great love for us all… and trying to reduce it into another easy answer… distorting what is meant to bring us real help and hope by twisting it a bit into something else entirely… into an excuse for selfishness, and sin… a cover for our misbehaviour.
 
This is the kind of confusion that St. Paul tackled head on in our second reading today from the letter to the Romans… shining a light on a potential misunderstanding of the Good News that goes something like this: if God really loves us, and will keep on forgiving us, we can just do whatever we want, right? If we’re saved by His grace, as a gift… and not by our obedience to the Torah, to the Laws of Moses… then we can just live however we want… right? “Should we sin” St. Paul asks rhetorically “because we are not under law but under grace?”
 
As Christians today, does this describe our own attitudes at times? Are we concerned about how all the choices we make in our daily lives line up with how our Lord Jesus Christ has taught us to live? Are we seriously trying to walk in His good ways, or are we just doing our own thing… not bothered much about turning our lives around, content to take the easiest paths forward, even if it means letting our selfishness and sins take the lead more often than not?
 
For St. Paul, that would be a ridiculous choice, and he goes on to use the image of a slave being set free from a deadly master in order to serve one that brings life instead.  

He understands that the Good News of Jesus Christ is meant to set us free from sin itself… not just the punishment from sin, but our actual slavery to it. So, if we’ve been set free from its power, why should we turn back to it again? It only leads us into trouble, and ultimately death… and we have a much better alternative!
 
Romans 6:20-23, “When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Once, like the Exiles of Judah, serving their new masters in Babylon, we too were held captive by sin… driven by forces inside and beyond us that trapped us in habits of self-destruction. But now, in Jesus Christ, God’s grace has been given to us to set us free from sin, to follow a new Master… the One who loves us, and laid down His life at the cross to purchase our freedom and cleanse us from sin.
 
And now, with the help of His Holy Spirit, our Master Jesus Christ calls us to live each day as those serving Him, the Risen Lord of Love and Life… leaving behind all those things that drag us back down into selfishness and sin. And putting all His ways into practice. 
 
A good word for this process of putting sin to death in our daily lives, and learning to live God’s way is sanctification: a word St. Paul uses, that basically means being made holy. Being set apart for a sacred, special purpose… and being made pure… refined like silver and gold in a furnace.
 
Sanctification is itself a gift to us. The results of the work already begun in us by Jesus Christ our Saviour, and the ongoing work of God’s Holy Spirit. It’s not about trying to fix ourselves up first in order to be good enough for God, trying to earn His approval. It’s what happens when we simply obey His voice, and follow His lead… placing our faith in Him, and then cooperate with His work in our lives… with the gracious gift of New Life He alone can give… saying yes to His offer to cleanse our hearts… to keep healing our old instincts… and to redirect our actions in ways that bind us closer to Him, and to one another. 
 
Sanctification… holiness is a gift to us in Jesus Christ. A gift that unfolds and deepens over time, and one that invites our intentional efforts… our daily choice to walk in God’s own holy ways, and not to just appreciate them from afar. It’s not always the easiest path in life. But it is a path that is both good and true… ultimately leading us away from false hopes, and leading us towards the fullness of life… to experience life the way our loving Creator always intended us to: not preoccupied with our own self-righteousness, or status… but driven by mercy, integrity, and grace… set apart to reflect the holy love of the Living God in our daily lives, and all our relationships. 
 
As Christians, we’re not being offered a bunch of easy answers or instantaneous results when we give our lives to, and place our faith in Jesus Christ our Lord. Instead, we are called into the new life of holiness… of growing more and more like our Lord, and choosing again and again to walk in His ways. Not so we can play pretend, and act like we’re somehow better than others… or have all the answers.
 
The goal is not to become ‘too good to be true’… but by God’s grace, to truly become good. To share in God’s own goodness… so that through our lives… our words, and actions, and choices that reflect His own holiness, God can bring His healing and hope to our hurting world… working through the lives of His holy people to share the Good News of Christ Jesus… the Good News of His saving love, especially as we face all these complex and serious challenges before us.  
 
So may God’s Holy Spirit continue His good work in us, sanctifying us… making us more like Him… and working through all we say and do to share God’s holy love with our world. Amen.

