Sermon for the 22nd of September - Feast of Saint Matthew

Over 50 years ago, a twenty-one-year-old Royal College of Music student finished her degree and she took the cheapest ship she could find, calling at the greatest number of countries, and prayed to know where to disembark. She arrived in Hong Kong with literally $10. It was 1966 when the cultural revolution was beginning in China and a flood of refugees were about to burst across the border. More and more people crammed into a place called the Walled City. It was a small, densely populated, lawless area controlled neither by China nor Hong Kong. It was a high-rise slum for drug addicts, gangs and prostitutes.

Her name is Jackie Pullinger, and she spent nearly over half a century working with prostitutes, heroin addicts and gang members. I had been inspired by her book, Chasing the Dragon, and I heard her give a talk some years ago. She began by saying, ‘God wants us to have soft hearts and hard feet. The trouble with so many of us is that we have hard hearts and soft feet.’ 

God wants us to have soft hearts – hearts of love and compassion. But if we are to make any difference to the world, this will lead to hard feet, as we travel along tough paths and face challenges.

Today we are keeping St Matthew’s feast day and the gospel reading tells us about the calling of Matthew to be a follower of Jesus. The context of this passage is about miracles and healing (the healing of the paralytic, the healing of the hemorrhaging woman and the raising of the daughter who had died). And, in a sense, Matthew’s calling, from being a tax collector, to a disciple and an apostle, is a kind of miracle and is certainly an act of healing.

Jesus calls Matthew to follow him, but immediately then goes to sit and eat with sinners. This is a regular theme for Jesus - he is constantly going to those who were deemed unclean, the social outcasts, and he calls Matthew to do the same. He calls Matthew to follow him, to turn his heart and mind towards his heavenly father, and to keep his feet treading the tough path with the misfits, the disenfranchised, the tax collectors and sinners. Matthew is called to have a soft heart and hard feet.

In this passage, Jesus embodies his own teaching when he challenges the Pharisees to go and learn what this means “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”.

There is so much in these few words. It is a quote from Hosea 6.6

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice

the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

Strong words, and the point is clear – what God wants from us is a loving and merciful heart, not simply strict adherence to the law. So, when you come across someone in need on the Sabbath, you don’t walk pass (because it’s the Sabbath) but you help them.

And although I think this is a well known teaching, it’s still a message we need to hear again and again….because we have a habit of putting ritual, or the law (Bible), or simply the way we do things…. before love and compassion for our neighbours. And when we do this, our hearts start to harden and our feet soften.

Last week – Holy Cross – we heard of Jesus giving his own life as a sacrifice and how, through the mystery of the cross, we experience salvation – which we might understand as wholeness and healing. Sacrifice is a central part of Jesus’ life… and death.

And so following in the footsteps of Jesus means that a certain amount of sacrifice is needed on our part. We don’t sacrifice animals anymore! But a different sort of death is required. The death of our own desires and ambitions, our egos, our greed and selfishness, in order that we may worship, or imitate Christ more fully.

If as a church we could be the sort of community that showed and lived lovingly and compassionately, then we will draw people in. Jesus went out and invited Matthew to walk in his footsteps, to sit and eat with those deemed outside of God’s orbit. It demonstrated God’s expansive welcome and invited them to experience the love of God.

God has called each of us, like St Matthew, to become one of his beloved children, to go out and show mercy to others, especially those deemed unworthy, and to have soft hearts and hard feet.