06/14/2026
TRINITY 2 SERMON: ST. MATTHEW 9:9-13
IN NOMINE JESU
Prayer: Lord God, heavenly Father, we give thanks to You, that through Your holy Word You have called us to Your great supper, and we beseech You: Enliven our hearts by Your Holy Spirit, that we may not hear Your Word without fruit, but that we may prepare ourselves rightly for Your kingdom, and not allow ourselves to be hindered by any worldly care; through Your beloved Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen.
Text: The Holy Ghost has caused to be written in St. Matthew 9,9/13: As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he arose and followed Him. Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard that, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
Back during Abraham’s time, he was once visited by three men. Who were they? We learn this as the scene was set by Moses (Genesis 18,1/2): Then the LORD appeared to him by the terebinth trees of Mamre, as he was sitting in the tent door in the heat of the day. So, he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing by him.
This illustrates the peculiarity of God’s Word. The Lord speaks about Himself in both the singular and the plural. We have “God” mentioned in verse one, and then the three “men” in verse two. In other words, God visited Abraham as three men. You can easily guess what that means. As we sometimes sing: God in three persons, blessed Trinity.” Father, Son, and Holy Ghost came to Abraham to make the promise to him and his wife Sarah that at her age of 89 (Abraham was 99 years old himself!) she would conceive and bear a son. It was a memorable dinner Abraham was planning for them, to be sure!
And so, what do we, thousands of years later, remember most about that day? Was it the tender calf Abraham had his servants roast for his visitors? No, it was the message brought to Abraham and Sarah that is most important. Now, many centuries later, the Son of God who was there for dinner with Abraham, we heard how Jesus was invited to another meal. He had just called Matthew to be His disciple and them, with joy, Matthew invited Him to his house to meet his friends at supper. “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest…” we often pray, And it’s not hard to imagine Matthew saying this same thing when he asked Jesus to his own house for a meal.
As with his ancestor Abraham, Matthew recognized that there was something special in this Man. That is, as with those three, this Jesus of Nazareth was no ordinary person. Rather, Jesus was there, God in the flesh, giving amazing promises to this man. Promises of forgiveness and mercy to him who was despised by his own people, but who now learned of the love the Lord had for him. And so Jesus came to his house not just to sit, but also to eat and speak with those the Pharisees considered to be the worst of “sinners.”
That’s an easy thing to think, isn’t it, because it’s sometimes the way we judge others who, well, just don’t seem as holy or religious as we are. I mean, we’re here aren’t we? And where are they? At the beach, at the store, eating out somewhere. It should count for something that we came all the way here on a Sunday morning, shouldn’t it? Listen, though, to how Jesus once described those same Pharisees who were objecting to Him eating with the tax collector. Quoting Isaiah 29, He said (St. Matthew 15,8): These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And then He goes on to explain why their hearts were far from Him (15,9): And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.
It’s in our sinful human nature, you see, to make up rules where God has not. We try to outdo Him in the demands we make especially of others so that they behave in a way that does not offend our higher, more spiritual sensibilities. Whether we are talking about food or drink, entertainment, or any variety of other things, we impose restrictions that the Lord Himself doesn’t impose. We look beyond the sinfulness inherent in every one of our own daily activities and separate the good (what we do or don’t do) from the bad (what they do and don’t do).
This is why St. Matthew wrote this Gospel like someone excited about what he had learned. He had been put down, derided, condemned by his fellow Jews for collecting taxes for the Roman government. And note that it does not say he collected more than he should have. Just charging his fellow Jews to pay their share was enough for them to hate him. And that’s why here in his gospel, he put in detail after detail of the childhood faith he appeared to have abandoned for a while and now who had become like a new convert because there, speaking to him, was the Christ. He now knew was his Savior!
Think of the joy he must have felt as Jesus reclined at his table to feast with him and his friends. They rejoiced because their Savior was there with them. They knew their sin. They knew those things they had done wrong or left undone. They knew of their selfish pride. But they also knew – as the tax collector in the parable – that even though they were sinners, God was right there and right then being merciful to them.
It is just as Jesus told in the parable of today’s Gospel. The Pharisees challenging Jesus here were like those who had received the invitation to the banquet, but who had – in their minds – better things to do. Matthew and these other tax collectors, though, were invited by the Son sent by the Father to comfort, comfort His people…and they were comforted!
The banquet host said: Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.” And the servant said, “Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.” Then the master said to the servant, “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.”
In this way for you it happens that you turn from your judgmental ways and set your eyes upon Him who took your sins, along with the sins of the whole world…even those people you think don’t deserve it as much as you, He bore the punishment each person owes and paid the price so that the ledger is now wiped clean. It is this love, this mercy displayed by the crucified and risen Christ – not just for your benefit, but for the benefit and blessing of the whole world even though most do not believe this and, more than that, even though they despises this declaration of the Lord’s law and then His mercy. We heard in today’s Epistle: Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, for we love the brethren.
Hilary of Poitiers back in the 300s wrote this: Christ came for all; how is it then that He says He came not for the righteous? Were there those for whom it needed not that He should come? But no man is righteous by the law. He shows how empty their boast of justification, sacrifices being inadequate to salvation, mercy was necessary for all who were set under the Law. And so, you don’t compare yourselves to them to feel better about yourself. No, you have sins enough to contemplate. Rather, look to the crucified Christ who bore your guilt and who is your life, your hope’s foundation, and He will be forever your glory and salvation.
With Abraham and especially Sarah the message these strange men brought to them was hard for them to take in and to understand. It was so strange that we are told that Sarah laughed within herself! And we can understand that. Who wouldn’t laugh at the prediction that an 89-year-old woman with her 99 year old husband would conceive and then bear a son?
Moses explained it this way (Genesis 18,13/14): And the LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Shall I surely bear a child, since I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.” And so she did and the family line of Jesus then was continued in a very miraculous way
Here you can see that the things of God are incomprehensible to us as we exist in this life and world. He does not ask us to believe the impossible because – as Gabriel said to Mary (St. Luke 1,35): with God nothing will be impossible. And what seems impossible to us has been done by the Lord because you could never do it yourself, much less even conceive of it. Still, by the Lord’s patient grace, we confess that we believe these unbelievable truths in the creeds over and over again. And even though we never in this life will fully understand these truths, we are given faith that trusts in them because the Lord has spoken them to us in His Word and by the power of the Holy Spirit we are brought to trust that our sins are forgiven and the sure promise of eternal life is made sure!
At the end of our text Jesus said: I desire mercy, not sacrifice. This was directed at the Pharisees who demanded sacrifice but could not have cared less about mercy. Why did they think this? It was because to sacrifice was, well, easy. You paid for the sheep or goat and had it sacrificed on the altar. You put money in the cash box. You prayed daily in the temple about how you were not like other men. They sought out an impersonal relationship with God because they didn’t need a personal one…especially and including this Jesus whom they despised. They dealt in their love of themselves which was much easier than dealing with love toward other, less desirable people.
Yet that mercy of Jesus is not just displayed to you like it is up here. No, it is something that is actually given to you. And the good news is that you don’t have to invite Jesus over for dinner or even into your heart! No, it is He who invites you to His Supper. It is here that He joins in a unique, miraculous fellowship with you in an even more special way than He did at that dinner. He comes to feed you, yes, but He comes to feed you with Himself, His body and blood given and shed for the remission, the taking away, of all your sins. And having been fed with His grace, you go back to your lives in the world to serve your Lord by serving the others He has places in your lives.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Forevermore. Amen.
SOLI DEO GLORIA