Scripture Readings: Jeremiah 20:7–13 | Psalm 69:7-18 | Romans 6:1–11 | Matthew 10:24–39

“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:37-39).
 
Now I don’t know if you were looking forward to a nice, straightforward, family-focused Father’s Day sermon today… but our Gospel passage this morning has sure set us up for a much more difficult time of reflection… inviting us to wrestle with some very challenging, and frankly confusing words spoken by Jesus Christ our Lord.
 
For many folks, the bonds between family members are the most sacred… the most essential relationships that can be imagined. Our attachments and responsibilities towards parents and children… to those we have shared our lives with at the most intimate levels… and who depend on us… these are not things to be trifled with. What is Jesus actually asking of us here? How does this fit with what else we know about Him, and His calling to take part in the work of His good Kingdom?
 
Well, whenever we find ourselves confronted with something in the Scriptures that catches us off guard, and confuses us, it really does help to step back a bit and recall what has already been made known about God’s character and intentions… especially through Jesus Christ His Son.
 
And what do we know? Well, we know that the Living God loves us all… including our family members... our fathers, and mothers, our children, and siblings, and spouses. More than we do, in fact. And we know that God has called us to love everyone… including our family members. So then, whatever Christ is calling us to do in our Gospel passage today, it’s not coming from a desire to undermine our deep connections to those we love and share our lives with… but to establish them on a firmer foundation… and to keep us from asking more of them than they can possibly offer.
 
In these words, Jesus is using an extreme example to highlight a dangerous and difficult choice that lies before us all, a choice about where we’ll place our deepest devotion. He’s challenging us with the question:
Do our hearts and lives really belong to the Lord, or to someone else? 
 
Turning now to our Gospel passage itself from Matthew Chapter 10, we need to locate these words in their context, and work through the logic of the message as a whole. Today’s reading is a continuation of a much larger section in which our Lord is preparing His disciples to be sent out to the various villages of Israel, and share with God’s people the Good News that God’s Kingdom has come near. He sends them out to preach, and to heal, to bring God’s help and hope to those who have long lived in despair. But He’s also preparing them to face the real friction and inevitable rejection that they will also encounter.
 
He says to them: “A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master.” (Matthew 10:24-25). And so, if some of God’s people have already slandered and accused Jesus of being in the wrong, they can expect to face the same treatment. But even so, Jesus reassures them, and tells them not to be afraid of what mere mortals can do.

Matthew 10:28-31, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” [In other words, be much more concerned with staying true to God our Creator. Jesus then goes on:] “ Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”
 
Notice that Jesus doesn’t promise that they would somehow avoid difficult times, persecution, and even death. Actually, He says the opposite. Christ says that they need to be prepared to face real suffering if they are to serve as His disciples, and share in the work of God’s Kingdom. Just like Jesus already had, and soon would once and for all at the cross. And sure enough, these same disciples would all one day face fierce persecution, and martyrdom for the sake of the Good News.
 
And yet, Jesus does offer them real hope to hold onto: the hope that comes from knowing that God their Father would always be mercifully watching over them... intimately aware and invested in every detail of their lives… even when they felt alone. Lovingly counting the hairs on their heads… even when they felt abandoned and insignificant. As Christ sends out His followers into a dangerous world, He assures them of the Father’s devotion to them… His steadfast love and faithfulness… inviting them to trust that even if like a little sparrow they end up falling, the Father will not forget them, but will one day vindicate and raise up His faithful ones again. 
 
This is the same sort of hope we heard today in our second reading from Romans Chapter 6:4-5, where St. Paul says to His fellow believers: “Therefore we have been buried with him [that is, Jesus] by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” Now St. Paul’s context and argument is not exactly the same here. In this passage He’s speaking about the big implications of being a Christian, of sharing completely in Christ’s story… being joined to Christ in baptism… dying to our old self, and being raise with Christ to share in a whole new way of life that Jesus Himself now makes possible.

But the same hope that empowered the disciples to share the Good News of God’s Kingdom… the hope of the Father’s saving love empowers us to live as Christ’s own faithful disciples today… giving us assurance that no matter what obstacles we might face, our ultimate future is secure in our Father’s hands… and challenging us in the present to not give up, but to walk in the ways Christ Himself has taught us… considering ourselves already “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11), no longer bound by our old ways and distorted desires and devotions, but forgiven and set free to live God’s way even now.
 
