7th June 2026
Reflection with readings below
From today’s gospel: “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 come to call not the righteous but sinners.”
We have only to look around to see that our world, our societies, our ecosystems, are in need of a physician, are in need of healing – possibly including radical surgery. And not just that, but we ourselves need a physician. We seem unable to change our lifestyles even though we can see the damage they cause.
The gap between rich and poor, between the haves and have-nots is growing. Those without suffer ill health, discrimination, lack of opportunities, insecurity etc. I’m not entirely sure that the haves – despite their better health, wide ranging opportunities, status and security – are necessarily happier. The more we have, the more we worry about having enough, the more we worry whether what we have may be stolen, the more we worry that we are not keeping up with our peers etc. Feeling exposed to such fears, people the build more and more barriers – locked gates, high walls, big cars, private jets – to ‘protect’ themselves.
The Global Justice Report (1) out this week demonstrates that we would all be happier, more contented, if we redistributed wealth equitably. One advantage the report highlights is that we would all need only to work two days a week – thus having more time to enjoy with family and friends, more time with nature, more time reading and learning etc. Maybe even more time to spend with God!
Our environment – our living conditions – are critically endangered by climate change and biodiversity loss, yet we seem unable to make the lifestyle changes needed to limit these pressing dangers. Instead we continue with lifestyles thereby increasing the dangers!
The Lancet Commission has done extensive research to develop an ideal healthy diet that can be adopted by anyone and everyone: the planetary health diet. It doesn’t exclude meat and dairy products but reduces them in favour of more plant based foods. The advantages are multiple: substantially improved health for us as individuals, substantial reduction of carbon emissions, substantially reduced demands on water supplies and the release of pressure on land such that biodiversity can recover. And all this would at the same time ensure we could grow enough food to feed the growing world population.
Why then do we not wholeheartedly adopt the planetary health diet? Why are we so perverse? We need the help of a trustworthy physician!
Both today’s psalm and reading from the prophets, tells us that God longs to help us, longs to heal us, longs to restore our wellbeing. Both tell us that God doesn’t want sacrifices – God doesn’t want us to live as if we were the ones in control, that we were the ones who can do what ever we want provided we placate God. No, God wants us to understand that we live within creation, that we live within an environment where – if we act with with steadfast love for what God has created, if we act with a good understanding of God’s wisdom – then we will be satisfied, our lives will be whole and healthy.
In today’s gospel passage, the Pharisees want to limit God’s favour to those who they deem are doing the right thing – to divert God’s love to those who they deem are deserving. As in the earlier readings they wish to put limits around God. They want to determine what God should and shouldn’t want. They can’t see the short-comings of their approach – that it doesn’t ensure wellbeing for all, that it fails to acknowledge that many problems are down to the insufficiency of the individual but to the failures of the system. And perhaps most sadly of all, they don’t realise how much they are missing out on, nor how unhealthy their lifestyle is.
In the two healings that Jesus then performs, he demonstrates to them how putting rules and restrictions before compassion and empathy, destroys life – whereas going the extra mile and showing love, leads to healing.
How can we use what we learn from today’s readings to find healing for ourselves and our society, for the environment and for justice?
It has to be by – as one writer put it – ‘unwrapping’ ourselves from the systems, from the cultures and traditions, that are destroying life and perverting justice. It has to be by seeking God’s wisdom to determine how we organise our lives, how we live in peace with the environment, how we establish justice for everyone.
This will involve prayer, learning and discernment – and already there are lots of resources and communities and networks we can tap into, such as Green Peace and Green Christian, Christians Against Poverty and Just Money etc.
This will involve changing our lifestyles and it will mean accepting – at least on the short term – that such lifestyles will be counter cultural – but isn’t that implicit in the Gospel message? It will mean accepting that there will be both sacrifices and new pleasures. We will have to eat less meat and dairy, but we will discover new flavours and new fruits and nuts and vegetables to enjoy. We will (particularly those of us who are comfortably off) need to consume less but we will be able to enjoy more leisure, more quality time, and less stress.
Doing this will transform the world. Doing this we will be showing our love for all our neighbours, for not just human environments but all ecosystems. Doing this will ensure sustainability, will ensure that we pass onto the generations to come a better world. Doing this will bring in the kingdom of God here on earth.
So yes we can – and should – ask Jesus to heal us, and not just us but our rigid, life-destroying systems. We can ask Jesus – indeed can we learn from what he has already shown us – how to reform our lifestyles, how we can shape them with steadfast love and mercy.
Hosea 5:15-6:6
Thus says the Lord: “I will return again to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face. In their distress they will beg my favour: ‘Come, let us return to the Lord; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord; his appearing is as sure as the dawn; he will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth.’ What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early. Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets, I have killed them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light. For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
Psalm 50:7-15
7 Hear, O my people, and I will speak:
“O Israel, I will bear witness against you; *
for I am God, your God.
8 I do not accuse you because of your sacrifices; *
your offerings are always before me.
9 I will take no bull-calf from your stalls, *
nor he-goats out of your pens;
10 For all the beasts of the forest are mine, *
the herds in their thousands upon the hills.
11 I know every bird in the sky, *
and the creatures of the fields are in my sight.
12 If I were hungry, I would not tell you, *
for the whole world is mine and all that is in it.
13 Do you think I eat the flesh of bulls, *
or drink the blood of goats?
14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving *
and make good your vows to the Most High.
15 Call upon me in the day of trouble; *
I will deliver you, and you shall honour me.”
The Epistle
Romans 4:13-25
The promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.
For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”) —in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So numerous shall your descendants be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Therefore his faith “was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; 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 him 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 come to call not the righteous but sinners.”
While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue 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 haemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she said 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 instantly the woman was made well. 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 throughout that district.
The Green Tau 