June 7, 2026
Who annoys you? Sure, the people we live with, work with, and worship with can annoy us at times. That is perfectly normal. But what kind of people cause you to roll your eyes or inwardly simmer?
Today’s gospel is a microcosm of why Jesus annoyed people. And eventually got killed. Jesus calls Matthew to come out from behind the toll booth, where he collects fees that aid the Roman government. Matthew is seen as undesirable. Maybe we have modern equivalents. One online commentator I read this week (Cody Sanders) suggested that the biblical equivalent of a tax collector like Matthew would be someone who colludes with the empire, like someone who took a $50,000 bonus to become an ICE agent and drag people out of their homes at night, or a Tesla sales agent. To the rule-following, socially respectable types, tax collectors and sinners were more than merely annoying. You wanted to stand clear of them for reputation and sanity.
Jesus annoys people. Then and now. You can hear them sneer. Why does your teacher eat with those people? And the people who annoy us? We often dehumanize people on the other side of issues.
For the next few weeks, our Scripture texts all focus on what it means to follow Jesus. Today, Matthew, the tax collector, is called by Jesus. Jesus doesn’t just go out to the margins to get people; Jesus has a meal with them, builds community and relationship with table fellowship with outcasts, and annoys the folks who follow the rules. The religious people. The good people.
“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies,” declares Psalm 23. When you sit down to share a meal with others, something powerful happens. When you slow down and put away distractions, it is not just about eating – it’s about sharing conversations, stories, and moments that create a deeper sense of connection. In those moments, those of very different life stories, perspectives, and political and social world views soon discover they often have much more in common than what separates them.
To follow Jesus, Matthew is invited into a new way of life. Then Matthew throws a party and invites other questionable, disreputable folks to eat with Jesus, too. Matthew invites them to meet the one so compelling to him.
I have not come to call the righteous, is Jesus’ response. If you don’t need mercy, I’ve got nothing for you. But you can learn about wholeness. If just being good is more important than mercy for others, you may actually be the sick one, in need of help.
It’s the age-old irony. We think the problem is the other person who annoys us. The other person is the one out of bounds, the self-righteous one, the sinner, the one who is messed up. And then we find that our hate, our disdain, our indifference make us the ones in need of healing.
Jesus’ mission is to gather the ones who know their need. Who knows what it is like to beg or, out of desperation, run to Jesus when a child is dying. Or reach out and touch the fringe of his garment when their body is wracked in pain or disease.
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, and it worked; she was healed. Others don’t believe that they can come directly to Jesus, but she has a desperate need for the healing, the mercy — just the hem of Jesus’ garment. Those in anonymous recovery from addiction, suffering quietly in their pain or illness, those living in hidden abuse or poverty, lose whose faith is questioned because of who they are — know their need for mercy and take any opportunity they can to get just a hem, a string, a measure of Jesus’ mercy.
God, too, is annoyed in today’s reading from Hosea. As long as the people fulfill their ritual obligations, they expect God to shower goodness on them like the springtime rains. But God mutters, annoyed and exasperated: Your love is fake, fickle as mist. I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
There’s a wideness in God’s mercy. God’s love is so expansive, so inclusive, so unimaginable, so full of grace, that we can barely take it in. In fact, to our rational minds, it is so indiscriminate, it is downright annoying. Jesus’ love, forgiveness, and mercy can get under all of our skin to challenge the status quo, our worldview, and our own sense of calling and purpose.
Until. Until we realize that we, too, are the sinners in need. We, too, are the ones so annoyed by others that we fail to look at ourselves honestly. And then. And then, we are happy to be among those that Jesus calls to follow him.
And we are invited to sit at the table with Jesus. – to some transformative table fellowship. To share a sip and some bread at table with a slew of imperfect people more like us than we could ever know.