Paul’s point here can be summed up like this: Do our hearts and lives really belong to the Lord? If so, let’s actually live like it! Let’s cling to Jesus our Saviour, and learn from Him how to walk in God’s good ways. And let’s let go of anything that pulls our hearts and our lives away from His side.
 
Just like Jesus in our Gospel passage, St. Paul is calling his fellow Christians to be clear about their commitments: to not mess around with old habits and sinful practices that undermined the new life that the Living God had shared with them… but to reaffirm their wholehearted devotion to the One who raised Jesus Christ from the dead… loving Him more than anything and anyone that tries to pry us away from His side. 
 
Remember: love is not a zero-sum game… the more we love God, the more we can love all those around us. But the order here really does matter. And Jesus Christ pushes all His followers, those living back in the days of His earthly ministry, and those of us who seek to follow Him today… He wants us all to be clear about our commitment to Him: Are we His people or not? Will we pick up our own crosses and follow Him, or forsake Him? Will we seek the new life that He offers us, even if it comes with a cost, or look for what we need elsewhere?
 
These are the questions Christ confronts us all with… not because He’s cruel, or doesn’t care about our close family bonds, and the communities that mean so much to us… quite the opposite! After all, our gracious Creator has made us for human connection and community.

But Christ also knows that when we devote ourselves to anything or anyone above Him, we end up upending and distorting these good gifts, and lead each other away from the love of God that we are all made for. He knows we need to have our hope built upon something even more stable than the bonds of family. We need a foundation even more solid than any human community can offer. Jesus confronts us with these questions about our devotion to Him because He knows that it is only the Living God who can be trusted to never falter. It is God alone whose saving love will never fail. 
 
In Matthew 10:34-36, Jesus makes this striking claim:
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth;
I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.”
 
What is this all about?
Well Jesus is quoting the Prophet Micah Chapter 7, a passage where the Prophet is despairing because of the unfaithfulness of God’s people. In Micah’s day, it seemed like no one could be trusted to be true. Everyone, even those you’d expect to be reliable were ready instead to lie and cheat and kill. God’s people had let their devotion to the Lord grow cold, and so they replaced love with wickedness. Micah 7:2-6,
 
The faithful have disappeared from the land,
and there is no one left who is upright;
they all lie in wait for blood,
and they hunt each other with nets.
 
Their hands are skilled to do evil;
the official and the judge ask for a bribe,
and the powerful dictate what they desire;
thus they pervert justice.
 
The best of them is like a brier,
the most upright of them a thorn hedge.
The day of their sentinels, of their punishment, has come;
now their confusion is at hand.
 
Put no trust in a friend,
have no confidence in a loved one;
guard the doors of your mouth
from her who lies in your embrace;
for the son treats the father with contempt,
the daughter rises up against her mother,
the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
your enemies are members of your own household.”
 
This all sounds pretty bleak. And unfortunately, some things have not changed that much between then and now. All around us, and maybe in our own lives and relationships, we can see signs of distrust and disunion… of sin and selfishness shaping and distorting our society. So many have no one they can trust, and are cut off from those who should be closest to them.
 
And so, when Jesus quotes this passage from Micah, He’s warning His followers that the world around them… the world He’s sending them into is not a rose-garden. It’s often a mess. And they may even end up at odds with those they have known their whole life… their own flesh and blood might very well turn on them.
 
But even so, Christ sends them out. Because the Good News of God’s Kingdom is worth rocking the boat for. The Good News of God’s saving love… the message of redemption and the forgiveness of sins, and God’s new life is more precious than any peace built on lies, and distrust, and deception.
 
And even though this Good News might not be always well received… and even though our loved ones might even reject us because of Christ… we have Someone we can trust… Someone who’s love we can rely on… Someone to turn to with wholehearted devotion and who will never let us down.
 
As Christ quotes Micah to warn us of the untrustworthiness of the world, the Prophet then goes on to offer a better source of hope: inviting us to place our trust in the LORD.  Micah 7:7,   
“But as for me, I will look to the Lord,
I will wait for the God of my salvation;
my God will hear me.”
 
