2 Pentecost

June 7, 2026

+ This Thursday, I will celebrating my 22^nd anniversary of ordination to the Priesthood.

It’s been a fascinating 22 years so far.

I have gone places I never thought I would go.

I’ve done things I never thought I’d do.

I was joking yesterday at Joy Coffey’s interment that I never thought in a million years that I would be digging graves as a priest. . .

But that’s part of the journey, right?

In our Gospel reading for today, we also have a similar realization.

In these stories, we find Jesus going where religious people would say one should not go.

In the first story, he goes to a tax collector’s booth.

Then he goes to a dinner table filled with sinners.

Then, he allows himself to be touched by a woman whose illness has made her ritually unclean.

And then, perhaps most shockingly of all, he takes a dead girl by the hand.

All of these would have been prohibitions again the Judaic law of his time and culture.

But, everywhere Jesus goes in this passage, he crosses a boundary.

The tax collector is outside that circle.

The sinners are outside that circle.

The hemorrhaging woman is outside that circle.

The dead girl—by simply being dead—is outside that circle.

And through it all, Jesus just keeps walking straight toward them, breaking down barriers as he goes.

That seems to be one of the defining characteristics of Jesus.

He is forever moving toward those whom everyone else is moving away from.

Matthew the tax collector, made ritually unclean by the pagan coins he handles, is sitting at his tax booth.

We should remember that tax collectors weren’t just disliked.

They were considered collaborators with the Romans.

They were viewed as corrupt, morally compromised, and unclean.

Matthew, a Jew, has definitely made a mess of his life.

But, Jesus doesn’t ask him for any sort of explanation.

He doesn’t demand some kind of evidence of repentance.

What does he say to Matthew?

He simply says, “Follow me.”

And Matthew gets up and follows him.

There is something wonderfully unsettling about that.

I mean, he just gets right up and follows him without seemingly a second thought.

There’s no repentance.

There’s no, “I’m sorry for what I’ve done.”

There’s no dramatic turning away from his old life style.

There’s no cleansing—no washing away of his uncleanliness.

He just gets up and goes.

And Jesus, for his part,  doesn’t say, “get your crap in order and  then you can follow me.”

He just says, “Follow me.”

Don’t worry about the rest of your crap.

Just leave it behind and follow me.  

We often forget that.

We have sometimes behave as though being Christian is some kind of  reward for “being good” rather than medicine for our wounded souls.

We act as though holiness is an entrance requirement instead of the lifelong work of God’s grace.

But Jesus says something very different than that.

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick,” he says.

The old saying is, “The Church is the hospital for our souls.”

The Church is not a museum.

It is not our job to preserve the sacred vessels of the church building.  

Rather, the Church is a hospital filled with people in various stages of healing.

It is a place where wounded people go to seek healing.

 Then, we hear about this woman who has been bleeding for twelve years.

 Twelve years.

 Just think about that.

 Twelve years of disappointment.

 Twelve years of fear.

 Twelve years of hoping that maybe tomorrow it will stop.

 Twelve years of failed remedies.

 Twelve years of absolute isolation.

 Twelve years of being treated as a problem rather than as a person.

 And what does she do?

 She just reaches out.

 She doesn’t ask permission.

 She doesn’t ask, “may I?’

 She probably hadn’t even planned to do it.

 An opportunity arose and she just did it, hoping probably that Jesus wouldn’t notice.

 Just imagine for a moment all the emotion and hope and uncertainly in that one simple action.

 And, in turn, what does Jesus do?

 He turns.

 He sees her.

 That glance—that look—is truly the miracle before the miracle.

 He actually sees her.

 Sees her for who she really is.

 He doesn’t see her illness.

 Or  her shame.

 He sees her.

 And he tells her, “Take heart.”

 Be strong.

 Hope has been renewed.

 And fulfilled.

 Then we find Jesus at the ruler’s house where this girl has died.

 Everyone there knows what’s going on.

 They know death when they see it.

 They know how the story ends.

 Yet Jesus just comes in and takes her hand.

 The same hand everyone else has stopped holding because it’s now unclean.

 It’s the hand of a corpse.

 And what happens?

 Life returns.

 A God who enters into places everyone else has abandoned.

 Did you notice how this Gospel reading is full of hands?

 Matthew rising from his tax booth—he is using the ritually unclean hands with which he handled the pagan coins to rise up.

 The woman touches his garment.

 Jesus takes a dead girl’s hand.

 There’s something so beautiful in that!

 That speaks to us.,

 Because that’s what God does.

 Again and again God reaches across the distance.

  The distance between uncleanliness and cleanliness.

 The distance between health and sickness.

 The distance between life and death.

 The distance between ourselves and God.

 So, what do we get from this reading today?

 Certainly, we hear those words,

 “Take heart.”

 Follow Jesus.

 Those are our words too.

 Take heart.

 And follow Jesus.

 Follow Jesus into those places polite Christians say we shouldn’t go.

 Follow Jesus to places others fear to tread.

 And as we do so, let us use our hands.

 And our feet

 And whole selves.

 Because Jesus is leading us into those places others tell us we shouldn’t go.

 It is precisely those uncomfortable places he goes and expects us to follow.

 He knows.

 After all, the physician goes to the sick.

 The shepherd goes to the lost.

 The Giver of life goes to the dead.

 And in doing so, we realize we have nothing to fear.

 After all, whenever Jesus went to those places, it was then that life began.

 But even more than going there, maybe we should realize that we are already there.

 After all, at times, we are the tax collectors.

 We are the wounded people reaching for the hem of Jesus’ fringes.

 We are the bleeding, broken people just reaching out.

 We are the ones who have heard his voice saying to us, “Follow me.”

 We are the ones hearing that voice saying, “Take heart.”

 We are the ones who hear that voice say to us, “Arise.”

 Arise.

Take heart.

Follow Jesus

 And live.

 In the end, those are truly the things that matter.

 Amen