Hope for the Hopeless - Sermon for the Second Sunday After Pentecost (June 7, 2026)

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.