The Rev. Dr. Brandon Perrine
Proper 5A
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
June 7, 2026
As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.” While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples. Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she was saying to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And the woman was made well from that moment. When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, he said, “Go away, for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. And the report of this spread through all of that district.
~o~
Jesus was a very busy man. This brief reading from Matthew’s gospel begins with Jesus taking a walk. He strikes up a conversation with a tax collector, who joins him for dinner. While eating, he gets into a rather heated debate with some religious leaders, but in the middle of their conversation, someone comes in and asks him to raise a recently deceased daughter from the dead. On the way to the man’s home, Jesus is touched by a woman who’d been hemorrhaging for 12 years. The woman is healed, but Jesus shares a word of encouragement with her before continuing on the way. Once at the leader’s house, he shoos away all the mourners and raises the little girl from the dead. And though the reading ends here, he actually continued on and healed two blind men and a demon-possessed mute man. I don’t know about you, but I’d call that a full day!
It’s possible that the author wove together a number of short episodes into this one narrative, not intending to capture a chronological day in the life of Jesus but rather a snapshot of the ministry of Jesus. I don’t know for sure, but what I do know is that a week in my life pales by comparison to a day in his!
Near the beginning of the reading, Jesus approaches Matthew the tax collector and says, “Follow Me,” and he does. I like how this is told in the First Nations Version. It reads:
Jesus, to the surprise of all, walked up to the tribal tax collector and said to him, “Matthew, come and walk the road with me.” So he got up from his tax booth, left it all behind, and began to walk the road with Jesus.
Come and walk the road with me… It’s such a simple invitation. Just one person inviting another person to join them on their journey—on their path—for a bit. To walk in their shoes for a bit. To travel their road for a bit. It’s a simple invitation, but I’d be willing to bet that it’s one that is turned down far more often than it is accepted in the real world we live in.
We see this invitation hidden across the entire text. Jesus didn’t just walk with Matthew; he allowed his path to be completely rerouted by the people he met. He paused to step into the shoes of a grieving father. He stopped in his tracks to notice a marginalized, suffering woman who desperately needed someone to share her burden. Every encounter was a prompt to stop running, to change direction, and to walk a different road.
The literary giant Langston Hughes tells a beautiful story about this kind of unexpected road-sharing in his tale of Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones and Roger. Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones was on her way home from work when 14-year-old Roger made the ill-fated decision to try and abscond with her purse. Instead of getting away with the goods, Roger found himself being dragged home by Mrs. Jones. After he’d washed his face, they shared her supper of ham and lima beans and cake. She asked him why he’d tried to rob her, and he said it was to buy blue suede shoes. She sent him on his way with money for the shoes and a lesson neither of them was likely to ever forget.
Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones ended up being thrust into young Roger’s shoes and she, in turn, set him down in her own. And they were both radically changed by the experience.
Come and walk the road with me… How many times do you imagine you’ve been asked that? How many times have you said “yes?”
In a way, that’s the invitation we’re accepting as a congregation next week when we march alongside other faith communities in Aurora’s seventh annual Pride Parade. Yes, it’s an invitation to celebrate the beautiful rainbow of diversity that makes up our local community. But it also comes with an acknowledgement of a painful history and hard-fought victories. It requires us to face an uncomfortable truth: the institutional church has often been the source of trauma, rather than sanctuary, for the LGBTQ+ community.
By sharing in the joy, the color, and the resilience of Pride, we aren’t just showing up for a festival. We are committing to be humble allies in an ongoing struggle for justice and equal rights. We are consenting to the disruptive, beautiful change that comes from walking in someone else’s shoes—and letting them lead the way. That’s what it means to say “yes” when a community that has been marginalized says, “come and walk the road with us.”
How different could our community and our world look if more of us were vulnerable enough to invite others into our journeys? Into our struggles and challenges, our hopes and dreams, our heartaches and our celebrations? How different could our neighborhood look if more of us had the humility to say “yes” when we are invited to follow?
May we walk together, just as Jesus and Matthew did—willing to step into one another’s shoes, willing to be changed by the journey—as we move toward a brighter, more just future for our community and our world.
Amen.