By quoting this passage, Jesus is calling us His disciples to trust in Him as the LORD. To love Him more than any other, because as the Son of God in the flesh, He really is the answer to our prayers: the Saviour we’ve all been waiting for, sent by our merciful Father to set us free to share His new life with all those around us… including those closest to us. []
 
So then, if Jesus calls us to love Him and remain devoted to Him more than anyone else… what does He actually call us to do with our families? He calls us to love them!

​He calls us to share God’s kind of love with them. To share the grace, and the patience, and the forgiveness that Christ offers us with them too. To do our best to care for and encourage them. To pray for them.
 
That doesn’t mean it will always be easy. We might still encounter a lot of friction, and even face rejection from our family members. As we all know, all families can be messy. We can’t make others respond the way that we’d like them to. But Jesus Christ our Lord call us to love them anyway. To learn how to share with them our Heavenly Father’s love. The love we have come to know in Jesus Christ. The love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit for us to share with everyone. Amen. 

Scripture Readings: Exodus 19:2–8 | Psalm 100 | Romans 5:1–8 | Matthew 9:35–10:23

“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” (Romans 5:6).
 
Well, as most soccer fans know, the World Cup is now underway… with teams from countries around the world competing to prove that they are the best of the best. And truth be told, the World Cup does give us a chance to see some incredibly talented athletes and teams who have trained and prepared and fought hard to get to this level, a pursuit that requires an impressive level of grit and commitment.  
 
Along with Mexico, and the United States, Canada is co-hosting the World Cup this year, which is pretty cool. And even though it’s pretty unlikely that we will end up winning the whole tournament, so far this time we’ve done better than ever before… ending our first game with a draw. Compared to many other countries where soccer, or football is almost a way of life, Canada is definitely an underdog. But that doesn’t mean that we should just give up and not even try to do the best we can.
 
This reminds me of my own incredibly brief experience with playing soccer in High School. I like soccer. It’s pretty much the only sport that I enjoyed playing growing up.  Back in Middle School, we used to play it all the time during recess. And while I started out pretty terrible, over those years I improved a lot by just playing with my friends. That said, compared to the kids who played on teams where they ran drills, and actually worked hard on their skills, I couldn’t really compete.
 
In Grade 9, a friend and I attended the try-outs for our High School soccer team, and let’s just say, my performance was pretty weak. It became clear very quickly that I was trying to take part in something completely outside of my capabilities. Now I may have been able to get there… to get to that level if I had put in the effort and hard work… and pushed myself to improve… but instead, I just gave up after that one tryout. As much as I loved playing soccer, I didn’t want to risk being so vulnerable, and face rejection… or endure all the hard training that making the team would require. I gave up because I believed I was not good enough… which in that case was probably true. 

Do you ever remember feeling not good enough? Like the goal ahead is just too far out of reach? Like we don’t have the right skills, or strengths, or insights, or resources to accomplish what needs to be done? Like we are too weak to overcome the challenges before us? I know many of us have felt this way from time to time.
 
But thankfully, our Scripture readings this morning bring us a message of hope… hope offered especially when we are all too aware of our own weakness and unworthiness… and are asked to endure great difficulties, and suffer for the sake of something of ultimate value.
 
A word of hope, not about how to avoid these harsh realities… but how to endure them faithfully. How not to give up, but to press on towards the goal of the good Kingdom of God. 
 
In our first reading today from the book of Exodus, we heard the Living God’s invitation offered to Israel at Mt. Sinai… an invitation to enter into a sacred covenant relationship with Him… to be transformed into a new people set apart for God… a royal priesthood, a holy nation… not because they were the biggest and best… the most powerful or pious… but chosen as an act of sheer grace… as an extension of God’s love offered long ago to their ancestors Abraham and Sarah… inviting them into His plan to set the whole world right again… living as His people, guided by His commandments, and walking in His holy ways so that the rest of the world may come to know God’s goodness and saving love for themselves.
 
