AMAZING GRACE MATT 9: 9-13
A story is told of a French soldier during the Napoleonic Wars. He had fallen asleep whilst on guard duty and so at his court martial, he was sentenced to death. His widowed mother out of her deep pain, appealed her son’s case at every level on the chain of command. But failing on each occasion, she was eventually left with only the Emperor to turn to. Falling at Napoleon’s feet she begged for the life of her only child explaining that she depended totally on her son for her means of support. As she pleaded for mercy, Napoleon coldly told her that he son deserved to die. Without hesitation, the distressed mother replied;
‘You are right sire, of course. That is why I am asking you for mercy. If he were deserving, it would not be mercy.’
Touched by those words, Napoleon pardoned the soldier.
Today’s Gospel Reading shows us the mercy that is at the heart of Jesus. The calling of a tax collector named Matthew must surely have stuck in the gullet of many of those who first heard of it. You see, in those days to many of Jesus’ contemporaries, tax collectors were about as low as it was possible to get. Why should this be?
Firstly, they were seen as being those who betrayed their own people. The taxes they raised, went not to a veritable collection of good causes. No! They went to the Romans who were at that time oppressing the Jews and doing so with considerable brutality. Surely, it is not difficult to see that tax collectors such as Matthew were despised in the same sort of way that Vichy collaborators were despised in France after the Second World War. Enemies of their own people - that is what the tax collectors such as Matthew were!
But the indictment against Matthew and his sort didn’t end there . For a second charge could also be laid against them. This charge was that they were prone to being unscrupulous, dishonest characters. To make a worthwhile income for themselves, they were known to charge people well above their proper dues - hardly a way to win any sort of popularity contest as they often lived very well indeed as a direct result of the practice of extortion.
And finally, they were often outsiders from the religious life of their people. For their dealings with so many people made it close on impossible to observe the laws of ritual purity and so they excluded themselves from for example the worship of the Temple.
Wealthy these tax collectors may have been, but to the religiously sensitive, they were total outsiders who were far from God and from their own people.
And yet, it was one such as this that we find Jesus calling to be one of his close followers. And in the calling of Matthew, we obtain a picture of the wideness of the mercy that Jesus brings. As with so much of his ministry, Jesus is seen here to be holding his hand out to those whom respectable people held most strongly in contempt. There is a real sense that Jesus longs to bring the best out of those who are regarded as the worst. In so doing, Jesus scandalised not just the people of his own day for in so doing he also scandalises the people of our day. For today, we are a part of a society that often gives up on people, throwing them away and treating them as misfits. Even today, there is an all to common instinct to freeze people in their worst moments, never letting them move on from those moments. Yes, it is most commonly demonstrated in some of our less worthy media but the fact that it so often goes unchallenged, is a sign that they not only lead our thought patterns but also reflect them. But now, Jesus challenges us with a new way of thinking, the way of thinking that is dominated by the power of Jesus to bring about the transformation of love.
An example of this power of Jesus to transform is to be found in the life of John Newton. A foul mouthed sailor whose greatest delight was to break the faith of the one Christian sailor with whom he sailed, Newton earned his living out of the slave trade. By his own account, he sexually misused slave women and treated slaves both male and female with some considerable brutality. Far from the Christian upbringing which he had received from his mother , he was like Matthew a no hope person. Yet this wretch was reached by God in a storm and gradually changed his focus to such an extent that he became a much loved Anglican vicar at Olney and even a campaigner for the abolition of the slave trade. But Newton is best remembered for his autobiographical hymn, ’Amazing Grace.’
Listen to the words of the first verse;
Amazing grace (how sweet the sound)
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.’
Do you get the picture? Like Matthew, Newton was about as low as anyone could get. And like Matthew, Newton experienced the power of God to transform a life. And Matthew, like Newton, experienced this in a way that he did not deserve for both men learnt that God who is revealed in Jesus, offers not justice but mercy. And of course, as the condemned soldier knew, there’s quite a difference between justice and mercy.
