There are some chapters of the Bible that can just make my head spin, and this is one of them. We only read two small arts of it, but here’s everything that happens in these 38 verses. Jesus had just healed a man on the east side of the Sea of Galilee and returned to the other side by boat. As he enters the town, he runs into a group carrying their friend on a mat. He was unable to walk, and the friends wanted Jesus to help. Jesus looks at him, pronounces his sins forgiven (which causes a controversy because, you know, only God can forgive like that), and to show he has the power to forgive, he heals the man.
Then, Jesus passes by Matthew, who’s working as a tax collector. There was a major Roman road that passed just north of Capernaum, and people like Matthew would have had booths set up there to collect tolls, often collecting more than was due, which was part of what led to their bad reputation. Jesus appears not to care in the least about Matthew’s reputation, so he invites him to follow as a disciple, and he does. Jesus then attends a dinner party filled with a bunch of people that polite society had rejected.
Next, Jesus addresses a controversy with the religious leaders, who are questioning why he doesn’t have his disciples behave in expected ways, and he responds in a way that basically says, “Look, I know you’ve hung your hats on your way being the right way, but God is doing a new thing among you. It’s time to open your lives up for this new thing.”
Then, the story moves on to part of the text we read today. There are two women who are both in rough shape but who could not be from more different circumstances. The first is the daughter of the synagogue leader. This is a reputable, connected family. The daughter has died, and her father runs to Jesus to see if he can do anything for her. (Isn’t it funny how desperation can lead us to set aside all of our pretense? In that moment he doesn’t care about his reputation; he cares about his daughter.)
On his way to the leader’s home, a woman who has been cast out of society for twelve years sneaks up on Jesus. She has a health condition that kept her ritually unclean, which meant she could not participate in the life of the community, including in the synagogue.
Both the leader and this woman are desperate, although they’re from opposite ends of acceptability. And Jesus meets both of them in their need. The woman touches his robe, and she is healed. Jesus makes his way to the leader’s home, where the community is sitting shiva, grieving this young girl’s death. Jesus enters the home, tells the mourners to head home — that the girl is only sleeping. They laugh at him because, after all, dead people don’t stop being dead. Yet, Jesus raises her and restores her.
If you’re paying close attention, you’ll notice that this day in the life of Jesus foreshadows his own death and resurrection. Like the woman whose bleeding made her unclean, Jesus will bleed for us on the cross. Like the little girl, Jesus will die and rise again. It’s all there.
But, wait…there’s more! Two blind men make their way to Jesus, and he heals them. Then there’s a man possessed by demons, causing him to be mute. Jesus restores the voice of this man. In just a short period of time, Jesus has done so much. He’s healed. He’s taught. He’s challenged.
Matthew summarizes the ministry of Jesus this way, “Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”
Friends, salvation is at the heart of God’s story, but salvation is not simply about souls going to heaven. No, do you see what Jesus is doing? He’s bringing heaven to earth, bringing healing and hope right into that particular time and place. Matthew presents salvation in the form of a story, which is something the Bible does frequently. Eugene Peterson observes, “It is significant that God does not present us with salvation in the form of an abstract truth, or a precise definition or a catchy slogan, but as story…. Story is an invitation to participate, first through our imagination and then, if we will, by faith — with our total lives in response to God.” Salvation is not a concept. It’s a lived reality. Salvation makes an immediate difference in lives; it is not simply a promise for eternity (although it is that); it is transformative now.
Why? Because God has compassion for people. We see it right in this passage. God has compassion for all people. Women and men. Young and old. Insider and outsider. Sinner and saint. They are all sheep without a shepherd, it’s just that some of them more readily recognize their need for Jesus.
I’ve always loved the word “compassion.” Its roots in English combine suffering love (that is, passion) and the word for “with.” As in, compassion is to come alongside someone in deeply engaged love. The word in Greek is also very interesting. It comes from the word splachna. Such an ugly word for a such a beautiful concept. It means to have pity for or to feel sympathy for, but it goes deeper. Its deepest roots actually mean “the inward parts of the body, including especially the viscera, inward parts, entrails.” In Greek, compassion comes from your splachna, which means your guts. You love deeply with all that is inside of you.
