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Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost – June 7, 2026
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
We have three stories in quick succession in our gospel reading for today, and what ties them together is a tragic spiritual condition which some theologians refer to as “cooties.” (When I say, “some theologians,” I mean me.) You know how cooties works: when someone has them, you stay away from them so that you don’t become infected with them yourself! There is the playground version of this, where children avoid the opposite sex or the oddball or the new kid, but there are many, many adult versions as well. We human beings have a tendency to turn away from others, particularly from various kinds of human brokenness – afraid that it might infect us too.
The Bible is rife with outbreaks of cooties, only in the Bible it isn’t called that. In the Bible it is called being unclean. Whether you were ritually unclean or morally unclean or physically unclean, you were to be avoided. Close contact with an unclean person made you unclean too! To be unclean not only made you unfit for relationships with others; you were also thought to be unfit for a relationship with God.
The three stories we have in our gospel reading for today each feature Jesus encountering various strains of spiritual cooties, different types of uncleanliness, and in each of them, instead of turning away from the afflicted, Jesus turns towards them. Instead of Jesus catching cooties, they catch Jesus! By his turning towards them in mercy, they are made clean and given a new life.
First up we have Matthew. Matthew was a tax collector. As a tax collector, Matthew had moral cooties. He was morally compromised. We often think of Matthew as the modern equivalent of an IRS agent, but it is worse than that. (Sorry to any IRS agents listening today.) The issue wasn’t merely that he collected taxes, but that he was doing so as a collaborator with Rome, who had invaded and pillaged and occupied Israel, their Promised Land. And so, tax collectors were thought of as traitors to their own people.
Most Jews marked and avoided tax collectors. But not Jesus. Jesus went right up to Matthew’s tax booth and said to him, “Follow me.” Matthew got up and followed Jesus, leaving his old life behind.
Later, Jesus sat down and ate dinner with him. There were other tax collectors and sinners in attendance too. We need to understand that rabbis didn’t just sit down with unclean people and share dinner with them, dipping their bread into the common bowls and rubbing elbows with them. This was a prime vector for spreading cooties!
Most rabbis wouldn’t do that, but Jesus did – and when the Pharisees saw it, they couldn’t believe their eyes. They asked some of the disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus, overhearing them, explained, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”
With this statement, Jesus acknowledged that these guys he was eating with were not well. They were indeed unclean. Jesus doesn’t make light of their sin. He doesn’t excuse it or justify it or redefine it. He certainly doesn’t encourage it. Instead, he is there eating and drinking with them so that he might cleanse them by his mercy and call them into a new life with him. And at least in Matthew’s case, that’s exactly what happened. He followed Jesus into a new life. Instead of Jesus catching his cooties, Matthew caught Jesus!
Next up we have a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. Talk about unclean! In the ancient world a woman’s regular cycle rendered her unclean for a limited time each month. This uncleanliness was not a moral issue, as it was with the tax collectors and sinners. This was a natural process related to fertility – a good thing. This, rather, was a hygienic matter. Any time there was blood outside of the body, it was a major concern. You were expected to stay away from others. You were expected to stay home from synagogue. This woman had been dealing with these hemorrhages non-stop for twelve years! This meant twelve years of social and religious isolation. This meant constantly having people turn away from her.
But not Jesus. When this woman reached out for Jesus’ cloak as he passed by, when she reached out in faith and touched him with her unclean hand, Jesus didn’t turn away. Instead, he turned towards her! Instead of avoiding her, he spoke to her. He said, “Take heart, daughter, your faith has made you well.” Her bleeding stopped. Her life was restored. Her faith in Christ made her well. Instead of Jesus catching her cooties, she caught Jesus!
Finally, we have the most difficult story of the three. A leader of the synagogue came up to Jesus, begging for his help. His daughter had just died. He asked Jesus to come lay hands on her, so that she would live. Jesus went to the house where the girl was. There was already a crowd of mourners there. There were already flute-players playing a funeral dirge. When Jesus told the crowd to go away, that she was not dead but sleeping, they all laughed at him. Jesus went into the house where this precious daughter laid still in her bed.
Blood was bad enough when it came to uncleanliness, but a dead body was a whole new level of unclean. The Jewish Mishnah describes a human corpse as “the father of the father of all uncleanliness.” It was considered the ultimate impurity. Touching the dead made you unclean for seven days, and then there was a complex rite of purification you had to go through to be made clean again. And so nobody wanted to be near the dead. Aside from perhaps her parents, everyone would have turned away from this precious little girl’s body to avoid being made unclean.
But not Jesus. Jesus went right up to her. Jesus took her by the hand, and she got up. She was no longer a dead body to be avoided; she was now full of life once again. Instead of Jesus catching her cooties, she caught Jesus. She was filled with life from him.
These three stories, in one way or another, reflect our own stories, our own lives. Sin continues to mess up our relationships with others and our relationship with God. We are sick with it and need to be made well. Many have experienced how debilitating and isolating it is when we are physically sick or when our bodies don’t work the way they are supposed to. We all have, or will, lose loved ones. Most of us already know well the somber notes of the funeral liturgy.
But instead of turning away from us in our brokenness and need, our Lord Jesus turns towards us.
Jesus turns towards us through his Word, forgiving us for our sin and calling us to follow him. He calls us away from our old lives and into new life with him.
Jesus Christ continues to eat and drink with sinners, rubbing elbows with us, taking all that is unclean in us upon himself and giving us his holiness in return.
Jesus comes to us through these means of grace that we might take hold of him, that we might reach out to him in faith and touch his cloak, and in so doing be made whole again, restored to fellowship with one another and fellowship with God.
Jesus has come to show us that he has power even over death, and so when the final uncleanliness comes, he will not turn away. He will instead take us by the hand and raise us up to eternal life.
Jesus is not concerned about catching your cooties. He instead wants you to catch him! And so instead of turning away from us, he turns towards us, making us clean, and holy, and alive.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church