And we heard that at Sinai, all the people eagerly said yes to this arrangement… to do everything that the Lord says. But throughout the story of the Old Testament, God’s people proved to be just as ungodly as the nations around them… turning their back on their Lord again and again, and losing their way, like sheep wandering with no shepherd. Yet even so, God never gives up on His wayward people, but sends them messengers… Prophets who warned and challenged them to turn around and repent… and who also beckoned and encouraged them not to give up… to return to their Lord and place their hope and faith in His great compassion and faithfulness.
 
After many centuries of this pattern playing out… Jesus Christ, God’s Son comes onto the scene, and He sees all this… He sees the ways Israel’s leadership had once again lost the plot, and were pursuing their own concerns. He sees how the people themselves were struggling and suffering, “harassed and helpless”, just like lost sheep in the wilderness without a shepherd. Jesus sees all this with the eyes of God’s great compassion for His wandering people. 
 
And in response to this great need, Christ says to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Matthew 9:37-38). And then He summons twelve of His disciples and sends them out as His ambassadors… His messengers, announcing the Good News of God’s Kingdom through their words and miraculous deeds. Jesus sends them out to the people of Israel only… at least for now… as the fulfillment of God’s promises of love and faithfulness to His covenant people, spoken long ago through the Prophets… announcing to these communities of God’s people struggling on the margins that their Saviour has come at last. 

But notice, Christ sends His disciples out into Israel’s villages, not as professional experts… as the best of the best… but as vulnerable ambassadors… as sheep among wolves… completely dependent on the hospitality of strangers and on the sustaining grace of God. And they were asked to do the seemingly impossible: as they share the Good News of God’s Kingdom, they were to “[c]ure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.” (Matthew 10:8), deeds only possible through God’s power and Christ’s own authority at work in and through them.
 
The disciples weren’t superheroes… they were just ordinary people that Jesus summoned and set apart to share in His story… and to share His story with those around them.
 
And God tends to call us to do what we cannot do without Him. He calls us to do things that require us to trust Him… to place our faith and our hope in His grace and faithfulness. In a profound way, that’s what it’s always meant to be His people, and to walk in His ways: not being led by our own sense of what can be done, but by what God Himself has called us to do. 

But as Christ warned His disciples in the rest of our Gospel reading, this way of life will not be easy. Following Jesus and sharing in the work of His good Kingdom is not a guarantee of a painless path forward. Far from it. Staying true to Jesus in a world wandering far off course often involves times of great trouble for God’s people… and we too may have to face painful rejections, and suffering as a result.
 
But just as God calls us to do what we cannot do without Him, God doesn’t ask us to do more than He is willing to do first on our behalf. After all, Christ Himself endured great suffering at the cross… and the rejection of the leaders of His own people… dying for them, and rising again to save them while they were still acting like His enemies. 
 
At the cross, God shows us His great love for us “while we still were sinners” (Romans 5:8)… suffering to set us free from our sins while we were at our weakest… reconciling us to God, and to one another. 
 
After the resurrection, at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, the Risen Christ sends out these same disciples to announce the Good News not only to Israel, but now to all nations! Messengers announcing that the Saviour of Israel and the Saviour of the world has come at last! 
 
The Risen Christ sends out the twelve into a world full of sheep without a shepherd… into all the brokenness, and divisiveness and suffering we humans keep bringing into existence. And instead of looking down on the nations around them in condemnation… Christ sends them out driven by God’s great compassion… God’s clear commitment to lift up this world He loves, and set it free to be more than it could ever be on its own... reconciling all the peoples of the earth through what Jesus Christ God’s Son has done for us all. 
 
Of course, this has never been an easy mission, bringing the Good News of Jesus Christ to the world. And even the disciples had to take it one step at a time… starting with those close at hand in Jerusalem, and then, following God’s Spirit, stepping out from there to spread the Good News all throughout the earth.

And those of us who are Christians, Christ’s disciples today are all a part of this same story… this same mission to make known the Good News of the Risen Saviour of the world through our own words and deeds.
 
And we can easily feel ill-equipped for this mission… like we don’t have what we need… the skills, or insights, or resources. We might feel too frightened… too vulnerable... too weak to be of any use to God in this way.
 
Maybe like High School Rob a that soccer tryout, we’re all too aware of our own inabilities, especially compared to others… and we’re ready to give up even before we really began to try. 
 
