In the midst of a suffering world, Jesus comes to us with healing and grace. In spite of our pride and pretense, Jesus offers us new life, springing up from his endless love for us.
Erik C. Nelson
7 June 2026
Texts: Hosea 5:15-6:6; Psalm 50:7-15; Romans 4:13-25; Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
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Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
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“God didn’t make us to hate us.”
That’s a line from the Rev. Lizzie McManus Dail, an Episcopal priest down in Texas.
God didn’t make us to hate us.
This is good news. We live in a society, in a culture, in a religion that too often tells us that there’s nothing delightful in us. That there’s nothing good we can do or anything beautiful that comes from us.
This line reminds us that God, who created the beautiful universe, with planets that rain diamonds and nebulae that glow with every color imaginable, this God who made it all and said it was good, made you, and says you were good.
God didn’t make you to hate you. You bear the unshakeable image of God, and that can never change.
When we remember that this is how God sees us, as beautiful and loveable, we can start to understand what Jesus means when he says, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”
We can start to understand what God meant when speaking through Hosea, when God said, “I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
What God wants most is a relationship with us. God wants us to know how much we are loved, and God wants that knowledge to then flow out of us in love.
In today’s Gospel reading, we have three stories of Jesus’ love encountering people in ways that challenge the status quo, that challenge us.
The first people Jesus spends time with are the tax collectors and sinners. Matthew, the namesake of this book and the disciple called in this story, was a tax collector.
They were hated because on top of the imperial tax they took in, they were known to take extra off the top for themselves. So people avoided them, shunned them, hated them.
And the others Jesus was with are identified only as sinners.
And yet these are the ones who Jesus chooses to spend time with. He doesn’t see them as outcasts or pariahs, and instead calls them to follow him. He leads Matthew out of the tax collection booth, and invites him to the table.
Matthew walks away from his life of taking advantage of people and is welcomed into the love of God.
And in response to this grace, the people who should know better, the ones who spend their days in worship, claiming to be close to God, come to Jesus and scold him for spending time with them.
And Jesus responds by saying that he has come to heal the sick. He has come for mercy, not sacrifice. In this, we are reminded that we are in that group that Jesus chooses to spend time with.
We are sinners. We are sick. We all have ways that the things we do and don’t do hurt others, separate us from God, and alienate us from ourselves.
And in Jesus’ loving example, he reminds us that that is not all we are. We are deeply loved. And all that God wants for us is to know that love and to share it with others, that we will be healed, and the world will be healed as well.
In the middle of this conversation with the religious leaders, he’s called out by one of them, who asks him to go raise up his daughter, who just died.
And on the way, he encounters this woman who had been suffering for 12 years, and in her desperation, in a moment of faith, she reaches out to him, hoping that he might help her.
And in this moment, the pharisee and the bleeding woman discover how alike they really are. The unfortunate reality is that the woman’s condition would have kept her away from the temple all those years. The religious and social structures put her and the pharisee in very different positions.
And yet, when they both face moments of great desperation, everything is leveled. The truth is laid bare, that they’re both human.
Whatever structures we set up to elevate some of us over others, the only thing that’s true at the end of the day, is that we’re all only human. And that means we all need healing. And we all are desperately loved by God.
When we’re at our lowest, when there’s nothing else we can do, God invites us to turn our eyes to heaven. God invites us to interrupt and beg for help. God invites us to reach out in faith, hoping against hope, trusting that God will care for us.
God wants mercy and steadfast love from us because God first extends mercy and steadfast love to us. God made us to love us. God didn’t make us to hate us.
After the woman has been healed, Jesus continues on his way to the pharisee’s house. When he gets there, he says that she is not dead but sleeping, and the crowd laughs at him.
Jesus responds to the pharisee’s desperation with mercy, and in return, he’s met with mockery. Nevertheless, he goes in, takes the girl by the hand, and she gets up.
She receives this most miraculous form of healing, resurrection from the dead. And this is the healing that we are promised.
We ourselves will be raised from the dead. Because again, at the end of the day, we are human, we will die, we can’t avoid that. But we know that like the tax collectors, like the bleeding woman, like the pharisee and his daughter, we’re not alone in any of it.
We have God with us who carries us in love now, who will be with us when we die, and promises that the pain and loss that comes in death isn’t the end for us. When we reach the end, all that will be left is God’s love, and God’s promise to us.
God’s grace will meet us there, and will carry us into new life.
God’s grace is already meeting us here, carrying us to new life.
And because we know this grace, because we know that God didn’t make us to hate us, because we have experienced the mercy of God, because God’s love lives deep inside us, God invites us to let that all flow out of us.
Share God’s kindness to a world that is unkind. Extend God’s healing and forgiveness to all people, even when you’re cast out or met with mockery. Bear the fruits of God’s mercy and steadfast love.
And when you reach the end of your rope, when your candle has burnt out, when there’s nowhere else to turn, hope against hope, trust that God’s promises cannot be broken.
God gives life to the dead.
God calls into existence the things that do not exist.
May it be so.
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In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
