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Our gospel reading for today is from the ninth chapter of Matthew, beginning at the ninth verse. 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 Matthew got up and followed Jesus. 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 Jesus heard this, he said, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what that means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice, for I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners. The passage goes on. 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 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, took her by the hand, and the girl got up. And the report of this spread through all of that district. The gospel of the Lord. You may be seated. Let us pray. God of healing, help us to mend the broken parts of our lives. Direct our minds and our hearts to sources of hope and healing. Let us not forget all that remains for us as we ponder what has gone from our lives. Be our vision and our strength. Anoint us with the oil of your love. And take our hands as we move forward into greater healing. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Take heart, daughter. Your faith has made you well. Healing. We pray for healing each week for our friends, neighbors, and others in need of healing. Whether that healing is physical, emotional, or spiritual, they are all important and included in our prayers. Professor Daniel Zacharias, an Indigenous Christian from Nova Scotia, has this to say. I see resonance with indigenous spirituality. Indigenous practice often priorities relational healing over ritual correctness. Indigenous ceremony is central in Indigenous spirituality, and many ceremonies are opening and welcoming to others. While there are protocols around ceremony, they are often not so rigid that relationship is sacrificed. Laughter brings us together and connects us in these moments. Just as Jesus calls Matthew into a new life, indigenous traditions recognize that love and restoration happen through inclusion, not exclusion. A person is not cast out for past failures, but invited to walk a new path. The second part of our gospel reading for today brings us into two stories. The first story starts off with a prominent synagogue leader whose daughter has just died. The synagogue leader asked Jesus to come and lay his hands on her, believing that Jesus can heal her and she will be alive. I think this is really a turn of events. I mean, usually the Pharisees and the Sadducees are fighting with Jesus and telling him he's crazy and whatever in their own ways. And here we have a synagogue leader coming to Jesus to ask for healing for his daughter. The second story is a woman who's been bleeding for twelve years. She came up behind Jesus and merely touched his cloak. These two individuals stand at opposite ends of the social spectrum. The synagogue leader is prominent, while the unnamed woman is ostracized, expelled, discriminated against. For both people, Jesus responds with equal compassion. The synagogue leader is confident enough in himself to just walk up right directly to Jesus. While the woman lives in a state of shame and desires to move unnoticed. For me, the big difference is how the woman expressed her faith. It is so simple, yet it is remarkable. She believes that simply touching the fringe of Jesus' cloak will heal her. What faith. Again, Professor Zacharias goes on to say, I see deep resonance with the medicine men and women in indigenous cultures. Medicine people recognize that healing is both physical and spiritual, and I want to add emotional. Jesus, like a traditional leader, perceives the woman's act of faith and affirms her. Take heart, daughter. Your faith has made you well. This is not just physical restoration. It is a social and spiritual reintegration. She's no longer unclean, no longer cut off from her community. Her restoration reaches beyond the physical element. Her healing is holistic. Jesus is good medicine for body and soul. And his healing brings her back to her friends, her neighbors, and her community that she's been cut off from. She no longer needs to hide herself and walk around unnoticed. What a blessing. What a blessing Jesus gave her in those words. And what a blessing Jesus gives us in the healing that we experience. Joyce Rupp says this in her book the cup of our life. If you want a really nice devotional booklet, but that's not really a booklet, it's a book. It's really great. It's all about the cup. I highly recommend it. Healing usually takes a lot of patience. Now, the two stories we hear, Jesus did it like that. But then he's here with us, but not in the same way to be able to touch us. Like a deep wound in the body that heals from the inside out, so is our spiritual healing. We may not always readily see the steady healing occurring, but we need to believe that the mending is taking place and that Jesus is with us and walking with us. It is good and bright as Jesus' followers to look to Jesus as our example and seek to emulate his life. We certainly need to embrace compassion as a relational ethic. But I want to also suggest that we use our imaginations to see ourselves within the characters in these stories. After all, life's not easy. We continue to need the healing work of Jesus and the Holy Spirit in body, mind, and soul. Besides believing that we can be healed, our mending also requires for us naming and working with our unwanted emotions, extending compassion towards ourselves and others, letting go of resistances, trusting and yielding to God, receiving support from others, extending and receiving forgiveness, taking good care of our body and our spirit. Let us patiently approach our inner health with trust and with confidence. For those of us who live in North America, we must reckon with the fact that we may be the tax collectors of our society. Profiting of current and past injustices, and globally speaking, we occupy the richest sectors of society. Or perhaps today you feel like that dead girl. Life has been sucked out of you. Or perhaps you feel you are spiritually dead in a dark night of the soul. As hard as it may be, can you trust that others are seeking Jesus on your behalf? And that Jesus has the power to revive? Oftentimes we do not recognize how much we ourselves are in need of mercy and the healing touch of Jesus. And are we ready to respond to Jesus' call? Amen.