Proper 5 (10) – Year A
Second Sunday after pentecost: June 7, 2026
Gospel Lectionary Text
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
9:9 As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him.
9:10 And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples.
9:11 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"
9:12 But when he heard this, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
9:13 Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners."
9:18 While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt before him, saying, "My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live."
9:19 And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples.
9:20 Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak,
9:21 for she said to herself, "If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well."
9:22 Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, "Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well." and instantly the woman was made well.
9:23 When Jesus came to the leader's house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion,
9:24 he said, "Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping." And they laughed at him.
9:25 But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up.
9:26 And the report of this spread throughout that district.
Context
Welcome to the Second Sunday after Pentecost. This week’s text contains perhaps Jesus' deepest insight into the heart of God: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Jesus borrows these words from the prophet Hosea not once, but twice. First, in this week’s text to shed light on his companionship with “sinners and tax collectors,” and again in Matthew 12:7, when he is accused of violating Sabbath law in order to feed his friends.
What Matthew is giving us is a glimpse inside the heart of God. And Matthew would know its shape firsthand because he is the tax collector in this week’s text. Matthew knew the contempt that came with participating in the humiliation of his own people. He knew what it meant to be labeled a traitor.
And then there is the woman, whose suffering not only tormented her for twelve years but stripped her of any social standing in the community she craved.
Sandwiched between these two social outsiders is a religious insider. But even his standing in the community could not prevent the loss of his twelve-year-old daughter.
All of them are in desperate need of God’s attention. And Jesus gives it to them without hesitation. No transaction. No hoops. Jesus simply becomes the mercy they desire.
According to religious tradition, the surest way to get God’s attention was through the sacrificical system — ginormous amounts of blood, fire, smoke, and elaborate displays of religious theater. At its peak, hundreds of thousands of animals were offered during festivals like Passover, with Josephus reporting over 250,000 lambs in a single celebration.
So when Jesus reveals the heart of God, the entire sacrificial apparatus begins to fall apart. That’s what God’s heart does: it transforms systems of sacrifice into systems of mercy. And that is a forever task.
Question
Where do you expect sacrifice when God is offering mercy?
Reflections
Master of Allusion
By Joel Kiekintveld |
Creator Sets Free (the name used for Jesus in the First Nations Translation of the Bible) is seeking to set the Pharisees, and all of us, free from the rules and rituals we use to define ourselves over and against other people.
Praying Eucharistically - Weekly Homily by James Alison:
Understanding the Bible anew through the Mimetic Theory of René Girard.
Poetry
Does Thurman’s reflection below reveal, for you, any sense in which you might see those who make you feel ashamed as “enemies”? What does Jesus’ approach to this type of person reveal about God’s way of loving?
excerpt from "Jesus and the Disinherited"
by Howard Thurman
The second kind of enemy comprises those persons who, by their activities, make it difficult for the group to live without shame and humiliation. It does not require much imagination to assume that to the sensitive son of Israel, the taxgatherers were in that class. It was they who became the grasping hand of Roman authority, filching from Israel the taxes which helped to keep alive the oppression of the gentile ruler. They were Israelites who understood the psychology of the people, and therefore were always able to function with the kind of spiritual ruthlessness that would have been impossible for those who did not know the people intimately. They were despised; they were outcasts, because from the inside they had unlocked the door to the enemy. The situation was all the more difficult to bear because the tax collectors tended to be prosperous in contrast with the rest of the people. To be required to love such a person was the final insult. How could such a demand be made? One did not even associate with such creatures. To be seen in their company meant a complete loss of status and respect in the community. The taxgatherer had no soul; he had long since lost it. When Jesus became a friend to the tax collectors and secured one as his intimate companion, it was a spiritual triumph of such staggering proportions that after nineteen hundred years it defies rational explanation.
Prayer
This week, the call to prayer comes from the Street Psalms Prayer of Vocation:
Let us pray.
Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The crooked shall be made straight and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Come, Holy Spirit. Show us the way of the Lord that we might see your salvation and seek your peace in all things. Quiet our troubled souls and teach us how to pray. Be our guide, our counselor, our advocate, and our defender. Transform our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh.
