“Follow Me…To the Sick, The Grieving, The Outcast”
Preached Sunday, June 7, 2026
“Follow me.”
Two words Jesus said to Matthew and Matthew got up and followed him.
I gotta wonder if there was some more dialogue in there. If someone came up to me and said, “Follow me.” I would have a lot of questions. Even if I knew the person, even if I had heard of this person, like Matthew had probably heard of Jesus, I still would have lots of questions - like…follow you where?
In the call story of John and Andrew, when Jesus called to them to follow him, they asked where he was staying and he said “Come and see.” And while we don’t have the dialogue between Jesus and Matthew I feel like, if he had been asked, “Follow you where? Follow you to what end? What does it mean to follow you?” Jesus would have answered “Come and see.” Because his immediate actions after inviting Matthew to follow him answer the questions of what it means to be a follower of Jesus - for Matthew and for us today.
I’m going to explain those actions - and - I’m going to go ahead and tell you what it means to be a follower of Jesus as shown to us in our passage of Matthew today. So you can see the theme throughout the different encounters in our Scripture today. Those encounters after inviting Matthew to follow him are:
1. Eating with tax collectors and sinners
2. Healing the hemorrhaging woman
3, Healing or resurrecting Jarius’s daughter (Jairus is named in Mark but not in Matthew)
To be a follower of Jesus means to follow Jesus to the last, the lost, and the least. To follow Jesus to the outcast, those deemed as “unclean” or “other,” to go to those who need the presence of Jesus in their lives - and in doing these things, disrupt the status quo.
Jesus invites Matthew to follow him and goes right to a dinner party where there were tax collectors and “sinners.” Eating with those who were often considered unworthy or not respectable is a hallmark of Jesus’s ministry. In the Gospel of Luke, he is even called a drunkard because of the amount of table fellowship he has and who he shares that table fellowship with.
The Pharisees ask - why do you eat with those people? Jesus answers, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick [do].” In the next couple of verses they ask Jesus about fasting and he tells them he is not putting old wine into new wine skins but doing a completely new thing.
What this means is Jesus is outright telling the Pharisees who would be considered the “respectable church people of the day” that he was going to be doing things in a new way. And that meant going to people who were considered being on the outskirts of society, those who really needed a physician - of body and/or soul.
The tax collectors and sinners were those who needed a physician for their souls. The very next encounter Jesus had was with the hemorrhaging woman who touched the cloak of Jesus to be healed.
This woman had been suffering from hemorrhages for 12 years. The Greek seems to imply that it is a bleeding or menstrual issue. An illness that not only would have been painful. An illness that not only took all her money to try and fix and just made it worse. But also an illness that would have made her ritually unclean - unfit for society - unable to touch others. An illness that would have affected her mentally and emotionally as well as physically - as anyone who has had a long-term illness knows. It’s never just the body - it’s all of you.
So, yes, she needed a physician. She needed Jesus. For her body - and also her soul as well. She needed the wholeness of healing.
She had heard about Jesus - but she didn’t presume she was worthy of his healing. She was not even permitted to touch him. She would make him unclean. She had spent the last twelve years of her life being estranged from others, being an outcast - in pain and made to feel less than. And still - she had faith, that if she could just...touch his clothes - it would be enough - she would be healed…
And so in the crowd, people pushing against each other every which way, a massive throng - she reached out...and touched Jesus - or really just his clothes. And instantly, knew she was healed. And Jesus turns to her and says, “Take heart - you have been healed.”
Just as eating with sinners and outcasts is a hallmark of Jesus’s ministry, so is healing. Jesus heals many people - and often - those who need physical healing, they also need healing in their souls and healing in their relationships within society, their place in community. Because of their sickness, they have been pushed to the side, ostracized, labeled as other or unworthy. And so Jesus offered this woman healing not just of her body but of her soul as well.
And then Jesus goes to the house of the girl who has died, at the bequest of her father. Of course, Jesus says she is just sleeping, but everyone else thinks she’s dead. And he tells her to get up, and she does. A healing has taken place. Life snatched from death - whether in death already or on the edge of it - and comfort brought to the mourning.
This girl, and all grieving her, needed a physician.
Just as eating with sinners and healing the sick are hallmarks of Jesus’s ministry so too is bringing Good News to the mourning - and, of course, resurrection.
Jesus preaches on the Sermon on the Mount that those who mourn will be blessed for they are comforted. Jesus weeps over Lazarus and with his mourning sisters. Jesus goes to the cross and to the grave and defeats the powers of Death.
Jesus goes to the places of no hope, the places where all seems lost - and to the people of no hope and to the people to whom all seems lost - and he brings healing and hope.