I guess we’ve cleaned this up a little bit by talking about how we love with our hearts, which makes a nice metaphor, but it’s also kind of weird when you think about it. Our hearts can’t actually love. The heart pumps blood through the body, oxygenating it and keeping us alive. The heart doesn’t really love, so I guess it’s no weirder to say that I can love someone with all of my guts or spleen or stomach, right?
Deep down, what Jesus is saying is that compassion emerges from deep within. Compassion is vulnerable. It bares its inward being for the benefit of others. It’s connected deeply to how we’re created in God’s image and in how we look at the world with that same deep compassion that Jesus has for it.
Matthew 9 concludes with this challenge from Jesus. “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Jesus sees the world with compassion and is doing something about it. Through us, Jesus continues this work, moving from moment to moment, person to person to show through our actions and words that we believe God’s salvation is coming to bear on all the brokenness.
That’s the work of the church. That’s the work of every single person who makes up the church. That’s who God is calling us to be.
As a nation, we are less than a month away from celebrating 250 years of existence. That’s a remarkable achievement. We are the oldest modern representative democracy in the world. What a feat to make it this long with a system that is designed to listen to an array of voices and be run by its own citizens. It is worthy of celebration.
There will be plenty of ways to mark this occasion as a nation. There will be fireworks, for sure, as well as concerts. The church is not and never will be an arm of the state. I am thankful that we live in a nation where the separation of church and state exists, which provides us great freedom to worship and serve as we choose. So, a couple of months ago, we began asking the question about how we could mark this notable moment — 250 years — in a way that reflects our character as a church.
As Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.” So, we’re asking God to use this moment to employ us as his laborers. The church is the movement that lives out salvation right now, and we do so, in part, by extending compassion and kindness, not simply to ourselves, but to everyone — particularly those who are in no position to ever return it to us.
With America turning 250, we found a movement called the United States of Kindness, which is a national movement inspiring every American to take part in 250 acts of kindness this year in order to build a culture of compassion, connection, and unity across the nation. I think that’s beautiful. And I think it actually could be part of transforming some of the divisiveness and toxicity that have become so engrained in our culture and nation.
At First Pres, we’re putting our own twist on this. We’re calling our effort Kind Haven. We want to see kindness spread in Grand Haven and beyond, little by little person by person. We’d like to get at least 250 folks in our church committed to doing acts of kindness this summer. No, we’re not asking you to track each and every one of those. We don’t want this to be legalistic in any way. But, I do know that when we make a commitment to do something, we’re more likely to be attentive to doing that thing. I’d like us to be committed to kindness this summer — in our homes, in our church, in our community, and beyond.
Next week I’ll be preaching on the deep biblical roots of what kindness is. (Hint: it’s not simply being nice.) I want to ground our church in biblical kindness as we move into this. At our picnic on June 17, we’ll begin our signups. All you need to do is say, “Yes. Yes, I am committed to being intentionally kind this summer. Because of my faith and also because I am committed to making our national life together kinder.”
When you sign up, we’ll give you a t-shirt. You can wear it if you’re ever serving somewhere or simply as a reminder that you are God’s agent of kindness. We’ll have stickers. You can put them on your coffee mug or somewhere that will remind you to be kind. We’ll even have yard signs because we want our wider community to wonder, “What in the world is Kind Haven, and how can I be a part of it?”
If you don’t make the picnic, you can still sign up on the Sundays that follow. We’ll give away the shirts, stickers, and signs until they’re gone.
Folks, I’m super excited about this effort, and I hope you can join in my excitement. Get involved in whatever way works for your particular situation in life. That’s one of the great things about the Christian faith — it is lived out in particular ways through particular lives. It is never one-size-fits-all.
My dear friends, we all lead busy lives. I see this is true across all ages and demographics in this church. But we shouldn’t be so busy that we can’t be kind. And if we are, we better find ways to make changes in our lives to have space to be people who, like Jesus, have compassion on our neighbors.
Matthew 9 tells the story of a couple very busy days for Jesus, and in that time he is spreading the message of salvation — of how God saves us from all that destroys us — through healing, words that challenge the status quo, and calling us to do the same.
Like Jesus, we need kind, compassionate hearts. We need to live with intentionality. Quoting the prophet Hosea, Jesus tells those who would listen that God “desire[s] mercy, not sacrifice.” This summer, let’s be a people who have the guts to love others the way that Jesus loves them.