These are all understandable fears and feelings. I mean, no one wants to feel foolish, or inadequate, or weak. Yet, it is precisely in situations where we’re asked by God to do things that seem far beyond us that our faith can be put to work and flourish! That is when we can experience God’s grace at work even in our weakness… when we can see His great strength, and wisdom, and compassion at work in and through us in ways we could not imagine before… and when we might actually find that He’s placed us exactly where we needed to be…  and find our friends and our neighbours surprisingly open… not to being manipulated or guilted, or frightened into the doors of the Church… but open to the Good News of God’s great love for them… offered to us all in Jesus Christ at the cross, while we were all still weak, ungodly sinners.
 
If you and I are to take part in this story today, where do we start? The Twelve Apostles went first to their own people… to those who already knew of the Living God, and His good ways. And maybe we Christians need to start by helping each other rediscover what the Good News of Jesus the Risen Lord is really about!
 
That it is not about gaining power and status for ourselves. That it’s not about health and wealth and prosperity in this life. That it’s not about ticking the right theological boxes, and shunning those who don’t… or competing to be the most pious… or arguing over whose service, or music, or food is the best. It’s not about desperately holding onto the things that bring us comfort, while cutting ourselves off from our neighbours. 

It’s about believing the Good News that Jesus Christ our world’s Saviour King has come. That He has died. That He is Risen. That He will come again to sort out our messed up world, and make all things new… including you and me. 
 
It’s the Good News that God so loved this world… you and me included… even while we were at our very worst… and that God sent His Son Jesus, so that all those who believe in Him will have everlasting life. 
 
And maybe before we turn to one another to share this Good News, we need to start first with ourselves!!! Maybe today we are the ones who need to be reminded… or even believe for the very first time that God really loves us… and that in His great compassion God sent Jesus His Son to save us, and to offers us His Holy Spirit to make us new even now, and to share with us His eternal life of love. 
 
When we face times when we feel that we’re not good enough… may we trust that our weaknesses are not a problem for the God we have come to know in Jesus Christ.

May we believe the Good News that God loves us all… and that He wants us all to share in the life of His Kingdom… that in unimaginable compassion and grace God is reaching out to rescue His people… as weak, and helpless, and ungodly as we are at times… to rescue us from ourselves, and our sins… and then to send us out into the world to share this same Good News of God’s love in Jesus Christ with those around us.
 
And when we face setbacks and challenges, let us not give up, but rather remember that Jesus Christ our Saviour King shares in all of the sufferings we face… and through His Spirit at work in us, He strengthens us and our faith as we follow Him… using these moments to build up our endurance, and form our character, and nurture a holy hope in our hearts that will not disappoint.
 
I’ll end now by returning to our second reading this morning from Romans 5:1-8.

“Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.

And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
 
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” Amen.
 

Scripture Readings: Hosea 5:15–6:6 | Psalm 50 | Romans 4:13–25 | Matthew 9:9–13, 18–26

Jesus said: “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” (Matthew 9:13).
 
What kind of things make you feel hopeful?
For me, being outside this time of year does a great job. Seeing new life come to the trees, as the buds turn to leaves. Smelling the freshness of late Spring. Feeling a warm evening breeze after months of only snow and ice. It all reminds me that cold dark days don’t last forever… and that even after the bitterest Winter, God has ordained that one day, the Spring will come again.
 
Now for a much harder question: What kind of things make you feel hopeless? Like there is no path forward… nothing to be done to turn things around… and that there’s no Spring on its way?
 
Hope is one of those things that we all need all the time. But there are certainly seasons of our lives when it can seem a whole lot harder to hold onto hope. Seasons when the world around us seems to be spiraling out of control, and the news makes it almost impossible to ignore. Seasons when we’re facing serious hardships, heartbreaking diagnoses, or that aching sense of loss. Maybe we even face seasons when all our mistakes and failures come back to haunt us… and we feel overcome by a sense of our own unworthiness… like we are hopeless.
 
In times like that, it’s clear that we need more than simply stepping outdoors in Spring to receive the hope that we need. We need something no news broadcast or doctor can deliver… we need a hope that comes from the hands of God alone… the merciful hands of our Saviour.
 
