Ordinary Healing
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26 (NRSV):
9 As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. 10 And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with Jesus and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.”
18 While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” 19 And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples. 20 Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, 21 for she was saying to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” 22 Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And the woman was made well from that moment. 23 When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, 24 he said, “Go away, for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. 25 But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. 26 And the report of this spread through all of that district.
Ordinary. How does that word feel to you? “Just an ordinary day.” That might be a neutral observation. Nothing bad, nothing spectacular, just an ordinary day. “I’m attending to the ordinariness of life.” Might be something someone you’d say if you were trying to cultivate a sense of wonder for simple rhythms or moments, like a meal with family, a quiet cup of morning coffee or tea, tucking your kids in bed at night.
“You’re all ordinary.” Does that one feel jolting? Like, your mommy told you you were special, so you know I’m definitely wrong to call you “ordinary”? Or does it speak a degree of truth you can appreciate, as if to say, “like most people, you have a brain, a heart, a lung or two, you have hopes and fears and people that matter to you, interests, abilities, aversions?” That’s pretty ordinary stuff.
Jesus is walking. That’s ordinary, going for a walk! He sees a tax collector, working for Rome and known for ordinary exploitation of ordinary folks. He says to Matthew: “follow me.” Kind of an unordinary request, whether it’s more of “hey, I could use your help!” or more of a clever way of disrupting the tax collector’s work, or both. Matthew says, “okay,” stops what he’s doing, and follows. That level of readiness to pivot may not be super ordinary, but people shift their plans all the time, so sure, that’s ordinary.
Jesus eats dinner–ordinary thing to do–with many tax collectors and sinners. Sinners are ordinary people. I think that’s what is meant here, by “sinners.” We’re not talking about the vile, the lustful, the wicked, the far-from-God. Bible scholar Robert Mounce says that sinners are people who didn’t obey the ceremonial requirements of the law (Robert H. Mounce, Matthew, 84).
These are not bad people, but ordinary people. People who haven’t won any holiness awards, Sunday School prizes, people who may work all day and not have time for ceremonial purity. People who probably cannot help Jesus climb the social ladder. Just people who eat, sleep, laugh, weep, work, get hurt, fall in love, show up for each other, let each other down. Not people who truly “broke a divine law” or people you should fear. They might be overlooked, unwelcomed, ostracized, outsiders, newcomers, or perceived threats to your way of life or your ideology. But they're just ordinary people.
“Why would Jesus eat with them?” I’ve shared before that I think the gospel writers often unfairly caricature the Pharisees, with lasting consequences. Like any faith tradition, there are those who don’t always represent the tradition well. But for these critics, whoever they are, it’s not really about the so-called “sinners” or even tax collectors. “Why them?” is really “why not us?” We know how people can resort to zero-sum or scarcity thinking, in situations where there is enough to go around. That’s a pretty ordinary human struggle. Envy. Resentment. Misplaced rage and blame. Hurt.
It seems to me that “sinner” is not a truly liberating word–only a condemning one. Saying “I feel helpless to stop this destructive behavior without support” is one thing. Taking a “fearless moral inventory?” Great. Self-awareness is a good thing. But the term “sinner” has a demeaning finality to it–this is just what you are. “You’re lucky to be loved by God, but you don’t exactly deserve it.” I think this toxic theology misrepresents who people really are. It undersells the good, the Love, the Divine in each. “Ordinary” might sound like an insult. And depending on how you say it, it might be. But the ordinary is sacred. That’s kind of a big deal to Quakers.
For that matter, “tax collector” might be Matthew’s job, but we don’t know much about him, beyond the social stigma of his role, and his possible impact on others.
Does he simply play his part as a cog in the machine, or does he take advantage of people? We don’t know enough to be able to say “yeah, this guy stinks.” We know how people felt about him, which is…not great. But a tax collector is…a person, who could have had a very different life, if circumstances had been different. Maybe Jesus doesn’t want him to be a tax collector, or work for the Empire, or take more than appropriate, if that’s even what he did. But Jesus probably also doesn’t want to overlook his humanity.
