I was searching for a story to illustrate this sermon – when I picked up Ten Fingers for God – the story of Paul Brand, a surgeon who learned how to reconstruct the hands of Indian lepers.

The difference Jesus has brought into the world

It opens with the arrival at Vellore Medical College of a typical leper – a young man whose life had been blighted since he was 14, when he'd been refused further education, been shunned and made to feel unclean. Then a doctor had told him about Dr Brand's work. He'd been able to make his way, with difficulty, by bus, to the town of Vellore. But the College was another 4 miles away – and the driver of another bus, seeing his bandaged feet, had ordered him off.

It was a hot day, Sadan was tired and dishevelled. His feet discharged, leaving wet marks, by the time he'd reached the College. Here he met Mrs Brand. 'Pardon me'. He approached diffidently, careful from long experience not to step too close. 'I am looking for Dr Brand. I have a letter for him from my doctor.' The woman did not draw away, though Sadan was sure she'd noticed his hands and feet.

She explained that her husband was away on a trip, but would be back in a day or two. 'If Sadan were to stay in Vellore and return again…' He tried not to show his overwhelming disappointment. Then, as he turned hopelessly away, she called him back. 'You.. you can find a place to stay, can't you? Turning again, he found she had moved towards him, her blue eyes looking straight into his face.

And suddenly Sadan wanted to cry. For years no woman had looked at him like that, not with fear or revulsion, or even pity – but with concern, as if she cared about him as another human being. And before he knew it, he was telling her about the trip, the bus incident, and how impossible it would be for him to find lodging in the town. He could scarcely believe what followed. She took him home with her. She made him a comfortable bed on the verandah. She brought him food and sat and talked with him. He stayed there for 3 days – feeling wanted, respected – yes, even loved like a human being.

It was late at night when Dr Brand returned. He'd been ill – but he came to Sadan immediately, greeted him kindly, and examined his hands and feet. There was a good chance, he told him, that even now the ulcers might be healed and the claw hands made useful by operations he'd found successful. Sadan would be able once again to bend and straighten his fingers, hold tools, write and feed himself normally. 'Sleep well now', he said and put his arm about the young man's shoulders.

For the first time in years, Sadan did sleep well, not only because he'd found hope – but even more because he'd found friends. He'd been treated like a man again.

That's a long story to begin with – but it illustrates the difference Jesus has brought into the world. It also pictures something of the revulsion some of our fellow humans can expect to receive from us.

Jesus loves and calls us

Levi – who is also Matthew – would have known that revulsion, even hatred and contempt. He was a tax-collector – probably what we would call a customs officer – collecting the tolls and duties on merchants and their goods travelling between Egypt and Damascus. For Capernaum was a strategically placed frontier town on the route.

Why were tax-collectors hated? Not just because they collected money for the occupying Romans. That was hateful enough to a patriotic Jew. To a pious one, it was an infringement of God's royal prerogative. But they were also enriching themselves by overcharging, and by accepting bribes from the wealthy. Living a worldly lifestyle, they had cut themselves off from godly folk. These, in turn, excluded them from the synagogue as unclean – and forbad their witness in the law courts.

Perhaps Jesus had already spotted Levi on the fringes of the crowds, listening to him – or seen him watching, when he'd healed a leper. And Jesus had known that something was stirring in Levi's heart. Now Jesus encountered him as he strolled along the lake shore. Levi was in his office, seated at his desk, awaiting callers. None of them stayed long, if they could possibly avoid it.

Jesus had no need to call, but he came over and began to talk. What was spoken, we don't know. Matthew – I'll call him by the name he liked to call himself – records the words of other disciples – but never any word he himself spoke – and nor did anyone else.

But as Jesus looked into this man's eyes – he saw, I believe, his deep need and hunger for love. All the urge – all the bondage – for making money and filling his home with fine things – could not mask that hunger or assuage it. And here, in front of him, Matthew saw a man who respected him as no one else ever had. And, in the light of Jesus's life – he saw his own as wasted and fruitless. And I think Jesus was telling him it wasn't too late to change. Follow me, he said – and Levi got up from his desk, and did just that. He followed Jesus, who'd valued him – loved him – and called him.

When Jesus speaks to a man or woman – he sees our inmost need, and he challenges us. He faces us with our sin and failure. As when he told the woman at the well to fetch her husband… But at the same time, he affirms us, You are right when you say you have no husband… For all that, he confronts us like Nathan, who stood before David and said, You are the man… Jesus treats us as responsible men and women – and offers us a positive alternative – Follow me!

And Matthew followed immediately. We are so prone to hesitate, weigh things up and never act. Yes, there was a cost to it. Matthew lost a well-paid job – but he found a purpose and destiny far richer. He lost a secure, comfortable living – but he found himself valued, and found an experience far more worthwhile.

If we follow Jesus with all our heart – we may be poorer materially. Our worldly ambitions will have to go – but we shall receive a peace, a joy and a thrill in life we never knew before.

What did Matthew leave – and what did he take with him? He left his office-desk – but he took his pen with him. Jesus can use whatever gifts we may bring with us – they are, after all, his gifts to us. If he'd lived out his days as a rich customs officer, Matthew would soon have been forgotten. But as the author of the first Gospel, he's known and honoured by millions world-wide.

You, who work in offices – has Jesus come and stood before your desk and challenged you about your work – about your motives and the way you conduct your business?

