Gospel: Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
Follow me, and I will follow you.
That’s not a verse in today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel, but it’s very much how I find myself distilling these 14 verses: Follow me, and I will follow you.
The passage starts off simply enough: a statement that Jesus is walking along. It doesn’t say that he was walking toward the margins, but in approaching Matthew that’s exactly what he was doing: leaving the accepted for the unacceptable. Then, the request from Jesus: follow me.
Matthew, the tax collector who was lumped by the Pharisees into a broader category with all sinners. Matthew, the object of two-fold derision among the population: once for taking their money, and a second time for aligning himself as an employee of the Roman occupiers. Matthew, physically living within the boundaries of the community and yet in every other sense dwelling on the margins, hated, and despised.
I can only imagine the torment and emotional wasteland in which this man may have felt he was living. Perhaps his conscience deeply troubled him about what his role as tax collector meant for others. Perhaps the grief of finding himself perpetually mocked and taunted was unbearable. Yes, there’s certainly the possibility he had no conscience at all about any of this, but I don’t see that in this scene.
Instead, I see someone feeling incredibly marginalized and cut off from others. Because of that it only took two words from this stranger – follow me – for him to get up and leave behind his ledgers and stacks of coins and allegiance to Rome. For a man with whom no one wanted to have contact, this invitation to follow someone – to join someone, to share even just a few moments of acceptance and friendship offered by someone – was too deeply meaningful and too great a display of love to pass up.
Then later in this passage we have a request made to Jesus: come and help. With the arrival of a leader of the synagogue, we’re introduced in this moment to one suffering in his own way, living with his own grief: the grief of a parent who’s lost a child. Here’s someone who on the surface has out of seeming desperation turned to Jesus, suddenly rushing in and kneeling before him.
With nowhere else to turn he’s come to this man, a deep faith still present within him despite the grief – and there’s a response, not one displayed through words but rather demonstrated through action. Jesus went and followed him. For a parent grieving the greatest loss of all and yet whose faith in the ability of this man to bring his daughter back to life remained, this request to follow was too deeply meaningful and loving for Jesus to pass up.
Follow me, and I will follow you.
Then there is the woman who doesn’t ask or even wait to be asked. As we see elsewhere in the Gospels when the Spirit leads someone to go somewhere in a particular moment, I think here she simply responds to that leading. She knows she’s ill; she knows Jesus is there; she knows she will be healed. The reality of her life and the reality of her faith are brought together in a moment of healing when she trusts the nudge and goes.
For Matthew it was an invitation that Jesus shared, not a command. Talk with me. Travel with me. Share with me. Build a kingdom with me. Change the world with me. He could have said no, of course, but surely this invitation touched the tax collector in such a deeply powerful way that he felt there was only one response: to leave everything behind and go.
For the leader of the synagogue, Jesus’ response to his plea had no conditions. He didn’t say, “Follow me, and then I will go to see about your daughter.” His silent, active response was grace-filled. Lead the way. Show me. Keep the faith you have. I will follow. For the woman seeking healing it wasn’t an invitation from or to Jesus; it was a call to action by what I see as the Spirit, a moment of action resulting in her hearing those incredible words, “Your faith has made you well.”
A Lord who asks that we follow Him. A Lord who follows us when we ask. A Lord who is present even when there is no asking, and we just go. This is who I see in these verses from the ninth chapter of Matthew – and I also recognize that we’re all Matthew, and we’re all the leader of the synagogue, and we’re all the woman simply desiring even the slightest touch of the cloak.
There will be times in life when Jesus says to us follow me: follow me to the margins; follow me to the distressed; follow me to the hungry; follow me to the homeless; follow me to the abused; follow me to the addicted; follow me to the manipulated; follow me to the belittled; follow me to the diminished; follow me to the ignored; follow me to the unexpected.
There are many times when Jesus will be asked to follow. Lord, follow me to the place of my grief; follow me to the place of my fear; follow me to the place of my uncertainty; follow me to the place of my illness; follow me to the place of my hopelessness; follow me to the place of my hesitancy; follow me to the place of my confusion; follow me to the place of my hunger; follow me to the place of my addiction.
There will be times as well when we don’t wait for the invitation to be extended or for us to extend the invitation. Instead, we will follow the nudge of the Holy Spirit and just go. We will bring everything burdening us on our margins to the center, to leave them in the spot where we touch the cloak of Jesus.
To do any of these – to follow, to be followed, or simply to go alone – may sometimes require courage. More often they require faith. Always they require a willingness to be present: to be present for those we approach on the margins; to be open to having Jesus be present for us at the margins where we may find ourselves in our own lives; to be present to the work of the Spirit in those moments when we aren’t asked and we don’t ask, but simply feel the urge to go.
Amen.