Lectionary 10, June 8, 2008; Bethel Lutheran Church, Rochester.
Matthew 9:9-13;18-26.

Dear Friends in Christ, Grace to you and Peace, from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. AMEN.


This morning, even though it is June, I will tell you a story as repeated by a great Lutheran preacher named Barbara Lundblad. She got the story from a man named Brian Ragen who heard it from his father.

"Once upon a time there was a little boy who was very poor. He and his brothers and sisters lived with their widowed mother, who was barely able to feed them all. The little boy worked in a store every day after school and on weekends. All his clothes were handed down from someone and he couldn't remember ever getting anything new. He had only one toy -- a little car (I have always pictured it as a Matchbox car, Brian Ragen says, interrupting the story). The car was worn and weary as his clothes. Only one window was left and the roof was smashed in on one side, two of the wheels were missing. But he loved that car -- it could become anything he wanted when he played a race car revving it up and squealing around corners, a tank when he went to war, an ambulance when he was a doctor. Almost every happy moment he remembered had to do with that car.

It was almost Christmas and he knew there would be no presents. But the little boy was excited anyway. It was the first year he would be allowed to go to midnight mass on Christmas eve. Everyone had told him how splendid it was; the incense, the music, the fine vestments. And the creche. Above all, he longed to see the creche. He had been told that it was very large with plaster figures of Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and magi, even sheep and sheep dogs. And the baby had a halo more glorious than Mary or Joseph and lay in a manger filled with real straw. Before mass began, people brought gifts to the child. He had been told the gifts were magnificent jeweled chalices for the altar, new clothes for poor children (like himself), envelopes full of money. By the time the service began it looked like many caravans of wise men had been there. At least, that's what his friend had said.

The little boy wanted very much to give the Christ child a present. But what could he give? The money from his after school job went to his mother and there was nothing left over. He decided to get another job just until Christmas, working every morning before school. On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, he sat at the kitchen table counting out what he had earned. He had enough money to get a fine present, he thought. But before he could put the money back in his pocket and go out, his mother returned home. "Oh, son," she said, "what a good boy you are! Now we can have a real Christmas dinner!" And she swooped up the money and hurried off to get to the market before it closed.

He was heartbroken. He went to his room, trying not to be angry at his mother. When things like this happened, he was told to "Offer it up to Jesus." That was never easy, but it was worse this time. On the dresser he saw his broken toy car. He hadn't played with it at all in December, but it had been waiting for him. He knew it was the only thing he had to give the Child, so when he had combed his hair and dressed in his best clothes, he put the car in his pocket and set off for mass. He went alone because his mother had to stay with the younger children. When he arrived the church was filling up and he felt lost among tall adults in bulky coats. He walked up the aisle genuflected as he had been taught, and turned to the creche which was set up before one of the side altars. Gifts were already piled up before the child. Some were wrapped, others were left unwrapped (perhaps so you could see how expensive they were). The little boy stood shyly before the manger, then laid his toy car amid all the treasures.

He squeezed into a pew close to the creche just as the organ began playing the prelude. An usher took a last look at the creche to see if everything was in place for the blessing. What the usher saw made him very angry. "Who would leave a piece of trash like this at Our Lord's crib?" he said, loudly enough for the boy to hear. The usher picked up the toy car and threw it across the church, just under the tall pulpit. The little boy could see it, lying on its roof with its two wheels spinning, looking like a wreck indeed. But he had no time to retrieve it for the procession had begun and everyone stood to sing. The little boy was crying, but he stood with everyone else. He could barely see the priests and choir, only the cross held high above the procession. Suddenly, the cross came to a dead stop. At first the boy couldn't tell what was happening, but he managed to find an open space to peer between the grown-ups. The baby in the manger had come to life and was crawling across the stone floor. He crawled until he reached the broken car, tucked it under his arm and crawled back to his manger bed. By this time all the people had fallen to their knees. At last the priest rose and approached the manger; there, just as before, a plaster child with a bright halo was lying in the straw, but now he smiled like a happy child and his arms were folded tight around a broken toy car.

Brian Ragen’s father was a miserable failure by most standards in this life. "As I think of my father's Christmas story now," says the grown-up boy, "I realize that I cast him in the wrong role. My father was not the good little boy who gave his last plaything to the Lord. My father was the smashed Matchbox car with a couple of wheels missing.”

In our Gospel text for today from Matthew, we meet a number of smashed up Matchbox cars with missing wheels. First there is Matthew, a despised tax collector. And one who is invited to follow Jesus. There are other tax collectors, a whole brood of disgraceful characters. Besides his tax collecting dinner companions, Jesus eats with “sinners,” whom some say are prostitutes. Can you see this unholy collection, all scratched up and spinning upside down like a rejected Matchbox car? Who would dare to place this motley group in front of our Lord?

Wait, we aren’t done. A leader of the synagogue comes to Jesus. Turncoat! Traitor! The leaders of the synagogue are not to consort with this one named Jesus, yet this one does. This leader speaks of his dead daughter—the ultimate of the unclean. The daughter has stopped spinning. She is just dead. And then there is the woman suffering from bleeding for twelve years—a most unclean and unwelcome presence. The Matchbox collection just gets worse and worse.

But this Jesus, this loving Jesus, escapes from the plaster and crawls to where the desperate people are. This loving Jesus walks to Matthew as his coins spin on the table, and he invites him to follow him. He clutches Matthew in his arms like a broken Matchbox car and begins to prepare him to be a fisher of people instead of one who fleeces people for money.

This Jesus gets out of his manger and eats dinner, not with all the fine people who attend worship on Christmas Eve, but with the broken sinners of his day. This Jesus makes time for a disgraced leader of the synagogue with a dead daughter. This Jesus is stopped in his procession by a bleeding woman.

These are desperate people! Some of you may be just as desperate—dealing illness or family issues or financial crises. Some of you may be like the little boy, daring to offer what little you have, and risking ridicule in your gift.

People of God, that Christ has come for you. That Christ has come to be the healer of a world whose slings and arrows torment and injure. That Christ is here today in Word, in prayer, in song, in fellowship, in Spirit. That Christ wants you to know that he would get out of his crib and crawl over to you. You are that important to him. It is you who Christ clutches in his arms with a contented smile.

Those who proclaim themselves well do not need Christ. Woe to them, for they might be the most desperate of all. Christ came to offer mercy to the sick. And when he healed, people reported it everywhere they went. Even as you are healed in Christ, bring that message to others that, in their desperation, they may find rest for their souls. “Follow me,” says Christ. We follow, to our own healing, and to bring that good news to others. AMEN.