When we follow Jesus – others meet him too

Matthew also did something else. Shunned by the respectable, he may have been – but he had his cronies. Fellow tax-collectors and others in trades the pious regarded as unclean – or men whose business methods disregarded the honesty, equity and kindness that God requires of us. So Matthew threw a party in his own home, and invited them all. He wanted them to meet Jesus and understand why his own life was going to be different from now on. Would that more of us did likewise!

And Jesus came and sat, talked and ate with them. Perhaps you've never realised what a staggering thing that was! It astonished the Pharisees in the way that that Indian leper was astonished. He'd been overwhelmed by the love – they were overcome with disgust and contempt. Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?

You see – eating with 'sinners' declared Jesus's purposes for them. Sharing a meal meant sharing one's life. Table-fellowship in the East – to this day – suggests an offer of acceptance – peace, trust, brotherhood and forgiveness. This meal was more than an expression of humanity, or social generosity. It conveyed Jesus's mission and message. So the Pharisees asked, Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?

For the Pharisees divided the population into those who were orthodox – who kept every detail of the Law and Tradition – and the people of the land – who didn't observe the niceties of the Law at all. These were therefore counted as beyond salvation. The orthodox were forbidden to accompany the others on a journey, do business with them, give to them or receive anything from them. Let alone receive them as guests or be their guests. So Jesus was doing what most respectable church-going people would never do!

Meeting Jesus exposes our sin

And what was Jesus's defence when he overheard their criticism? That he went where the need was greatest. What sort of doctor would only go to healthy people? A doctor's whole purpose is to go to the sick. Sinners need Jesus. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.

We need to understand what Jesus was saying. He was not saying, Some people are so good they have no need of me. Still less was he saying, I'm not interested in good people. No, what he was saying was, I didn't come to invite people who are self-satisfied – who think they need no-one's help – I came to invite people who are very conscious of their sin and desperately aware of their need of a saviour. Only those who know how much they need me can accept my invitation.

Our need is to feel our sin-sickness – the corruption of our hearts – and be willing to come to Jesus for his healing, his deliverance. The tragedy with sin – like leprosy – is that it makes us numb, lacking in sensation – so that we damage our lives and have no sense of our danger. Happy is the man or woman, boy or girl, who knows Jesus came to save sinners – and who recognise their own condition!

Nor is this just a matter of our first coming to Christ. After we've come to him for pardon and new life – the corruption of our hearts remains – and we must fight against it every day. Christians do not achieve perfection in this life – every day we fall short in small – if not worse – ways. We remain indebted to Christ for pardon – and power to overcome – as much now as when we first believed.

Selwyn Hughes tells how – in the church he used to pastor – he once said, All of us stumble and fall into sin at times. At the end of the service an elder took him aside and urged that he never use that phrase again. There are some of us in this church, he said, who haven't sinned in years, and we find it an affront when you give others the impression we might have fallen into sin.

Selwyn felt deeply sorry for the man, because it was obvious there were clear evidences of pride at work in his life, of which he was seemingly unaware. Gently Selwyn drew his attention to it, giving instances of how and where it surfaced. When I had finished, Selwyn Hughes writes, I fully expected him to offer his resignation and walk out of the room – but he came towards me, flung his arms around me and wept on my shoulder for what must have been a full half-hour.

We would like to think that sin is merely breaking rules, being disloyal to the standards set by our fellow church-members or failure to follow their spiritual disciplines. If that were true we could keep God at a distance – even put him under an obligation to reward us for our efforts! But sin is more personal, intimate and evil. It is failure to have a continual heart-allegiance to God, to love and honour him in all we do.

Jesus exposes sin for what it is, when he says, Follow me. Until then, sin is like a magical dragon that can change its appearance, and transform itself into religious guises, or just vanish from our consciousness altogether. We think we're doing our best to avoid sin, and all the while it's making its home in our hearts and defiling our thoughts and actions. But Jesus says – Follow me – and the spell is broken and the dragon unmasked.

Jesus is the only true healer and friend of sinners

True righteousness is a heartfelt desire to walk in God's ways, a weeping over our failures, a coming again and again for Christ's cleansing through what he has done for us at the Cross. And a continual seeking of the Spirit's infilling – so that we may continue in his fellowship and do what pleases him.

No wonder that – according to Matthew's gospel – Jesus tells the Pharisees, Go and learn what this means – and quotes the verse from Hosea – I desire mercy, not sacrifice. And we need to learn this lesson, also.

The Pharisees had presumed to draw a circle within which they thought God's grace operated – and in that circle they could only see people like themselves. As a result, they were more concerned to preserve their own holiness, than to help another to become holy.

Like a surgeon who refuses to operate on an AIDS patient, lest he become infected himself. Like those who shrink in fastidious disgust from a leper – we don't want to have anything to do with sinners like…well, you name it. You will have your own categories in mind. It is the attitude that leads ultimately to sectarian murders and ethnic cleansing – but starts with some attitude of spiritual superiority and selfishness.

And it's an attitude that is negative. We're reminded of the exasperated mother of a toddler who tells her husband, Go and see what wee John is doing and tell him not to! It's an attitude more concerned with criticism than with encouragement. More concerned to point out faults in others than to help others overcome.

Are we like doctors who are more concerned to diagnose, than to cure? A true doctor, on seeing the ravages of a disease, or awful injuries, may also feel revulsion – but this is overcome by pity and a burning desire to help. We should be like that. Because we are all wounded and diseased ourselves – our compassion and humility should be all the more genuine.

But we also know the only true healer – the only true friend of sinners and we should be eager to introduce others to him. He is not infected with our disease – but he identified himself with us in every other respect. He was wounded for our transgressions and by his stripes we are healed. Such love exceeds our comprehension. Let us rise up and follow him. Amen.