|
First
Reading
|
Psalm |
Epistle |
Gospel |
| Genesis 12:1–9 |
Psalm 50:7–15 |
Romans 4:13–25 |
Matthew 9:9–13, 18–26 |
There are three interrelated stories involving trust in today’s Gospel. In the first one, Jesus is going around choosing his running mates. Apparently Jesus didn’t appoint a committee of prominent religious scholars to advise him, he didn’t organize focus groups, and no mention is ever given to seeking either a political or geographical balance. We just don’t know what Jesus saw in Matthew and neither did most of the people whom Jesus intended to teach. Tax collectors were collaborators with the hated foreign regime of occupation. They were the highest bidder in the Roman arrangement to have the head of a local mafia collect the taxes for them. Rome set an amount they demanded and allowed the tax collectors to extort whatever more they so chose. Likely some tax collectors were less brutal than others, the same I suppose could be said of underworld figures of extortion today.
However, Jesus saw something very good in Matthew and trusted that he would change. Jesus fanned the spark of potential in him so that Matthew was able to become a strong and commendable witness to the Gospel.
As Jesus was being questioned over his judgment in choosing Matthew, a president of a synagogue publicly approached Jesus and begged him to save his daughter. A president of a synagogue would have been one of the most prominent and respected people in the town. To have come and asked a traveling new rabbi for help was either an act of tremendous courage or desperation. The president of the synagogue must have trusted Jesus’ goodwill so much that he was willing to risk any possible ridicule to save his daughter. Jesus silently acknowledged the president’s extraordinary trust and prepared to go to the home when the third incident of trust manifested itself.
This was perhaps the most remarkable of them all. An impoverished woman, a nobody, with no power, no resources, and one would think, no hope, practically crawled up behind Jesus to touch his cloak. This woman had suffered for twelve years and no one had been able to help her. She meant to be unnoticed, and to all the people, save Jesus, she had no face. Think of the trust she had to have had in Jesus being able to help her and being willing to help her, just by touching his garment. Jesus pays her attention, she is finally looked at and seen as a person of worth, and she is healed.
Then, despite the incredulousness of the crowd, the president’s daughter comes to life again, too. The trust of Jesus, the trust of the president of the synagogue, and the trust of the woman were all very different, but all were strong and powerful, and all led to reconciliation, healing, and fresh, new life.
Now we tend to caution our children not to be too trusting. To be sure, foolish naiveté is not the same as trust. I also would think that we have all trusted in people who, in varying degrees, have betrayed us. Jesus did not bat 100% either. The Gospels record one individual who was invited to join Jesus’ team, and who refused, as well as one who accepted Jesus’ invitation and became one of His closest disciples, but then at a critical moment betrayed him. However, people with strong faith are people of strong trust.
How do people of faith maintain a trusting attitude in a distrustful age? That I suspect is a question we all have to ponder as we go forward, even if the answer is not readily grasped. Yet if trust is the incubator of hope, then cynicism is surely the precursor of despair. A cynical, suspicious society is never a healthy one.
As a young boy I was afraid of water over my head. I somehow had the idea that if I swam in water over my head, the depths would suck me down to the bottom and never let me come up. So for a long time I would not venture out too far, even though I was able to swim. Finally I just jumped in water I knew was over my head and of course, lived to tell. To some extent, that’s how faith works, be it way back along the shores of Galilee as Jesus picked his closest running mates, or today as we go out of St. John’s to the streets of Ithaca, or the shore of Cayuga.
And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
