PENTECOST 2A 2026

 The world is in turmoil. Threats from without and within stir up fear and anxiety. Relationships with neighbors seem to change with the wind. No one seems to know which way to turn, except to try and find ways to protect themselves and their position. 

Such is the scene in the kingdom of Israel in the eighth century BCE when the prophet Hosea addressed the concerns of the people. Actually, he addresses the concerns of God about the people God formed from the offspring of Abraham. Israel, the people whose name comes from their ancestor Jacob, have turned away from the God of their ancestors. And, as a result, God has turned away from them. 
To a point. 

It’s a perpetual struggle. Times of prosperity and peace are seen as gifts from God, a sign of God’s presence and favor. Then we begin to worship prosperity and peace as something that will go on forever, seeking more and more of it as a sign of our own righteousness. We fall into that category of self-proclaimed healthy people whom Jesus says don’t need a physician. He’s actually pointing out that those who claim to be correct in every way don’t need God. At least that’s what their actions seem to say. 

We do that today, carrying on a tradition that is alive and well in Hosea’s time. To borrow an old admonition, we “don’t drink or smoke or play cards or associate with those who do” so we can keep ourselves pure enough to make it to heaven. 

I once worked with a minister whose in-laws wouldn’t eat pretzels. They said that those who ate pretzels smoked, played cards and drank beer, which they didn’t do either. He told me that whenever his in-laws were coming to visit, he made sure there was a bag of pretzels on the kitchen counter. He was, shall we say, ecclesiastically ornery. That’s another tradition that continues, in case you hadn’t noticed. Speaking for a friend. 

Recent studies point to another tradition that continues in our culture. In the early 1970s, just over thirty percent of adults in our country claimed membership in what’s known as a Protestant mainline denomination. Now, that percentage is hovering at around nine percent. 

There are about as many reasons for this as there are professionals ready to sell us a book to tell us what they are. But during these past five to six decades, we’ve seen everything from scandal to hyper-politicization of religion in our culture. I occasionally get a phone call from someone interested in attending our parish. I get questions about hot-button political issues, which seem to want me to tell them what to think and to judge whether my words are exactly what they already think. I don’t remember a single question asking me about Jesus.

Yet, many seemingly successful congregations do just that. They cater to extreme positions, drawing in those who chastise others not just like them for what they believe they think or think they believe. All this as they claim to be on the “right” road to heaven. It can be a difficult journey, no matter which position you take, when on-coming traffic and even potholes are seen as evidence that hell is very close and must be avoided.

Jesus wants none of that. It’s just more evidence that, despite Hosea’s admonitions, we still haven’t learned the lesson that God comes to those who find themselves in need of God’s presence. Not to those who have everything they need to prove to themselves that God loves them as much as they love what they have.

The Pharisees, who try to ensure purity through strict obedience to Torah, challenge Jesus while he welcomes some who find themselves standing outside the law. Tax collectors were agents of the oppressive Roman government. The sick, the ritually impure, those who didn’t fit the requirements to enter the Temple for worship are those who join him at dinner. Keep in mind that at this point in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus has not turned his teaching toward Gentiles. That will come later.

So today I invite you to ponder the question we face with diminishing, even dissolving influence and resources in our time. Like in Hosea, the answer comes from words that acknowledge guilt, even while they assure forgiveness. The word of God always steers us toward conversion, which means turning from what draws us away from God to see who God always has been and still is for us.

That word is hesed, which means “steadfast love.” That is the point where God cannot, will not completely turn away from us. While we might want to make sure we make our way into what Matthew calls “the kingdom of heaven,” we lose sight that God’s steadfast love means that God will come to join us here, coming to the table where all sorts of sinners, like us, find a feast awaits.

Maybe we nine percenters have just been hanging out with all the right people too long. We work diligently to make sure that everything looks just right, that anyone looking on from just a short distance away will approve of those who gather with us. In many ways, our souls remain masked from impurity much as our faces were during the pandemic.

Jesus takes that impurity into himself when he sits with outcasts and sinners. The synagogue leader risks ritual impurity by coming into the room to plead for the life of his daughter. Jesus exchanges impurity for healing as a woman with a bleeding disorder touches the hem of his cloak. He does that again when he enters the room where a lifeless child is restored to the relationship of “daughter.”

The words of the Gloria proclaim Christ as the one who takes away the sin of the world. In Christ, we are restored to God’s intended relationship as daughters and sons. 

God’s steadfast love is graciously given to us, and as Paul will remind us, nothing can separate us from that love.

But we often seem to be separated from it, or at least far from it. Perhaps it’s not that God has turned away from us, but that we have turned away from God toward all those shiny things vying for our attention. We spend more time preening in front of our spiritual mirrors than we do reaching out to those still in need of the healing balm of God’s love.

When we look around, even flail about for quick solutions to the problems that vex us, remember the God who shows up when we finally turn toward the place where God has been all along.
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Again, I remind you who Jesus was to those in his own time. You know, outcasts and sinners. And, again, it’s time to stop hanging out with all the “right” people. Because when we do only that, we become by our own hand the outcasts and sinners in need of redemption.