Readings:
Hosea 6:3-6
Romans 4:18-25
Matthew 9:9-13

Paul constantly has to defend himself against conservative Christians who vehemently object to his ministry to Gentiles. They don't mind his preaching Jesus to non-Jews as long as he converts them to Judaism before he baptizes them into Christianity. These "Judaizers" insist that only after Gentiles agree to keep the 613 Mosaic laws can they even be taught about the risen Jesus present in their lives.

The Apostle fights against this theology by employing a simple argument. If the Torah laws are essential to faith, then how can anyone be saved before Moses receives those regulations on Mt. Sinai? Judaism, Paul contends, didn't begin with Moses. It started with Abraham and Sarah, the first people to follow Yahweh.

Scholars date the Exodus and its Sinai covenant to around 1,200 BCE, and Abraham and Sarah's entry into Canaan to the 18th century BCE. This time differential sets up Paul's classic question: How did Israelites carry out Yahweh's will during the 500 year interval between the founding of their faith and Moses' 613 laws?

Paul goes back to Genesis 15:6 for his answer. "Abram put his faith in Yahweh, who credited it to him as an act of righteousness." "Righteous" is how our sacred authors refer to anyone who does what Yahweh wants him or her to do. (Modern Jews, for instance, call Oscar Schindler a "righteous Gentile.") Long before any religious laws came into existence, religious people simply put their trust in God. They entered a relationship with Yahweh, giving themselves over to God and the responsibilities such a relationship brings.

The Apostle argues that non-Jewish followers of Jesus are simply returning to the most primitive form of Judaism: going back to the day when people of faith were expected only to enter a trusting relationship with God, no rules, no regulations, just trust.

This is what Hosea demands of Israelites 700 years before Jesus' birth. Fed up with those who only when hard-pressed promise to "strive to know Yahweh," the prophet proclaims God's true expectations. "What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah? Your pity is like a morning cloud, like the dew that early passes away . . . . For it is love that I desire, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than holocausts." Even today some think true faith revolves around doing the "liturgical thing," to be conscientious abut going to Mass, but not forming proper loving, knowing relationships with God and others. (In Semitic thought, to "know" someone or something means to "experience" that person or object.)

The historical Jesus cuts through such religious nonsense to surface those able and willing to form trusting relationships. There was just one problem. Often the people Jesus concentrated on were regarded as sinners by the "good folk." People back then weren't always labeled sinners because they'd committed "immoral" actions. Much had to do with cultural transgressions. For instance, someone like Matthew, who collected taxes, would automatically fit the sinner category because most of his taxes eventually went to the hated Romans.

No wonder Jesus and his disciples trigger a conflict with law abiding Pharisees when they dine at Matthew's house alongside "many tax collectors and sinners."

Jesus quickly responds to the complaint. "Those who are well do not need a physician; the sick do. Go learn the meaning of the words, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' I did not come to call the righteous but sinners."

Certainly Jesus here is speaking about the "self-righteous;" those who only are concerned with God's will when it benefits them. Jesus ironically points out that many who disregard some of organized religion's choicest rules and regulations are the very people who relate to others and God in the way Jesus relates to God and others.

Kind of forces us to do a gut-check, doesn't it?