Jesus says “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” It’s natural to want to spiritualize this, but he does follow this comment by healing two people who are literally sick, so he might be speaking pretty plainly. “Why would I not hang out with the people you call ‘sinners’?” Jesus might say. “There are a lot of hurting people out there, and I can do something about it. Where else would I be? Who else would I eat with?” Of course, Jesus might also be saying “you think you are well, but your self-righteousness, your elitism, your priorities, suggest otherwise.”
And then he says “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.” To tell educated people “go learn this key thing about the thing you are an alleged expert in,” is a pretty great line! These people, who don’t represent the whole community of Pharisees, any more than a Christian nationalist represents the whole of Christian faith, may have taken their concern for ceremonial purity too far. When the doing of religion–like sacrifices meant to please or appease the gods, whether slaughtering a goat or singing praise and worship songs–becomes more important than acts of mercy that bring relief to people, we’ve lost the plot. Jesus believes in something called “righteousness,” I’m sure, but it’s not something you obtain through purity and performance, but something you live in response to the needs around you. Jesus’ goal is not to be perfect, but to heal.
We then learn of two of his healings: the daughter of a leader–presumably a religious leader, which is significant in itself; and a woman with a serious, long-lasting condition. Just an ordinary child and parent, and an ordinary woman. Suffering from ordinary things. Asking Jesus for something extraordinary, that I think Jesus, in his vision of the future and community, would have become the most ordinary thing.
People–two females–getting what they need to survive, when they need it. Jesus says “Those who are sick need a physician” and then he gives these people what they need. Because he can. And he wants to. And they need it. So he does it.
A concerned parent, identified as Jairus, in Mark’s gospel, the girl’s father, a synagogue leader, but whose gender Matthew doesn’t identify…reveals both desperation and love for their child, and significant confidence in Jesus. Nearly everyone else had given up, and moved into mourning, but not this parent. Parents can be really stubborn and persistent when their child’s well-being is at stake, as you may know. And it pays off. Jesus gets some credit, but this healing is really a group effort.
Meanwhile, a woman, at her wits’ end, seeks the aid of Jesus. Mark’s gospel, known for its brevity, actually gives more detail, noting that the woman had been treated by many doctors and spent all she had over these twelve years, and hadn’t gotten better (Mk 5:25-26). Here, she doesn’t even bother asking for help. She doesn’t wait to be seen. She makes things happen.
Honestly, what does Jesus really even do here? The woman touches his cloak. Jesus feels depleted, and notices, according to Mark, that healing power went out from him. And she is made well. Jesus doesn’t then say “I made you well,” he says “you made you well.” Whatever specifically happens in these two healings, it took a village. Jesus is a healer. This woman is a healer. The concerned parent is a healer. The child–and their ordinary, self-repairing body–is a healer. Those gathered at this parent’s house, to support a grieving parent, are healers.
Matthean scholar Elaine Wainwright says that: “We ought to remember Jesus as a healer within a movement that has healing as its core characteristic, a healing movement” (Elaine Wainwright, “The Matthean Jesus and the Healing of Women” in Dave E. Aune, The Gospel of Matthew in Current Study, 92). What are the implications for us? We’re a peace tradition, an inclusive tradition, a liberating tradition, a listening tradition. What about a healing tradition? A healing movement? A healing community? Who or what needs healing? How can we play a part in bringing about that healing?
It might be through something that your professional training equips you to do, as a doctor, or nurse, or therapist, or yoga instructor, or some other healing role. But maybe we heal each other and ourselves in the most ordinary ways, through ordinary acts of listening, touch, time, patience, empathy, a referral, and so on. Maybe being here, and co-creating this space for each other, is a healing activity. Maybe showing up for our Laundry Love guests, or along 3rd Avenue, is a healing action. Maybe the words you say to others, as you go about your ordinary week, are healing words.
