Hosea 6:1-6:

“Come, let us return to the Lord, for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord; his appearing is as sure as the dawn; he will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth.” What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early.
Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets; I have killed them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light. For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26:

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.

And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”  But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.” While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.”  And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples.  Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she was saying to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.”  Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And the woman was made well from that moment. When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, he said, “Go away, for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him.  But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up.  And the report of this spread through all of that district.

Papias, Eusebius, and Matthew’s Gospel

Summary:

There are two points, two things I want to look at, in this very brief sermon, based on the readings for today:

One, Jesus quotes from the book of Hosea.

AndtTwo, we meet Matthew the tax collector. This leads us to discuss the origin of the name of this Gospel, “Matthew.” The Gospel of Matthew is anonymous. We don’t really know who wrote it.  The link to the name Matthew occurred in the late 2^nd century, about 100 years after the text was written. So we will talk about this interesting story.

Introduction

This morning we pick up our study of Matthew’s Gospel in earnest which we will continue all through this summer. Recall that back before Christmas we looked in depth at the Sermon on the Mount, the very first of the five discourses or five collections. And this brings us up to chapters 8 and 9.

So to review, remember we said that Matthew is a highly structured, highly organized text. At the core of Matthew’s Gospel are five discourses, five collections, five major blocks of Jesus’ teachings. And scholars think that this five-part structure was meant to appeal to a Jewish audience because it parallels the five-part structure of the Torah, that is, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Remember, we said that Matthew’s Gospel is the “most Jewish” of all the Gospels.

The first collection of Jesus’ teachings is the Sermon on the Mount in chapters Five to Seven. The second major block of Jesus’ teachings is in Chapter Ten, called the Mission Discourse. Today’s reading is situated in-between these first two blocks of teachings in chapter Nine. And these two chapters, Chapters Eight and Nine, show Jesus’ actions. He carries out God’s Commission. So in these two chapters, we see examples of Jesus’ healing ministry. He is not just talking, but he is doing things to help people. And nestled in this section we find Jesus’ call to Matthew, followed by the two interwoven healing stories of today’s reading. Our focus this morning is on the call to Matthew in verses 9 to 13.

The Call to Matthew

Now, there are two things that I think are remarkable about this section, worth pointing out. The first is that we meet Matthew the tax collector. And the second is that Jesus quotes from Hosea. So let’s take a look at the Hosea piece first.

I love to find these places in the Gospels where Jesus quotes ancient scripture. I mean, of course for us, all of this is ancient scripture. But from Jesus’ point of view, there was no New Testament. The New Testament did not exist yet. He is quoting ancient Jewish scripture to the Pharisees, sort of throwing it in their faces, another reason that they don’t like him. He knows scripture as well as they do. He is more than a simple carpenter from Nazareth. And he is very popular with the people.

Jesus quotes Hosea to the Pharisees to make a point about love and compassion, something that they seem to have forgotten. At the time, Hosea was already an 800-year-old text. [In the United States we don’t really have a reference point for this. But it would be like quoting a medieval text from 1226, you know, the middle of the middle ages.]  Hosea is one of the minor prophets, not because it’s not an important text, but because it is a shorter book in comparison to Isaiah, Ezekiel, and the other major prophets. Hosea lived in the Eighth century BC and he wrote in the context of the Assyrian threat to “the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah.”[1] And so here, Jesus quotes from Hosea: “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” The point here, the point that Jesus wants the Pharisees to get, is that religious practice goes beyond the ritualistic forms of worship. Religious practice must include acts of mercy and compassion for all people. In other words, religious practice must translate into something real, something that helps people. This was the same message that the prophet Hosea was preaching 800 years earlier. Jesus is not saying anything new to the Pharisees.

Here, I’m reminded of what Joseph Campbell said when asked, “Do we need a new religion? Is Christianity done?” And Joseph Campbell answered, “No, you don’t need a new religion. You don’t need to throw out Christianity. You need to take it all the way. Practice all of it. You need all of it. The whole thing.”

In a world where it is so easy to turn a blind eye to the needs of those less fortunate, these prophetic words from Hosea still apply. God desires “steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

Naming Matthew’s Gospel

So now, we come to the question about Matthew. In the text, Jesus meets Matthew the tax collector and says to him, “Follow me.” There is only one other place in the Gospel where Matthew is mentioned, and that is in the next chapter when the names of the twelve apostles are listed. So Matthew the tax collector is one of the twelve. But is he the author of this Gospel? According to tradition, we say that yes, Matthew wrote this Gospel. But actually, the truth is this work is anonymous. We really do not know who wrote it. And this is one of the things I find frustrating about the Bible. There is so much that is unknown.

For example, we have an original signed document of the American Declaration of Independence. We have the original Constitution. Things like that. But we don’t have any original Gospels. The earliest actual papyrus artifacts of the Gospels begin to show up around the end of the 2^nd century. We know that these are copies and revisions. And they are unsigned fragments. That is, there is no author’s name or date on the thing. There is, however, a reason that this Gospel is linked to the name “Matthew.” And there is a long story behind it.

The story takes place in what is now Southwestern Turkey and then, later, on the coast of Israel. It’s a story about two people, Papias of Hierapolis and Eusebius of Caesarea.

And now we are running out of time. So we will pick it up here next week and continue this story with Papias and Eusebius.

Amen? Amen.