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“...‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’

For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners."

 

9As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him.

10And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples.11When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"12But when he heard this, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.13Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners."

18While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt before him, saying, "My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live."19And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples.20Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak,21for she said to herself, "If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well."22Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, "Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well." And instantly the woman was made well.23When Jesus came to the leader's house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion,24he said, "Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping." And they laughed at him.25But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up.26And the report of this spread throughout that district.

 Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

 

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The Calling of Saint Matthew - Detail

CARAVAGGIO, Michelangelo Merisi

1599-1600

San Luigi dei Francesi

Rome Italy

 

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Detail

 

 The Call of Matthew, depicts the moment when Jesus walks into Matthew’s customs post where the tax collector sits among cronies, coins spread over the table in front of him. Light shines in from a window just over the Lord’s head and hits Matthew straight on as Jesus raises his hand and points an unrelenting finger, as if to say, “You.” The tax collector’s own finger rises to his chest and his eyes widen, as if to respond, “Who? Me?” Or perhaps he is trying to distract the Lord’s gaze by pointing to the ne’er-do-well next to him, whose eyes are still fixed on the coins. In either case, the painting captures all the passion and confusion of the call to conversion–the unrelenting gaze of God, the instinctual avoidance and doubt of the sinner who is called. Does Matthew think himself unworthy? Shy away from relinquishing the wealth he knows? Hesitate when truth itself dissolves the shadows of ambiguity he has woven around himself? Probably, all of the above.

 

https://tonylusvardisj.com/2024/09/20/st-matthew-according-to-caravaggio-a-spiritual-masterpiece/

 

Most writers on the Calling assume Saint Matthew to be the bearded man, and see him to be pointing at himself, as if to ask "Me?" in response to Christ's summons. This theory is strengthened when one takes into consideration the other two works in this series, The Inspiration of Saint Matthew, and The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew. The bearded man who models as Saint Matthew appears in all three works, with him unequivocally playing the role of Saint Matthew in both the "Inspiration" and the "Martyrdom".[2]

A more recent interpretation proposes that the bearded man is in fact pointing at the young man at the end of the table, whose head is slumped. In this reading, the bearded man is asking "Him?" in response to Christ's summons, and the painting is depicting the moment immediately before a young Matthew raises his head to see Christ. Other writers describe the painting as deliberately ambiguous.[3] 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Calling_of_Saint_Matthew#cite_note-4







Mercy is radical kindness. 

It's the permission you give others—and yourself—to forgive a debt, 

to absolve the unabsolvable, 

to let go of the judgment and pain that make life so difficult.

~ Anne Lamott 

 

 

 

 

I do not feel obliged to believe 

that the same God who 

has endowed us with sense,

 reason, and intellect 

has intended us to forego their use.

~ Galileo Galilei

 

 

 

 

What an amazing TRIBUTE to LINDA!!!

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Thank you, LINDA, for all you do and have done for our community and humankind!

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Laura Mehmert, Carolyn Alexander, Anne Vickstrom

 

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David Christie, Carolyn Alexander

 

 

Dine Around with the Rombergs

Wednesday, June 3, 2026

YUM!!!

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Thank you, Laurie and Greg!

 

 

ANNUAL SCULPTURE RECEPTION

Friday, June 5, 2026

Center for the Arts Evergreen

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Barbara Sternberg Award - Awarded to Adam Schulz — last year’s entries

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Carolyn Alexander, Barb Rider, Anna Marie Nelson  -  Anna Marie, Jim Kreider, Carolyn

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Gail Riley, Carolyn Alexander

 

 

Thank you, ROBYN!

Condo party - Saturday, June 6, 2026

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 Robyn Mangham, the Organizer!

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Robin Sakamoto spent a whole day with a monk at an 

intensive Ikebana seminar in Tokyo. 

 

 

 

It always seemed strange to me that 
the things we admire in men, 
kindness and generosity, openness, 
honesty, understanding and feeling 
are the concomitants of failure in our system. 
And those traits we detest, 
sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, 
egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. 
And while men admire the quality of the first, 
they love the produce of the second.

~ John Steinbeck

 

 

 

 

June 7, 2026  Second Sunday after Pentecost - Proper 5 Year A 

Previous OPQs may be found at:

 

 

Agnus Day, by James Weinstein

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Agnus Day appears with the permission of www.agnusday.org





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LECTIONARY

Genesis 12:1-9

Psalm 33:1-12 
Romans 4:13-25
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26 

Jesus saw a man named Matthew sitting at a customs post.  He said to him, “Follow me . . . ”
“Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’”
ROMAN lectionary:  Matthew 9: 9-13
COMMON lectionary:  Matthew 9: 9-13, 18-26

THE WORD:

In today’s Gospel, Jesus repeats the words of Psalm 51: God seeks no greater gift from us than our extending his mercy to others.  Mercy — to extend love, peace, compassion, forgiveness and support to those who have done nothing to deserve them — is the cutting edge of the Gospel.  

