Matthews 9:9-13, 18-26
June 7, 2026
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church, Oakland, CA.
Arriving in your inbox on Saturday night is a message from LABC. Besides updates on church events, there’s a long list of prayer concerns. We are asked to pray for someone in need. Individually, we pray and as pastors, we pray with the hope that those who are experiencing difficulties would receive healing.
And when we might think that we don’t know how to pray, Jesus taught us the Lord’s Prayer. Maybe after saying or even singing the Lord’s Prayer together over many times, you would know how to pray when you are alone.
Our lesson for today features a cast of characters. They all encountered Jesus with some need of healing mercies.
Tax Collector
When Jesus walked by a tax collectors’ booth, he called out to Matthew to follow him. Tax collecting is socially unsavory work personally but probably necessary for Matthew to provide for his family. Tax collecting is on behalf of the Romans who occupied the area that so many people thought of it as traitorous work. Furthermore, it’s known that tax collecting can be profitable with unethical characters lining their own pockets by collecting more than required.
Next, Matthew found himself probably sitting at a table with other tax collectors and sinners and when Pharisees saw this situation, they accused Jesus of socializing with the outcasts.
Answering Jesus invitation to, “Follow me,” Matthew’s old life that he left was only hours old when he ends up directly in the company of the people he just left. In encountering Jesus, Matthew moves from work to vocation. His identity changed with a new vocation as Jesus’ disciple.
Jesus’ healing mercy changed Matthew being despised by those he collected taxes to becoming a disciple. Matthew no longer was doing the business of the Roman occupation and now doing the business of Jesus’ work on earth.
Synagogue Leader
The second character is a leader of the synagogue, supposedly among the most righteous men of all. He had an insurmountable need—his daughter has died. But he was certain that if Jesus would come and lay his hand on her, the girl will live.
When Jesus was getting up to follow this leader, the third character shows up.
Hemorrhaging Woman
A woman who has been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years, reaches out to touch the fringe of Jesus’ cloak. Ritually according to Jewish tradition, she was unclean. And for her to touch Jesus himself, it would have made him unclean as well. In this case, she only touches his clothes.
Jesus’ response to the woman is breathtaking. He tells her that what has made her well is her faith. Jesus does not claim to have done anything to have made her well, nor does he require anything of the woman; instead, he acknowledges that her faith is the agency of her healing.
This is Jesus’ healing mercy.
Synagogue Leader’s Daughter
After this detour, Jesus arrives at the leader’s house and found that there were flute players and commotion from the crowd. Jesus told the crowd to go away and announced that the girl is not dead but only sleeping.
The crowd mocked Jesus in their laughing but when the crowd went outside and Jesus took the hand of the girl, the girl got up. Jesus does not claim any great power in doing this, insteadmaintaining that the girl merely has been sleeping, and is not dead. It seems as though it is faith of the father that led to reviving the daughter.
Jesus by being present offered the restorative faith to the father that his daughter is alive. This is Jesus’ healing mercy.
Sinners in Need
The one thing that these three characters have in common is that they are in need. Matthew the tax collector needs a community that would give him a new vocation. The woman who bled for 12 years needs to be healed and made clean again. The synagogue leader whose fatherly love has unimaginable grief needs his daughter to live again.
While we know that well-heeled, wealthy, resourceful people also have needs, from this passage, Jesus is preferential toward those who are poor, marginalized, outcasts, and sick. When the Pharisees questioned why Jesus was hanging out with sinners, it suggests that those who claim to be righteous may not understand themselves to be in need.
Might it be that sinners recognize their own need, while those who see themselves as righteous are too full of pride and hubris to comprehend their need for God’s gracious mercy? Declaring oneself righteous before Jesus is to make a claim that no one could ever sustain. We are all sinners, but the sinner who understands her need is different from the sinner who claims to need no assistance. The former welcomes Jesus into her life, while the latter slams the doors of hospitality. Christ holds close those who are most in need of God’s mercy and who recognize their need.
So, we ask, “Are you in need of Jesus’ healing mercies?” Even if you had a job like Matthew, the tax collector, do you have a need to have a caring community and a clearer purpose in life? Even if you were the woman who has been bleeding for 12 years, might you also have the need for healing of your body and spirit? Even if you were like the father or a mother who may have become estranged from your son or daughter and you have this great need to fill this emptiness in your life, might you offer a hospitality of love, forgiveness, and acceptance to bring back reconciliation in your family?
No Conventions
In Jesus’ examples, we are called to be unconventional; conventions are turned upside down, barriers are broken, and segregated peoples intermingle.
Jesus calls out to the sinful tax collector and sits at a table with those whom the observing Pharisees consider undeserving. A leader of the synagogue throws out protocol and bows down before an unorthodox rabbi Jesus. A woman who would have attracted scorn in public, nevertheless ventures into the crowd to reach the one she knows can help. With the touch of his hand, Jesus brings a dead girl back among the living.
When Jesus is sharing healing mercies, there is nothing conventional about it.
We also see the synagogue leader who humbles himself to save his daughter. We see an unwanted woman who has the moxie to grab a hold of Jesus’ cloak. They come from different places and for different reasons. One is on the top of the social ladder; the other has been left off entirely. One has an urgent and dire need; the other has a chronic and a more complicated condition.
Both have faith. Both, regardless of sinful status or personal circumstances, receive attention from Jesus and miraculous results happen.
Jesus reminds us of our equal value when he turns to the woman and calls her “daughter,” the term the man uses when referring to his own little girl. All of us are children of God, and it is to those of us in need that Jesus has come.
Healing Us
When we keep that long list of Prayer Concerns week after week or we hear your prayer requests or you write them down on one of those cards behind the pews or you send us a prayer request in the LABC mail box, can Jesus heal like he did today? Can he raise the dead, eradicate cancer, stop heart attacks?
Let me tell you a little story. One night while babysitting, a grandfather passed his granddaughter’s room and overheard her repeating the alphabet in an oddly prayerful fashion. “What on earth are you up to?” he asked.
“I’m saying my prayers,” explained the little girl. “But I can’t think of exactly the right words tonight, so I’m just saying all the letters. God will put them together for me, because God knows what I’m thinking.”
There are times when we may not know what to say to God; it could very well be simply repeating the ABCs when we learned it in kindergarten. God already knows what’s in our hearts. All what we need to do is to trust God like Matthew trusted in God to change his vocation to become a disciple, like the synagogue leader trusted God that his daughter can be alive again, like how the bleeding woman trusted in God to be clean and made whole again.
We know this is up to God. We only pray for healing mercies to restore our faith in God. Healing may be physical, but it is also relational and social, restoring the marginalized into community, where they can be lovingly touched again. Nothing can replace a restorative healing touch to those who need to know they are not alone, even in death.
What kind of God will go all the way to touch death in order to destroy it for us? A God in Jesus Christ whose ministry is one of healing mercy.
Let us pray.
Gracious God, help us to trust and believe in your power in our lives that lead to healing mercies. When everything seems hopeless, encourage us by hearing us calling out your name in the night when we feel most vulnerable and alone. Grant us the faith to continue to trust in you when you conquered death and live again so that we may have everlasting life. In the name of Christ, our living Savior, we pray. Amen.