The whole point of mercy is that it is undeserved. It is quite simply a generous act of Divine love that nobody can earn. Such is at the heart of so much of our worship and the liturgy of particularly poignant moments. In the Methodist Worship Book’s service for the Baptism of Infants, the minister addressing the child, recounts the Scripture;
‘We love, because Christ first loved us.’
And this mercy also figures when we come to receive Holy Communion for in the Prayer of Humble Access in which we acknowledge our unworthiness to come to the Table which is where we find God’s acceptance, that unworthiness is not a barrier for the same prayer states the great truth;
‘But you are the same Lord
Whose nature is always to have mercy.’
And even at our end, the song of mercy goes on when we are commended to ‘God’s perfect mercy and wisdom.’
So, in a real sense, the story of Matthew’s calling is a sign of what life is about - the unending mercy of God which is offered to us throughout all the changing scenes of our lives. Undeserved, it is for as we see in the story of the calling of Matthew , the call and the acceptance come before Matthew has done anything to merit this mercy. And that is something which lies at the heart of the Gospel. The first move in love and in offering acceptance is always the move of God. It never is and cannot be earned. The cycle always begins with God’s initiative for as the Apostle Paul wrote bear the end of his tempestuous life;
'But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: Whilst we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’
Yes, the gifts of acceptance and love for which so many cry out, come to us not because of some Divine illusion about us but in full knowledge of what we are, warts and all. And the simple truth is that however unlovely we might be, God just goes on loving us for his mercy is ultimately rooted in straightforward unconditional love.
So where does all thus leave us today? Well it certainly tells us much about the heart of God. It certainly tells us something about our own value to God but surely it cannot stop there. For this unconditional love and mercy if for all peoples including those whom we find it hardest to love or to value. And yet if this love and mercy is for us, then surely we are the evidence of the wideness of Divine love. So surely we are called to be a part of a circle of love and mercy, a circle which touches the unlikeliest of places. For then it is revealed that the whole of human experience can indeed be transformed not by effort but by that most incredible invasion into our world, the invasion of AMAZING GRACE!
AMEN
This sermon is to be preached at Alverdiscott on June 5th in the evening in a Communion Service
‘You are right sire, of course. That is why I am asking you for mercy. If he were deserving, it would not be mercy.’
Touched by those words, Napoleon pardoned the soldier.
Today’s Gospel Reading shows us the mercy that is at the heart of Jesus. The calling of a tax collector named Matthew must surely have stuck in the gullet of many of those who first heard of it. You see, in those days to many of Jesus’ contemporaries, tax collectors were about as low as it was possible to get. Why should this be?
Firstly, they were seen as being those who betrayed their own people. The taxes they raised, went not to a veritable collection of good causes. No! They went to the Romans who were at that time oppressing the Jews and doing so with considerable brutality. Surely, it is not difficult to see that tax collectors such as Matthew were despised in the same sort of way that Vichy collaborators were despised in France after the Second World War. Enemies of their own people - that is what the tax collectors such as Matthew were!
But the indictment against Matthew and his sort didn’t end there . For a second charge could also be laid against them. This charge was that they were prone to being unscrupulous, dishonest characters. To make a worthwhile income for themselves, they were known to charge people well above their proper dues - hardly a way to win any sort of popularity contest as they often lived very well indeed as a direct result of the practice of extortion.
And finally, they were often outsiders from the religious life of their people. For their dealings with so many people made it close on impossible to observe the laws of ritual purity and so they excluded themselves from for example the worship of the Temple.
Wealthy these tax collectors may have been, but to the religiously sensitive, they were total outsiders who were far from God and from their own people.
