I won’t lie; I have a few problems with Saint Matthew. That’s probably a very bold place to start a sermon, but hear me out. You see, parts of the Gospel of Matthew have been a root cause of much Christian antisemitism over centuries. In his account of the passion, he includes a distinct blood curse that doesn’t appear in the other synoptic Gospels. The inclusion of this has led to so much antisemitism from the Christian faith that some scholars have even suggested that our Christian history played a part in the formation of Nazi ideology. Quite a sobering thought.

The context of Matthew, then, is all the more important to consider. It is likely that the actual Gospel was written after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem during the revolt that was crushed by Vespasian, who would shortly afterwards become Roman Emperor. The catastrophe that the destruction of the temple represented for ancient Judaism cannot be underestimated. No act could more clearly demonstrate a Roman decision to extinguish any hope within the Jewish community. It leads to a huge level of soul searching amongst the Jewish community and is one of the key events in the development of what we now call Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism.

Yet, this shift into two distinct religions with a shared heritage did not happen overnight. We must always be wary of the idea that huge historic changes happen as suddenly as waking up the next morning to discover it’s the Renaissance. This was a long process of change and evolution, and it was not easy.

Remember too, that the earliest Christians would have considered themselves Jews who were following a Jewish Messiah. The elements of antisemitism in Matthew’s Gospels are part of a process of different sects vying for influence and conversion. Matthew’s seeming rejection of the Jews is part of this context, and although there can be no place for the blood curse that comes later, much of Matthew’s Gospel continues to speak into our lives and our culture today. And this particular reading does just that. It is the reading in which Saint Matthew himself is called by Jesus to follow him. Matthew, in our introduction to him, is a tax collector. One of the most hated groups of people at the time. To have called a tax collector to be a follower is one of Jesus’s most radical moves – nobody would ever have suggested the Messiah would call such a person to him. The Messiah was understood to be someone who would bring the sword and restore the Kingdom of Israel, not someone who offered a radical welcome to all those who were outcasts by society.

Yet, this is precisely what Jesus does. He sits and dines with tax collectors and sinners. This isn’t only about saying Jesus welcomed those who had done wrong in life and who would be forgiven. This is part of Matthew’s cultural debate about welcoming Jews and Gentiles – non-Jews into what would become Christianity.

The Gentiles didn’t understand Jewish traditions. If you brought them to the Temple, they wouldn’t have known what to do; they wouldn’t have known the Psalms or the structures and traditions that were familiar to Jews themselves. Given the way Christianity develops and changes, it’s likely that many of these traditions wouldn’t have spoken to them at all. Fundamentally, a lot of people simply did not want to let the Gentiles in.

In this simple passage, here is Jesus making clear what it is that He, the Messiah, is looking for. A Pharisee attempts to challenge his presence with the sinners, and after giving his example of the physician, he quotes the prophet Hosea. “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”. This is partly Jesus winding up the Pharisee by showing his extensive scriptural knowledge, but it also reveals a key component about Jesus’s approach to religion, which we must, as Christians, understand as God’s approach.

Jesus makes clear that he hasn’t come to those who already consider themselves righteous. He isn’t interested in the sacrifices that formed the traditional basis of worship in the Jerusalem temple. He’s interested in those on the margins. Those who have been left behind by society, by religion and by circumstance. Look at the list of people whom Jesus ministers to. It’s not the Pharisees and the scribes, it’s the lepers, the disabled, women, children and all those who have been left in the wilderness. To use the imagery often applied, Jesus is the shepherd who goes out looking for the lone lost sheep.

This is the Gospel that Saint Matthew is teaching us. In his context, he is saying that the Gentiles are to be brought into what will become the church. Whilst traditions can be important, it is the mercy and love that Christ brought to all of us that is the central pillar of everything that we say and do as his followers. It is a call that Christ puts on all of us, no matter what form that may have taken. To put first and foremost love to those who are outside. Even at the cost of change. It’s one of the reasons that, at St Peter’s, we’re so committed to being part of the Inclusive Church network.

But it is also something that the entire structure of Christianity must grapple with as we reach an era where we are no longer the majority in this part of the world. Fundamentally, we are coming back to the same arguments that the earliest forms of the church faced between those who know and understand the traditions and those for whom it is entirely new and confusing. My hope is, my prayer is that the Church can learn from our forefathers and be welcoming and loving to all.

Amen.

Rev. Iain Grant