Jesus’ “foil” for his lesson on mercy is a tax collector named Matthew, whom Jesus has just called to join his circle.  That Jesus would even speak to a tax collector raises eyebrows among his Jewish hearers.  Tax collectors like Matthew were despised by the Jews.  Matthew’s profession was considered corrupt and a betrayal of Judaism.  And there was good reason for this antipathy.  Realizing it could never efficiently collect taxes from every subject in its far-flung empire, the Roman government auctioned off the right to collect taxes in a given area.  Whoever bought that right was responsible to the Roman government for the agreed upon amount; whatever the purchaser could collect over and above that sum was his commission.  How he “collected” those taxes was of little concern to the Romans.  It was a system that effectively legalized corruption, extortion and bribery.  The Jews considered tax collectors (also known as publicans) collaborators with their nation’s occupiers who became wealthy men by taking advantage of their people’s misfortune.

Jesus’ including a tax collector in his closest circle, as well as welcoming known sinners into his company, scandalized the Pharisees.  Citing the words of the prophet Hosea (today’s first reading), Jesus states unequivocally that his Messianic mission is universal in nature and spirit and not limited to the coldly orthodox and piously self-righteous of Israel.  Christ comes to call all men and women – Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, saint and sinner – back to the Father.  Because of their concern with criticism instead of encouragement and condemnation instead of forgiveness, the Pharisees (the self-proclaimed “separated ones”) fail to understand that God speaks directly, not through legal proscriptions and impersonal theological treatises, but through compassion and reconciliation to all human hearts.

In the Common lectionary, today’s Gospel continues with Matthew’s account of Jesus’ curing of the twelve-year daughter of an “official” (Matthew gives no other description of the father) and the woman who has suffered from hemorrhages for 12 years.  Matthew’s story parallels the story of Jairus’ daughter in Mark 5: 21-43, though Matthew has left out many of the details included in Mark’s account (Matthew does include two details that would resonate with his Jewish audience: the flute players prescribed for Jewish funerals and the “tassels” on Jesus cloak, worn by all Jewish men as talismans of God’s commandments.  The two healing stories exalt the faith of the anguished father and the suffering woman.

Both stories in today’s Gospel – Matthew’s call and the healing of the young girl and the woman with hemorrhages – focus on the reality that faith begins with realizing that we deserve nothing from God, not even the gift of life itself.  All that we are and have are the blessings of a God whose profound and unimaginably limitless love has compelled God to create, nurture and bless us. 

 

First Reading Genesis 12:1-9

1Now 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.2I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.3I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

4So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.5Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother's son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan,6Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.7Then the LORD appeared to Abram, and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him.8From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the LORD and invoked the name of the LORD.9And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.

Psalm 33:1-12

1Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous.

Praise befits the upright.

2Praise the LORD with the lyre;

make melody to him with the harp of ten strings.

3Sing to him a new song;

play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.

4For the word of the LORD is upright,

and all his work is done in faithfulness.

5He loves righteousness and justice;

the earth is full of the steadfast love of the LORD.

6By the word of the LORD the heavens were made,

and all their host by the breath of his mouth.

7He gathered the waters of the sea as in a bottle;

he put the deeps in storehouses.

8Let all the earth fear the LORD;

let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.

9For he spoke, and it came to be;

he commanded, and it stood firm.

10The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;

he frustrates the plans of the peoples.

11The counsel of the LORD stands forever,

the thoughts of his heart to all generations.

12Happy is the nation whose God is the LORD,

the people whom he has chosen as his heritage.

Second Reading Romans 4:13-25

13For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.

16For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, 17as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations")-in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. 18Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become "the father of many nations", according to what was said, "So numerous shall your descendants be." 19He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. 20No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22Therefore his faith "was reckoned to him as righteousness." 23Now the words, "it was reckoned to him", were written not for his sake alone, 24but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, 25who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.

Gospel Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

9As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him.

10And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples.11When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"12But when he heard this, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.13Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners."

18While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt before him, saying, "My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live."19And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples.20Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak,21for she said to herself, "If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well."22Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, "Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well." And instantly the woman was made well.23When Jesus came to the leader's house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion,24he said, "Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping." And they laughed at him.25But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up.26And the report of this spread throughout that district.