And thankfully, our Scripture readings this morning all invite us to turn our eyes and hearts and minds to the Living God, and find Him to be eagerly offering us the hope we all need. Hope offered, not from a distance, but right up close… right here with us… right where we need Him the most… especially when we’re feeling hopeless. 
 
Our first reading today was taken from the book of the Prophet Hosea, whose message, as is the case with most of the Prophets, is a mixture of comfort, and also grave warning to God’s people who had turned from God’s ways, and consistently proved themselves to be unfaithful to their Lord. And in our reading, we heard God reflecting on the response of His people when they inevitably face times of trouble as a result of their unfaithful choices… finding themselves in hopeless straights, and then turning back to the Lord for help.
 
Hosea 5:15-6-3,
“I will return again to my place
until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face.
In their distress they will beg my favor:
 
 “Come, let us return to the Lord;
for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us;
he has struck down, and he will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord;
his appearing is as sure as the dawn;
he will come to us like the showers,
like the spring rains that water the earth.”
 
This all sounds good, right? When in trouble, turn to the Lord. What could be wrong with that? Well, nothing. That is exactly what we should all do.  
 
But when we look a bit closer at this passage, we see that there is some tension in the prophet’s words… a tension that comes from the fact that it seems as though God’s people were kind of taking God’s saving help for granted… assuming that they could just go on doing whatever they wanted, and that God would automatically be there for them in times of trouble, like some sort of divine life insurance… that as long as they kept up on their monthly premiums, offering the sacrifices required by the covenant, then God would be appeased, and be obliged to step in and set things right.  
 
Just listen to the rest of our reading today from Hosea, how God expresses frustration with His people’s lack of devotion.
 
Hosea 6:4-6,
“What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
What shall I do with you, O Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that goes away early.
Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets,
I have killed them by the words of my mouth,
and my judgment goes forth as the light.
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
 
“I desire steadfast love, and not sacrifice… the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
 
This is the same sentiment we read this morning in Psalm 50, where God makes clear that He doesn’t actually need anything from us… that He’s not like the pagan gods of the nations around Israel, that could be bribed and bought off by making some sacrifices. The Creator of all is not dependent on us in the least. What God does want… what the sacrifices in the covenant were always meant to express and nurture is His people’s actual devotion… their hearts… their lives… their love!  He couldn’t care less about all our attempts to appease Him, to get in His good books if our hearts aren’t actually in it… if we’re just using Him, and not actually turning our hearts to Him in faith. In short, God can’t be bought off: He says to us: “I desire steadfast love, and not sacrifice.” 
 
Of course, this attitude isn’t one that was unique to ancient Israel. We can all end up getting caught up in this same unfaithful pattern too: going about our lives without much thought of the LORD, and only turning to Him when things get really rough… when things seem hopeless… and then approach God, not with sincere repentance and trust, but just out of religious obligation, and duty… as though, if I just say this prayer, or make this offering, or do this act of penance… or sit through this boring sermon… then I’ve done my part and now God has to do His.
 
This temptation to take God for granted has been around for ages… but it falls far short of the kind of connection our Creator has always had in mind for us. When we end up finding ourselves in this habit and headspace… when we realize our way of relating to God has been off, what do we do? Will God still be there for us to help us take a different path? Or will we have burned our bridges with Him, and put ourselves in a truly hopeless state? 
 
Our Gospel passage this morning answers that question for us by pointing us to Jesus, the Son of God right here with us, and reminding us of how He handled those others saw as hopeless.
 
Our Gospel passage today from Matthew Chapter 9 starts off with Jesus summoning Matthew, a tax collector, to follow Him as a disciple… and to celebrate this, Jesus shares a meal with Matthew and many other tax collectors and sinners… rubbing shoulders with those considered unfit for polite society.
 
And when the Pharisees, those deeply devout and religious folk, saw this, they complained to the disciples. “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (Matthew 9:11). In other words: ‘How can your master claim to be devoted to the Living God, and yet hang out with such ungodly people?’  
 
Jesus’ response reveals not just God’s own heart for the seemingly hopeless, but also the hard hearts of His critics:
“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.” (Matthew 9:12-13).
 