These are the immediate actions of Jesus after he invites Matthew to follow him: eating with the outcasts, healing the ostracized, and bringing healing and hope to a hopeless place. Actions that are repeated throughout his ministry. As Jesus showed all who followed him then and us through the ages what it means to be a follower of Jesus - to buck the status quo and to go to the last, the lost, the least, the outcast, the sick, the grieving. To go to those who need Jesus.
And so, I recognize today that I probably fall into the category of those who would be considered more like the Pharisees questioning Jesus - those “respectable church people” - as do most if not all of us in this room - so I have two questions for all of us today, including myself. Those questions are:
1. Do you need Jesus?
And
2. Will you follow Jesus to those who need him?
If we’re being really honest, these are hard questions. We want them to be simple questions. We want them to be obvious “Yes!” answers. And yet, when we live into the questions, they can become something we wrestle with.
When we think of those who need Jesus, do we think of ourselves? Or do we think of them, whoever them might be, everyone but you and people like you, the people whom Jesus would get flack for having a dinner party with.
Or. You might be at a place in your life where you are painfully aware that yes, you need Jesus. You or a loved one might need Jesus the Physician, healing in your life - body and/or soul. It is at life’s hardest moments, that we often come to the realization of our deep seated need for Jesus. The realization that comes from the depth of despair, from a hard to swallow diagnosis, in grief, in a season of loss or listlessness.
Realizing that we need Jesus is often a painful realization that comes to us at times when everything is not going well, when we or the ones we love are the ones in need of healing from Jesus.
And so, if we were being really honest and self-reflective, we may not want to admit that we need Jesus. Because we don’t want to be in those hard seasons of our lives. Or we are lucky enough to not be going through one of those soul-barring seasons. If everything is going well, we can trick ourselves into thinking that we don’t really need Jesus.
Frankly, we may not need or want Jesus if Jesus means disrupting the status quo, not having things our way, and realizing that we are not dependent on ourselves - and that needing Jesus, receiving Jesus, in and of itself, means following Jesus.
Following Jesus to those we might not want to go towards. Following Jesus to those we or society may deem unclean, those we may deem unworthy, those we may not deem “not like us.”
When we open ourselves up to needing Jesus, we inherently also go to those who are also in need of Jesus. This following of Jesus to the outcast, the sick, the grieving, the last, the lost and the least - This is not proselytizing. It is not going to someone and saying “you need Jesus, turn around, repent - and become like me” - because remember, we/you/I are all in need of Jesus too. We can’t proselytize and shame people into following Jesus. We can’t separate ourselves and the world into categories of people who need Jesus and people who don’t. This is not an us versus them. This is a recognition that all of us, including those of us in the pews, are in need of Christ’s love, are in need of Christ’s presence, are in need of Christ’s healing for our souls. We need the Great Physician.
And so, as those who have received and are receiving, the healing and loving presence of Jesus in our lives, we want to share this with others - people who may be different on the outside but inside are all the same, in need of love - sharing Christ’s love wherever we go. Wherever we follow Jesus to.
This can look like a lot of things.
It can look like intentionally forming a friendship with someone who is different from you and/or especially those who may be considered unwelcome or an outcast from those on the “respectable” side of society such as those on the margins due to their race, gender or sexual identity, immigration status, or more. To get to know a person simply as a fellow person.
It can look like a church hosting speakers from all parts of life and all areas of the community so that the church can learn empathy for those whose lives have been different.
It can look like a church having a free little pantry so they are always offering food to their hungry neighbors, no strings attached.
It can look like a church sponsoring a little league baseball team, showing up to cheer on the team, and getting to know their families - not in the hopes they will come and join their church, but simply to be a positive influence in their lives.
It can look like being a hospice volunteer or making a meal for a grieving family.
It can look like becoming more hospitable and welcoming to those on the margins - and becoming an advocate and ally with and for them.
All of these are examples of things that I know churches and Christians are currently doing as they seek to follow Jesus.
It can look like doing whatever it is that God has called you to do - as an individual and as a community - in humble service and love, knowing that we don’t bring Jesus to the last, the lost, and the least - Jesus is already there, we simply follow Jesus there, being his hands and feet.
Open yourself up to needing Jesus - for Jesus will come to you.
Open yourself up to following Jesus - for Jesus will use you to do a new thing.
We live in the messiness of this combination - needing Jesus and going to those who need Jesus on behalf of Jesus - to be clear, Jesus is already with them - and yet we are the hands and feet who actively share the love of Jesus.
And so, I am going to end with these two questions again:
1. Do you need Jesus?
2. Will you follow Jesus to those who need him?
May we answer - yes, and yes.
Amen.
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