Genesis 12: 1-9; Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

The son of a nomad, a tax collector, the young daughter of a leader of the church, and an infertile woman who has suffered from what uncomfortable pastors for decades have called “women’s problems.” It is a pretty shoddy group.

Abram—what a mockery of a name—it means exalted father, but he’s an old man with no children who works for his uncle…His father’s name means “wanderer” insinuating that they are the gypsies of their day, perhaps wealthy, but with no land and no children, still a nobody from nowhere with no future.

Matthew—the tax collector….a collaborator, a traitor—not simply a bureaucrat, but a bag man for the Roman occupiers of Israel—a carpetbagger, a turncoat…a crook.

Then there is that little girl…valued in her society only by the prestige her marriage might bring to her family…who are anxiously awaiting their chance to marry her off at aged 12…but now she reaches that age…and she dies. She is a throwaway person…literally nothing…no one worth talking about.

And then there is that woman…Her health problems have rendered her both infertile (and therefore useless in her society) and made her unclean under the customs and laws of the day. She is the homeless AIDS infected single parent of her day. Outcast and untouchable.

Four people who are, without question NOT the poster children for a new world order. Nobody would nominate them for President, nobody would suggest they go to seminary, nobody would appoint them as ambassadors for their movement…

But the son of the wanderer, the childless father…will hear the Word of the Lord and he will step out in faith….leaving all that he knows and travel to a strange land with Sarai by his side, and together, they will be parents in the faith of more than half of the worlds population…Spiritual grandparents of every Jew, every Christian, every Muslim…. The sending word of God will call them out of their nobody from nowhere existence…and today, perhaps re-examining our common lineage through them is one of the greatest hopes we have for reconciliation after 20 centuries of family feuds.

And that daughter of the religious leader…this child who is dead…this worthless one…unclean in death, of no value to anyone…except a father who, despite what society says, cherishes her…Loves her….and is bold to seek the care of this healer for her….And with the touch of the great physician, in Matthew’s telling of Jesus’ life, she is the first to demonstrate that this man will conquer death. Christ will become the firstborn of the dead…but though he has healed others, she is Christ’s FIRST proclamation that the dead shall live…that the love and power of Christ is the fulfillment of the prophet’s promise…And she will also live because of her father’s audacious faith…He has plead her case to the Son of God….and a renewal of life is the result….For Jesus there is no useless one…there is unique value even in one that society sees as simply nothing….and she is forever Christ’s ambassador to life…as her father is Christ’s ambassador to compassion and hope for others.

On the other hand…HE is one of the reasons the leaders will come to hate Jesus…Because he is the wrong kind of person…He has gone against the religious leaders of the day…He has made compromises…he does not lead the kind of life that the tradition demands…This Matthew, he has made choices that mean he’s the kind of person you wouldn’t be, shouldn’t be seen in public with…He’s an embarrassment, he’s a threat to our way of life…and he’s is the one Jesus comes up to and says…only…”Follow me.” Not…change who you are, not renounce your past, not ANY of that…..Just…Follow me. Matthew, of all the disciples, will be the symbol of the inclusiveness of the Christian community…that Jesus doesn’t simply witness to the people on the fringes of society…He draws them, draws us, into the center of his movement, he makes the last among the first…and welcomes all.

And finally, we have her…this unclean one…this sick and pathetic one…For a dozen years she has been seen as beyond the love of God, not simply shunned, but expelled from the community of faith….just to touch her renders one unclean…And she commits an offense that is worthy of death….In the midst of what the tradition sees as her filth, her sin, her separateness from God…SHE reaches out and touches Jesus…SHE makes him UNCLEAN… Jesus could order her stoned to death for assaulting him…but instead...her audacity, her brashness, her nerve at assuming that she has value, of assuming that she has a right to be healed, that she has a right to associate herself with the Rabbi healer of thousands….SAVES HER. Her own faith, her own audaciousness is not rewarded with death…but with restoration…restoration of her health, renewal of her ability to live with others….she is made clean, whole, restored to the community of her family and friends….

A nomad who hears the call and births a world of faith….

A father who believes his worthless daughter is worth saving…

A social pariah who is unafraid to follow…

The outsider of all outsiders who will risk everything to be whole…

Each of them acts in faith….each responds to a kind of call on their lives…and the result saves a life, renews a life, builds a ministry, and changes the world.

What is God calling us, all of us and each of us, to do? Who is Christ calling us, all of us and each of us, to be? And what might happen if we are willing to step out in faith? Perhaps those are the challenges we are to take from today’s texts…but they are only part of the story…

For it seems to me that these great ambassador’s of the faith not only show us ways to live out our faith….they actually say more about the one in whom we place our faith…. For who is it who issues the invitation to the social and religious abomination that is Matthew? Who is it who hears a fathers plea and without any conditions brings life from death? Who is it who rewards the audacious offense of this unclean disgraceful excuse of a woman with healing salvation and renewal? Who is it who calls Abram and makes of him the father of a great nation and three faiths?

No, these are not just great stories of faith…they tell us, teach us, who we follow….

A God who calls into service and leadership who God wills, regardless of what the church might think about it…

A God who refuses to conform to our ideas about who has value and who wills a full life for all of us….

A God who invites us not to revel in our miseries, but to claim our created-ness in God’s own image and to reach out and take hold of the healing we need….

A God who is unafraid to use us nobodies as God’s instruments for changing the world…

This bold, audacious, unexpected, healing author of life and love is reaching out to each of us today…offering loving, healing touch…welcoming…inviting…finding value in you and in me. May we hear God’s loving, challenging call and respond in faith…in confidence and hope. May God make it so. Amen.