Here our Lord is quoting our reading from Hosea… with the word for steadfast love and mercy being equated. Steadfast love and mercy. Deeply related realities that cannot be easily pulled apart, and which God tells us He cares about more than all else we could offer.
 
And why does God want this from us? Not as some kind of tribute, or appeasement… as an arbitrary religious duty. He wants steadfast love and mercy from us because that is what we are meant for! What we were created for… made in God’s own image to reflect His own mercy and steadfast love out into the world… becoming like Him, His people in every sense, because He is merciful and abundant in steadfast love! 
 
In steadfast love and mercy, God longs for all of us hopeless sinners to turn around and find real life in Him… to be cleansed, and restored, and empowered by Jesus to follow His holy ways. And in steadfast love and mercy, God longs for all of us with hardened hearts… those of us who look down on others as hopeless… to have our hearts softened and set right by His holy compassion… helping us to extend God’s grace and welcome… celebrating their new life, and walking with them, instead of just putting up barriers.
 
What the Pharisees could not see in that dinner party was God’s mercy and steadfast love at work in Jesus… and God’s invitation for them to let go of their pride, and embrace the way of mercy and steadfast love towards their neighbours… to those who were once hopeless, but who had now found God’s new life through God’s Son. 
 
And in the second part of our Gospel reading today, Matthew goes on to show us even more evidence of God’s steadfast love and mercy in action… as Jesus draws near, to others in truly hopeless situations: a woman suffering from chronic bleeding, and a child who had just died.  
 
These are both powerful stories we could spend whole sermons exploring just on their own. But for today, I want to reflect on an important detail relating to both of these stories that Matthew draws our attention to: in both these seemingly hopeless cases, the Son of God makes contact.
 
Literally. The drama involves Jesus either touching, or being touched by those who desperately need Him. When the girl’s father first begs Jesus to come heal his daughter, he specifically says to our Lord: “come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” (Matthew 9:18). And the woman, suffering from chronic bleeding, reaches out and secretly touches His clothes, believing that she will be healed “If I only touch his cloak…” (Matthew 9:21). And then, when Jesus arrives at the bedside of the dead child, He takes her by the hand and raises her up. Why is all this attention being given to physical contact in this passage? What does Matthew want us to see here?
 
First of all, according to the commandments in the Torah, coming into physical contact with both the woman suffering from chronic bleeding, and the body of the dead girl would have made anyone unclean… placed in a temporary state of separation from the presence of the Living God, requiring a process of cleansing, and offerings before becoming clean again.

But in both cases, Jesus… the Eternal Son of God Himself is not at all deterred by coming into contact with the uncleanness of those in need of His help. In fact, He willingly draws near to them… He comforts and heals them… and willingly reaches out to them… touching them with God’s mercy and steadfast love, and making them whole and cleansed in the process. Apart from Christ’s touch, they were both trapped in hopelessness… but Christ came as the Great Physician, up close and personally, to set them both free. In a real sense, proximity is the point. 
 
In these twin stories, the story of Matthew’s supper, and the healing of the woman and the girl… Jesus shows us that the mercy and steadfast love of the Living God is not at all afraid of rubbing shoulders with those that the world sees as hopeless. God is not off somewhere, waiting for us to clean ourselves up, and pull ourselves together first… and He’s not holding out for us to try and appease Him with some sort of offering.
 
No, in Jesus, the Living God has come to seek and to save the lost. To heal hopeless sinners, and those suffering in mind, body, and spirit… eager for us to turn to Him in faith, to place our hope in His mercy and steadfast love… and to trust that, whatever we may face, He will be with us through it all… and that one day He will raise us up with Him to share in God’s eternal life. 
 
So when we face our own seasons of hopelessness… whatever the cause may be… out there in the world, or here in our own hearts and minds… may we turn to the Living God in faith… not to try to bargain with Him, or appease Him… but to bring Him everything that’s weighing us down… to ask Him for the mercy and steadfast love we all need… for a renewed sense of His presence and healing touch in our lives.
 
And as we seek to receive these gifts, may we also share them with others in our lives, many of whom are facing their own challenges and struggles: treating them with compassion, and grace. Offering them our fellowship. And with the Holy Spirit’s help, bringing our hopeless world the healing touch of Jesus our Saviour. Amen.