That’s not to undersell the importance of creating a world where people with serious illnesses are given timely and excellent care, where we spend increasingly more of our national budget on health care and less of that budget on war and other measures that sustain violence against people and the Earth. That’s a big picture thing that Jesus would have people attend to, as somebody dreaming aloud about a different kind of world. But Jesus also attends to the ordinary. Look what you did, he says to the woman, your faith–something arising within you–made you better. You’re a healer!
If Jesus is creating a healing community, it must include real connection. Many who practice medicine might feel a pressure to move quickly through patients due to productivity expectations, the way the health care system works, or other administrative or budgetary crunches that some of you understand better than I do. Any of you who have been a patient, may have at some point felt ignored, rushed, interrupted, or dismissed, due to these pressures and constraints. Where is the unhurried connection? Where is the intimacy? Where is the listening?
Jesus’s vision of healing is not just to be like “you, healed…you, tall guy, healed…you, stop talking, healed.” I think that he thinks that healing means slowing down to really listen and understand and respond fittingly. Healing involves intimacy, in some form. You might not always want to be touched, but when you do want to be touched, have you ever experienced the regulating, soothing, grounding comfort of a hug, a reassuring hand on the shoulder, even a confidence-boosting fist bump, as bro-y as those can be? Touch can be healing. Proximity and presence can be healing. Ordinary, unspectacular prayers, or knowing you are being prayed for, can be healing.
A healing community would also be sensitive, in ways Bible writers often aren't, to the completeness and beauty of disabled bodies, and other facets of who people are–like neurodivergence–that don’t need healing. Some things that make life challenging for people don’t need to be fixed, but accommodated. It may not be a person’s body or brain that needs repair, but a society or community and its barriers to participation.
We do well to discern where healing is actually needed, and to evaluate our own biases about what or who is truly broken. In what ways are people wounded? Even in these two healing encounters, is there just one wound, or do these people and families carry many wounds? Is the tax collector wounded? Who has he wounded, in his woundedness? The need for healing can be ubiquitous, and layered, and corporate, even, and not always what we might expect.
Jesus takes care of ordinary people as he’s cruising around the countryside on his two ordinary, dirty feet. Not to grow his reputation or prove anything, but because that’s what Love does, and what people in healing communities do. He’s trying to make healing not exceptional, but ordinary. Not expensive or unreachable, but accessible. What if healing people, what if getting the thing you need to be well, safe, whole, and free, was an ordinary thing? Need food? No biggie, here’s food. Need a procedure? Sure, let’s do it today. Need someone to listen? I’m here, I’ve got time.
I think of those yellow arrowleaf balsamroot wildflowers, posted on today’s welcome slide–flowers which thrive in harsh conditions. To some degree, we’re all facing “harsh conditions,” together, even if some of you feel it more acutely. How will we make it through? Not ritual sacrifices, and not by sacrificing each other, in the name of security, greed, or self-preservation. But maybe through mercy, through recognizing our ordinary healing powers, and rooting ourselves, like balsamroot flowers do, in a healing community and, together, doing that healing work for ordinary people.
Wainwright notes that the Greek word used for healing here–sozo–has connotations of salvation (Wainwright, 89). That feels important. Christianity often reads “healing” through the lens of salvation, and makes this more intangible and ethereal than it needs to be; the real healing is the healing of our relationship with God, some might say.
However well-intentioned that is, it can downplay God’s concern, at least the God that Jesus experienced, for the healing of bodies, of communities, of ecosystems.
I think this passage invites us to flip that and read salvation through the lens of healing. What do people need to be well, safe, whole, and free? What kind of world can we nurture into being that gives people every opportunity to be healed and play a part in the healing process? That might be a sign of salvation. When healing happens. When a healing community, made of ordinary people, leaning into their ordinary healing power as they go about their ordinary lives, is not the exception, but the most ordinary thing.
Queries:
Where do you need healing? Where is healing needed around you?
How can you participate in the healing of the Earth, of others, of yourself?
What does it mean to be a healing community or society?
How can we practice mercy in the ordinary moments of life?