Scriptures: Hosea 5:15-6:6; Psalm 50:7-15; Romans 4:13-25; Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
Reflection by Kit Allgood-Mellema
7 June 2026, 2nd Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 5A
When I have a lot going on at one time, I tend to become very focused on the task at hand or the person I’m with, to the point that I sometimes lose sight of what’s going on around me. Those moments can consume a lot of energy, and those are the times I wished I’d planned my schedule a little better. That’s what I thought about when I read today’s lesson. It’s an exhausting lesson to read, and by the way, who overbooked Jesus’s schedule and managed his calendar? This might be a gospel lesson in organization. Or maybe it’s a lesson about love?
The gospels of evangelists Mark and Luke include passages similar to the one we heard today, but Matthew is the only evangelist who also includes Jesus’s call to the tax collector named Matthew in the same setting as the other people of this gospel reading: the woman who was bleeding, the leader of the synagogue and the daughter who had died. Unlike Mark and Luke, Matthew minimizes the mention of the crowds found in Mark and Luke; if you pay careful attention though, you get a sense of the numbers of people gathering around Jesus wherever he went. Somehow in the midst of the throngs and commotion, Jesus managed to stay focused on one thing.
In today’s reading, we are introduced to four people. Three of them were among those who were most often found on the margins of society. Tax collectors were shunned as traitors of their own people. They worked for – or in reality they were used by - the Roman occupiers and were known to take more than what was due in order to line their own pockets, always at the expense of those who bore the burden of taxation, especially the poor.
Women were at best third-class citizens who had very few rights. They were not allowed to associate with men outside their families. The woman in today’s reading, physically exhausted and emotionally depleted, was even more of an outcast because of her illness. No selfrespecting man would allow himself to be touched by her. Even her family would have been forbidden to embrace her.
The synagogue leader, known as Jairus in the other two gospels, was one of a group opposed to Jesus’s activities. In spite of his influence, he was helpless in the face of the loss of his daughter. And as a female child, his daughter was fully under the control of her father and not allowed to make decisions for herself or associate with people outside her family on her own. Four different people.
Four different circumstances. One response.
Each of these four, whether they came to Jesus or Jesus came to them, whether they were packed in a bustling crowd or in a small gathering, became the center of Jesus’s attention, the focus of his gaze and his space. These were intimate moments, those times when even in a crowd, there were only two people facing each other. At that moment they were open and honest and vulnerable. And at each of those moments, the only response was love. Love passing from one person to another and back. Love passing from Jesus to Matthew and back, the despised tax collector, the only one named in this reading, who was offered a place among Jesus’s closest followers, to the horror of many. Love passing from Jesus to the outcast woman and back to Jesus, when she was made whole and well, and could rejoin her community and loved ones. Love passing from Jesus to the synagogue leader and back, as the leader accepted that Jesus spoke truth to power and brought compassion and mercy to a heavy, cruel world. Love passing from Jesus to the little girl and back to Jesus as he restored her breath and health, fully alive and in the arms of those who loved her.
This reading from Matthew’s gospel so beautifully illustrates this most amazing love, this love that could be given and accepted and given back and given forward. And this love didn’t stop in Matthew’s gospel. This love is how Jesus meets each of us today - directly, face-on, open, honest and vulnerable, holding us in his sight, loving us just as we are. This love is how we are to love one another.
It’s the love of Creation, the love of baptism. It’s the love of Jesus suffering and dying on the cross and the love of the resurrection. It’s the love of sharing the good news. It’s the love we find in the eyes of every person we see. It’s the love we find in spite of the noise and crowds and turmoil that often surround us. It’s the love that brings light in the midst of darkness and peace in the midst of chaos. It’s the love that guides us through the hard times as we do all we can to help the most vulnerable everywhere. It’s the love that gives life and changes lives in ways we may not comprehend.
There was one more thing that each of the four people in the gospel shared. They all said, ‘yes!’ At a singular moment, when Jesus invited them to join the sacred journey of life-giving and lifechanging love, they all said a holy Yes! And we can as well, say yes to this love that cannot be held in one place and one time. We can say yes to this love that is so precious and so dynamic it cannot stay still. We can respond with a holy Yes! and together keep it moving!
Thanks be to God! Amen!