Principal Service

Continuous:

Genesis 12.1–9 Abraham is called by God to a new land

Psalm 33.1–12

Romans 4.13–end

Matthew 9.9–13, 18–26

Scripture quote

 Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.

 Sermon

This morning’s gospel reading from Matthew feels a bit like a whirl wind! One minute Jesus is having dinner with some tax collectors, the next he is being whisked away to bring a young girl back to life and in between all this he heals a woman of a long-term illness! It’s a well-known story from scripture, probably because versions of it are written in Mark and Luke’s gospel as well as Matthew’s. All the characters we encounter in this story show a great amount of trust and faith in Jesus’ ability.

If we look at our other readings this morning, they are all giving us examples and exploring the importance of faith.

The 16^th century Protestant reformer Martin Luther was inspired by Paul’s letter to the Romans in coming to his famous conclusions about justification by faith alone. This is the idea that we don’t need to follow laws or rituals to be accepted and justified by God, all we need is to have faith. Through Luther’s teaching he is claiming that following the law would not bring you closer to God but that only faith would. This is what he interpreted Paul as saying in Romans. However, it is not quite as clear cut as that, especially when Luther’s teaching leads to the idea that through Jesus Christ we moved away from the Law. We must remember the context within which Paul was writing this letter and that there was a tension between Jewish and Gentile Christians. The tension was over the role of the mosaic law and as the Theologian Wyndy Corbin Reuschling puts it, “Mosaic law during the early Christian period was often misremembered in the church as wholly negative and nullified by Jesus.’ This negativity towards the law lead to continued tension, conflict, and antisemitism over hundreds of years, which needs to be considered when reading this text.

In this passage from Romans, Paul is in fact making it clear that faith was always the predominant factor of God’s people and gives the example of Abraham and Sarah to make his point. They come before the law was given to Moses and are promised to be the mother and father of all the families of the earth (verse 3).

In our reading from Genesis, we heard how God commanded Abraham and Sarah to leave the land and family they had called home for many years and go to a completely unknown land. This would not have been a simple or easy thing to do. They were well in their 70’s at this point and would have relied upon their family and friends to keep them safe. To abandon all of this would have taken a great amount of courage and faith, especially from Sarah. If Abraham had of died on the way, Sarah would have most likely been left destitute with no protection.

In Romans Paul used the example of Abraham and Sarah because they were people of great faith who trusted God and it was though this trust that they began to have a covenant with God, or for want of a better way of putting it, began to follow rules so they and their descendants could follow God more faithfully. Indeed, the New Testament Greek word we typically translate as faith could just as easily be translated as trust, belief or confidence. So our Romans passage is not about rejecting the law, it is about how through faith in God everything else falls into place, including the laws. The covenant relationship with Israel, and the law, are gifts to Abraham’s descendants.

Usually when people get married it is because they have confidence and trust in one another, which leads to a binding and lasting covenant. Vows which they promise to live by are made but these are built on trust and love. So, if we have faith and trust in God, God’s laws and commandments follow on from this in a similar way. They aren’t judgements to keep us in line but more like promises to help us have a fruitful relationship with God and others.

As Christian’s our faith and understanding of God comes from scripture but not just the New Testament, it is underpinned by the Old Testament, or the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus didn’t make up the commandment to love your neighbour as yourself. Jesus’ mission and ministry were rooted in the covenant and God’s law. They were the foundation of his good news for all people. This is why we have both the Old Testament and New Testament readings as part of our Sunday Parish worship.

Imagine if when picking up a book to read we just read the last chapter. We’d find out how the story finishes for the characters, but would we be that bothered? When we read a story we become invested in the characters and want to know how the story ends for them because we have gotten to know them and care for them. It is the same with the Bible. If we just read the New Testament we are not as invested in the whole story of God’s relationship with us. It is through all the stories in the Bible that we come to understand God’s relationship with us, which helps us trust in God.

Coming back to the whirlwind of stories from our gospel, they are all about faith leading to restoration. It is worth noticing that the main two people who are restored are female. Within society at that time the women and the young girl would have been seen as the least important or valued. The women’s illness would have prevented her from worshipping in the Temple or even to touch anyone. Imagine not only having to live with this illness but also not to be able to go freely in the world, to be cared for or caressed by another person. Yet what we read in each gospel version of the healing of this women, is that it is her faith, or trust that has made her well.

In Matthew’s version of this story the little girl has already died and a leader of the synagogue is asking for her to be brought to back to life. This is quite astonishing if you think about it. Firstly, because at this time it was not uncommon for a girl who was born to be abandoned into slavery because she was seen as of so little value and more of a burden. Secondly this Jewish leader clearly loves his daughter so much that he is asking the unimaginable, which is to bring her back to life. And finally, that this leader has so much faith in God and the actions of Jesus, that he believes Jesus can actually make this happen.

The faith and trust in Jesus that they could be restored, displayed in both of these stories, hasn’t come out of thin air. I’m sure in both the case of the women and the Jewish leader they would have heard about Jesus, but there is more to their faith in Jesus than just stories and rumours. Both of these characters are people of faith and belief in God. It is their understanding of God that has grown over years of worship and being among God’s people shaped by the covenant and the law, which has lead to the gift of faith and trust in God. And because of this, they know that in God anything is possible and they had the confidence to recognise God’s actions when they saw them.

So let us pray to God for insight into all the scriptures, for the confidence to recognise when the Holy Spirit is as at work in our lives, that we may grow in closer relationship with God and trust that with God, anything is possible.

Amen.