June 7, 2026, The Second Sunday after Pentecost
Called, Healed, Sent
In today's readings, we are given three scenes that at first seem far apart. Abram sets out into an unknown future. Paul reflects on promise and faith. And Jesus calls a tax collector, restores a woman long afflicted, and takes a little girl by the hand of life again.
Yet beneath all these stories runs a common thread: God moves toward people not because they are qualified, but because they are called. Because God delights in bringing life where others see only impossibility.
We start with the with Abram and the beginning of his story.
"The Lord said to Abram, 'Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.'"
This sounds simple enough, but God does not provide a map or explain every step or even offer guarantees of comfort or success.
Instead, God simply calls. Leave what is familiar. Trust me. Follow.
Abram is seventy-five years old. By every ordinary reckoning, the shape of his life has already been drawn. But God is not finished with him and there is deep consolation in that.
Many of us have been taught to think that God's call belongs primarily to the young—to those beginning careers, starting families, or setting out on new adventures. But Scripture tells another story: repeatedly, God calls people who think their most important chapters are already behind them.
Abram receives his call late in life.
Sarah will become a mother long after childbearing years have passed.
Moses is eighty when he confronts Pharaoh.
The disciples leave established lives to follow Jesus.
God is always creating new beginnings.
There are seasons when individuals, congregations, and even whole communities begin to dwell inside a story of diminishment. We tell ourselves that the finest days have already passed. We begin to believe that nothing fresh can break forth. Not long ago, this parish knew something of that ache—before grace opened a new beginning among us.
As we know from our own experiences, the God who called Abram is the God who specializes in new beginnings.
The promise made to Abram sounds almost absurd. He and Sarah have no children. They possess no land. They have no obvious path toward becoming a great nation.
Still God says:
"I will bless you... and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
Everything depends upon trust.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul looks back at Abraham's story and sees something essential about faith: Abraham did not trust because circumstances made sense. He trusted because God had spoken.
Paul writes that Abraham "hoped against hope."
What a remarkable phrase: “hoped against hope.”
He hoped when there was no visible reason to hope. He believed when the evidence ran the other way. He entrusted himself to the God who can call life out of perceived barrenness.
Abraham's faith rested not on what he could accomplish but on what God could accomplish.
That distinction matters.
Much of our anxiety comes from imagining that everything depends on us: that we must solve every problem, mend every relationship, heal every wound, secure every future.
Yet faith begins when we recognize that God is God and we are not.
Faith is our trust in the One who holds the future.
And then we arrive at today's Gospel.
If Abraham's story is about trusting God's promises, then Matthew's story is about discovering who those promises are for.
Jesus passes by a tax booth and sees a man named Matthew.
Tax collectors were often reviled people. They worked with the occupying Roman authorities. They often enriched themselves through exploitation and they were viewed as collaborators and sinners.
No one would have expected Matthew to become a disciple.
Yet Jesus looks directly at him and says two simple words:
"Follow me."
And Matthew does.
Immediately.
No credentials. No proving ground. No careful vetting. Jesus simply says, “Follow me.” And Matthew rises, leaving one life behind as another begins.
Of course, as expected and on cue, the religious leaders are scandalized.
Why is Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners?
Why spend time with people whose lives are messy and compromised?
Why associate with those who seem least deserving?
And Jesus responds:
"Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick."
In other words, mercy is not a reward for the righteous. Mercy is God's loving gift to those who need it.
And that means everyone. Everyone, full stop. Exactly as we are.
One of the great temptations of religion is believing that God's love must somehow be earned. We imagine that holiness means having everything together. We assume that God prefers polished people with impressive spiritual résumés. Yet the Gospels consistently reveal something different.
Jesus moves toward the broken, the wounded, the ashamed, the excluded. Jesus moves toward those who know they need help. The Church is not a gathering of people who have mastered life. It is a community of people learning to receive mercy.
The Gospel then presents us with two intertwined healing stories.
A synagogue leader comes to Jesus desperate for help because his daughter has died. And at the same time, a woman who has suffered from hemorrhages for twelve years quietly approaches Jesus from behind.
Both stories involve people who have run out of options.
The father faces death itself. The woman has endured years of suffering and isolation. Both approach Jesus in faith.
And both discover that God's compassion is greater than they imagined.
The woman reaches out and touches the fringe of Jesus' cloak. She hopes merely to receive healing. Instead, Jesus sees her. "Daughter, take heart;” he says, “your faith has made you well." In this moment Jesus offers more than physical restoration. He restores relationship, dignity, and belonging.
Then Jesus goes to the ruler's house. The mourners are already gathered. Everyone assumes the story is over. Death has the final word. Or so they think. Jesus takes the girl by the hand. And she rises.
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus confronts the places where people believe hope has ended. And every time, he reveals that God's power is greater. This does not mean every illness is cured or every loss reversed. We know too much about grief to pretend otherwise. But it does mean that death, despair, failure, and brokenness never have the final word. The resurrection of Jesus will ultimately reveal that truth for the entire world. God is always bringing life where we see only endings.
When we place these readings together, a beautiful picture emerges. Abram is called into an unknown future. Paul is inspired by Abraham’s trust in God's promises despite impossible circumstances. Matthew is called despite his compromised past. A suffering woman is restored. A dead girl is raised.
The thread that binds them all is grace: God moves first, calls first, heals first, and speaks life where we had heard only endings.
Our response is faith—not a perfect or heroic faith, but simply the willingness to trust enough to take the next step; like Abram, setting his face toward a land he cannot yet name or Matthew, leaving the old booth and its old bargains behind or the woman, reaching through the press of the crowd for one hem of hope or the grieving father, refusing to surrender the last fragile ember of faith.
And perhaps that is where these readings meet us today.
We may not know exactly where God is leading. We may carry wounds that still need healing. We may wonder whether new life is possible in places that seem exhausted. We may feel unworthy of God's attention.
And into the midst of our own frailty and fracture, the Gospel still speaks its bright and living word. Jesus still calls unlikely people. Jesus still seeks those on the margins. Jesus still heals wounded hearts. Jesus still raises up what seems lost. Jesus still invites us to trust.
And the God who called Abraham, who counted faith as righteousness, who healed the woman, who raised the girl, and who raised Jesus from the dead is still at work among us.
Calling.
Healing.
Restoring.
Creating new beginnings all around us.
Thanks be to God. Amen.