And yet, it was one such as this that we find Jesus calling to be one of his close followers. And in the calling of Matthew, we obtain a picture of the wideness of the mercy that Jesus brings. As with so much of his ministry, Jesus is seen here to be holding his hand out to those whom respectable people held most strongly in contempt. There is a real sense that Jesus longs to bring the best out of those who are regarded as the worst. In so doing, Jesus scandalised not just the people of his own day for in so doing he also scandalises the people of our day. For today, we are a part of a society that often gives up on people, throwing them away and treating them as misfits. Even today, there is an all to common instinct to freeze people in their worst moments, never letting them move on from those moments. Yes, it is most commonly demonstrated in some of our less worthy media but the fact that it so often goes unchallenged, is a sign that they not only lead our thought patterns but also reflect them. But now, Jesus challenges us with a new way of thinking, the way of thinking that is dominated by the power of Jesus to bring about the transformation of love.
An example of this power of Jesus to transform is to be found in the life of John Newton. A foul mouthed sailor whose greatest delight was to break the faith of the one Christian sailor with whom he sailed, Newton earned his living out of the slave trade. By his own account, he sexually misused slave women and treated slaves both male and female with some considerable brutality. Far from the Christian upbringing which he had received from his mother , he was like Matthew a no hope person. Yet this wretch was reached by God in a storm and gradually changed his focus to such an extent that he became a much loved Anglican vicar at Olney and even a campaigner for the abolition of the slave trade. But Newton is best remembered for his autobiographical hymn, ’Amazing Grace.’
Listen to the words of the first verse;
Amazing grace (how sweet the sound)
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.’
Do you get the picture? Like Matthew, Newton was about as low as anyone could get. And like Matthew, Newton experienced the power of God to transform a life. And Matthew, like Newton, experienced this in a way that he did not deserve for both men learnt that God who is revealed in Jesus, offers not justice but mercy. And of course, as the condemned soldier knew, there’s quite a difference between justice and mercy.
The whole point of mercy is that it is undeserved. It is quite simply a generous act of Divine love that nobody can earn. Such is at the heart of so much of our worship and the liturgy of particularly poignant moments. In the Methodist Worship Book’s service for the Baptism of Infants, the minister addressing the child, recounts the Scripture;
‘We love, because Christ first loved us.’
And this mercy also figures when we come to receive Holy Communion for in the Prayer of Humble Access in which we acknowledge our unworthiness to come to the Table which is where we find God’s acceptance, that unworthiness is not a barrier for the same prayer states the great truth;
‘But you are the same Lord
Whose nature is always to have mercy.’
And even at our end, the song of mercy goes on when we are commended to ‘God’s perfect mercy and wisdom.’
So, in a real sense, the story of Matthew’s calling is a sign of what life is about - the unending mercy of God which is offered to us throughout all the changing scenes of our lives. Undeserved, it is for as we see in the story of the calling of Matthew , the call and the acceptance come before Matthew has done anything to merit this mercy. And that is something which lies at the heart of the Gospel. The first move in love and in offering acceptance is always the move of God. It never is and cannot be earned. The cycle always begins with God’s initiative for as the Apostle Paul wrote bear the end of his tempestuous life;
'But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: Whilst we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’
Yes, the gifts of acceptance and love for which so many cry out, come to us not because of some Divine illusion about us but in full knowledge of what we are, warts and all. And the simple truth is that however unlovely we might be, God just goes on loving us for his mercy is ultimately rooted in straightforward unconditional love.
So where does all thus leave us today? Well it certainly tells us much about the heart of God. It certainly tells us something about our own value to God but surely it cannot stop there. For this unconditional love and mercy if for all peoples including those whom we find it hardest to love or to value. And yet if this love and mercy is for us, then surely we are the evidence of the wideness of Divine love. So surely we are called to be a part of a circle of love and mercy, a circle which touches the unlikeliest of places. For then it is revealed that the whole of human experience can indeed be transformed not by effort but by that most incredible invasion into our world, the invasion of AMAZING GRACE!
AMEN
This sermon is to be preached at Alverdiscott on June 5th in the evening in a Communion Service
posted by Rev Paul Martin at 3:17 PM
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