2 Pentecost Proper 5
11 Jun 2023
I fear I am a word nerd. I became infatuated with the study of the origins of language when I was in junior high. Every time I hear a word that is new or unfamiliar, I want to know how it came into English and how it’s meaning changed.
Since it is Pride month, I reviewed the history of the word “gay.” The word arrived in the English language in the 12th century, apparently from an Old French word “gai”, which may have originally derived from a Germanic source. For centuries the word referred to bright, showy, joyful, carefree. It seems that by the 1600’s the extension to immorality was made. A gay man was a womanizer, a gay woman a prostitute. A gay boy was a young man or boy who had male clients. Gertrude Stein and even Cary Grant may have created characters who shifted the term slightly. Bit by bit in the mid-20th century the term came to reflect homosexuality. Wikipedia, of all places, has an interesting discussion of the evolution of the word.
The word for the day, however, is not gay but rather the verb “follow.” The origin is Proto-Germanic and the meaning, or meanings, appear to have remained remarkably stable over time and space. It probably first meant “to accompany”, but added uses like to come after or next are very old. To follow on social media may be the latest iterations.
And what of the noun? A follower is a disciple, an adherent, someone who give full loyalty to another, one who imitates.
The Reader’s Digest of for today’s readings could be summed up in those two related words: follow and follower. There is a third word, unspoken in all of this: love, my favorite word.
If I came face to face with Hosea, I am not sure what I would think of him. Afterall, he is the one who was told to marry a woman of ill repute and to give his children the most awful names. Yet there is within this book and specifically this passage a message of love. “I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice.” God wants us to give our full loyalty.
The psalmist asks the people to offer thanksgiving to God, not blood. God isn’t asking us to “like” Godself on Facebook or become and Instagram follower, but asks that we give our full loyalty, to the one and only God.
Abraham and Sarah chose to follow God, to follow with no real idea where they would end up. I wonder how I would have chosen when asked to leave everything I knew and go somewhere strictly because God said so.
Sometimes I think much of both Hebrew scripture and Christian scripture centers around following and fellowship (who is in and who is out.)
Today Jesus called someone to follow him and Matthew did so immediately. If someone walked by your place of work and commanded, not asked but commanded, you to come and follow him, to walk the road WITH him, would you do so? Did Matthew already know Jesus, did he feel something irresistible pulling him from his table? Not only that, but the person heads to your house and says let’s have a dinner party. Whom shall we invite? Apparently, anyone who wanted to come. It is what we would call a very open table. Everyone was in; no one was out. Matthew must have been able to throw a big party at the drop of a hat!! In typical fashion, the gossip starts. Why is THIS PERSON invited to eat here? People love to create a hierarchy and decide who is deserving and who is not. They want to make decisions about who can follow Jesus. But isn’t the answer that those who need medicine go to the healer? And isn’t it true that we all need medicine. One translation puts it this way: “I have come to help the outcasts find the way back home again.” He did not say anything about being worthy or perfect, but of the need to follow, to be a follower, to give their loyalty to Jesus. No one was excluded from that table and I daresay we do not do as good a job as Jesus.
Then the leader at the synagogue sought Jesus, and low he followed Jesus to his home, where his daughter was restored. Jesus was willing to touch the ritually unclean, a corpse, to restore life and health. He was followed and touched by the woman who had been bleeding for so many years; she, too, would have been ritually unclean.
What would your choice have been? What will it be? Matthew gave up his livelihood. The woman overcame great fear; the leader of the synagogue was willing to put his ultimate trust in Jesus.
When we choose to follow Jesus we do so because we know we are not perfect, we are not even good, but we know that we need medicine and Jesus has it for us. Then we learn how we can help share that medicine with others.
We are called by Jesus in ways as varied as the readings portray. Yet we all become followers, and in doing so we take the medicine and find that it is not bitter but sweet and good and we are made well. Then we turn to each other and finally we turn to the world beyond our doorstep.
When I was on the island of Iona and went to services at the restored monastery, people poured in and the table around which the service was held was made larger and the chairs just kept coming. No one was left outside unless they so chose. Yet we must also extend the invitation. That is how the kindom is built. Taste and see, then share the bread and the wine.
Jesus eats with sinners; he eats with us. He is here as we share the word, as we acknowledge our wrongdoings, and as we come to the table. We have an open table; all are welcome.
I believe we are living in a time where we need to be more vocal about who we are and what we do. I sometimes feel the voice of Christianity that is being heard is not the one that called Matthew from his tax collecting and the one that healed the woman who bled and the girl who died.
What is your voice? I hope and pray it is one that says we all need a physician, and that physician will care for all who come to him. Let Jesus take you by the hand and then you will be well and once more stand up.
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