Proper 5 Year A 2026: Matthew 9:9-13,18-25
When my brother and I were tweens, we had an uncanny knack of getting grounded over stupid choices. We weren’t dangerous, just dumb. After a day or two of our sentence, sometimes my mom would approach us and offer clemency. She wanted to show us that although we made mistakes, she believed in our ability to be better. In verse 13 of today's lesson from Matthew, Jesus tells the Pharisees to “go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ This instruction was so important to Jesus that in chapter 12 he tells the pharisees they would have behaved differently “if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” Jesus is throwing shade at the Pharisees. Telling Pharisees to learn what the Prophets mean is like when an eight year old corrects their teacher. They know. So what point is Jesus making? We are reading in English what Matthew wrote in Greek. Jesus probably spoke Aramaic, day to day, but this quote from the prophet Hosea, which is where “I desire...