Sermon Tone Analysis

Pentecost 4

Matthew 9:9-13

June 8, 2008

*“Saving Grace and Grace at Work”*

Introduction: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but know I see.”

These are beautiful words aren’t they?

But what makes them beautiful?

As beautiful as these words are, they only come to life when they are sung by the battered, damaged and desperate soul that finally sees it’s long sought after relief.

These words, “Amazing grace” take flight as the hopeless find hope, as the blind see the light of day, as the unforgivable are forgiven their sins and as the once dead arise and live again.

Think about it.

For the person that has never known hopelessness or desperation, for the person that has never been suffocated by their own sin and it’s consequences, for the person that thinks they are doing just fine without the help of God, “Amazing grace” has no sweet sound because to them, these words have no meaning.

But for sinners that recognize their sins… “How sweet the sound is, that saved a wretch like me!”

In the gospel lesson for today, God’s amazing grace walks into the life of Matthew Levi.

When Jesus said to him, “Follow Me,” never had there been a sweater sound.

In the words, “Follow Me” he heard Amazing grace.

You see, this is because Matthew Levi was a sin sick wretch.

As we read the text about the call of Matthew, also called Levi, the thought of him as being a wretch is one that comes to mind at first.

But it is true, none the less.

Maybe we don’t like talking about the gospel writer this way, as if we should put him on a pedestal because he was an apostle of the Lord Jesus.

Yet we must talk about him this way.

We must talk about ourselves this way.

For Jesus said, It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.

It is not the righteous that need a Savior but the sinner.

So Jesus came to heal Matthew.

He does it with these words…”Follow Me!”

These are words of “Amazing Grace.”

So what about Matthew?

Who was he?

Why was he a sinful wreck of a human being?

Matthew, writing this gospel,  tells us little about himself.

He is more concerned that we see and understand who Jesus Christ is.

We know he was a tax collector.

He collected taxes as an employee of the imperial forces of Rome.

Sounds ok, doesn’t it!

But think about a Iraqi citizen collecting tax money from fellow Iraqi’s so that money could be sent to the United States.

Hmmm, not so good for him, we would think.

Well, he was a servant of Caesar a self declared God.

As a tax collector he was tainted with shame.

I guess we can understand this in our own day.

What images come to you when you think about the IRS man?

Warm fuzzy feelings…I don’t think so.

Rather someone that is out to get your money, one way or another.

In Jesus day, the tax collector was considered a vile sinner.

HE was considered a traitor.

He was lumped in with prostitutes and thieves…even murderers.

This was for good reason.

They often were thieves that extorted as much money as they could so that their profit margin was as large as possible.

As tax collectors, they did ok for themselves, financially, that is.

But there was a price.

There always is a price.

To live such a life puts a burden on the soul.

It sears the conscience.

For tax collectors they were ostracized, that is unaccepted by the communities in which they lived.

They were hated.

Even worse, they were not allowed to worship, to be in the church as it were.

Why would anyone choose such a life for themselves?

Some people are quiet happy in there self deceit and they learn to live with lives like this.

Some people just fall into the life.

Who knows what reasons Matthew, from the priestly tribe of Levi would have had.

But I am sure they seemed good to him at the time.

Matthew was not happy.

Matthew had become a desperate soul trapped beyond his own release.

We are not told, and yet it must be true, that Matthew had reached a place in his life that was no longer bearable.

His sin was suffocating him.

He had reached place of no escape.

He was alone and without hope.

Then Jesus comes and says “Follow Me”.

Years ago, I was watching an old fashion dance marathon.

You know the kind.

A bunch of people challenge each other to see who will stay on the dance floor the longest.

This particular contest was made up of individual dancers, not couples.

These dancers would recruit those that were watching to dance with them.

There was this one particularly cute girl on the dance floor.

I remember watching her for a while.

Secretly I wished that she would ask me to dance.

But I knew that this could never happen.

Then, unexpectedly she looked in my direction and pointed for someone to join her.

Now, I didn’t have a lot of self confidence back then, after all I was only sixteen.

So when her finger pointed in my direction I couldn’t believe she was pointing at me.

So I looked left to see who she was pointing at.

Then I looked right.

Then I looked behind.

There was nobody on either side, nobody around me.

Then, with my extremely quick 16 year old mind, I figured out that she meant me.

But by this time, it was too late.

She asked someone else to dance.

As any sixteen year old I said those eternal words that 16 year olds speak when they have reached a point of frustration AAARRRRGGGG!

Matthew didn’t wait when Jesus asked him to dance.

Like an asthmatic waiting for a deep breath, he breathed deep on Jesus Words.

Like a death row inmate granted a reprieve, he didn’t wait to leave his cell.

When Jesus said, “Follow Me”, we are told, he got up and followed.

Luke tells us more…he says he left everything behind.

When we think of everything he left behind we are inclined to think of his house and home and wealth.

Matthew Levi would describe what he left behind in a different way.

Left behind was his hopelessness.

Left behind was his desperation.

Left behind was his unforgivable sinful past.

Left behind was the loneliness of his separation with God.

Left behind was a life that was suffocating him, killing him.