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Rev. Will Malambri - "Pass Me Not" · Belin Memorial UMC

• Belin Memorial UMC: you me not, gentle Savior. you you Do not pass me by Savior, Savior, hear my Soon I'll pass me by Find a sweet relief you Savior, hear my humble Do not cast me You beside me Savior, hear my humble cry now Do not cast me by you I think Fanny Crosby would approve. That was her first mega hit, Fanny's. She wrote that way back in 1868. And I don't know whether she imagined it being sung and played that way or not, but I think it's a compliment to the way she wrote it. We're not the first to have adjusted her singing her songs a little bit. That do not pass me by. That's been going on for a while. Let's see. Bill Gaither did a version of it. Lyle Lovett did a version of it. Bob Dylan apparently opened some concerts with it. And maybe most surprising of all, MC Hammer had a too legit version of that song. I think that one probably would surprise Fanny the most. Those men, I'm sure, took the time to learn the back story of that, but maybe you don't quite know it, so let me tell you about it. Fanny was born, and six weeks later she lost her vision for some reason, was blind for the rest of her life. And even though she had that... ⁓ deal with, Fanny ended up writing over 8,500 songs and poems that would be put to song across her days. She was a lifelong Methodist and she had written some of the more famous gospel songs of that era that we still sing today like what we just sang. The story about that particular song is that as a poet and a speaker as well as a songwriter, she would go and speak to places and one of days she was at a in Manhattan and she talked a little bit and they sang some of her songs and then as she was leaving she heard one of the inmates cry out, good Lord do not pass me by. And that remained with her and it said that that very night she went home and wrote the hymn we just sang. As we sang that version together, I wonder if you were thinking of the appeal you are making before Christ, the appeal that prisoner made before Christ, this idea that even though Lord, we're grateful that you are not passing by others, we would ask you also to not pass by us. We celebrate that you are doing the things to take care of others, Lord. Please don't forget. me in the process. Do not pass us by Jesus. Do not pass by a blind poet. Do not pass by a prisoner, a gospel artist, a country singer, a rapper, a collection of people with our own variety of needs and concerns in our life. Do not pass us by, ⁓ gentle savior. It's a prayer worth praying because it indicates that we don't take for granted that Jesus would not pass us by, that we recognize that he has a choice and that he could pass right by us and he is not obligated to do what we would have him do. He is not obligated even give us attention, yet he does. And yet, he does. Regardless of how worthy and unworthy we are, Jesus does not pass us by. He chooses to care for us. And yet let's be honest, there can be moments in our lives, maybe periods of our lives where we wonder, is this the time when he has neglected me? Is this the time where he has overlooked me? Is this the time where Jesus is passing me by? Because it can feel that way. And if we're feeling that and we're honest, we might say, well, I can understand why, Lord. I've done this thing. I've been this way. I've neglected to do this thing. I can understand why you would pass me by. And other times we may feel just the opposite. We see other people and we say, what is wrong with Jesus? The attention that he's giving that person who did that thing, that person who is that way, the way he seems to be taking care of that person and seems to be overlooking me as he does. What's wrong? with Jesus. Wherever you are on that spectrum, I hope that you'll listen as I read this scripture from Matthew chapter nine and pay attention to who Jesus does not pass by in these stories. As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax collecting station 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 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 this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice, for I have come to call the right, not come to call the righteous, but sinners. 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. And suddenly a woman who had been suffering from a flow of blood for 12 years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak. For she was saying to herself, If only I 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 the woman was made well from that moment. When Jesus came to the leader's house and saw the flute players in the crowd making a commotion, he said, go away for this 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 through all the district. Jesus is not passed by Matthew, a tax collector. He did not pass by those who gathered at the dinner with him, the tax collectors and sinners. He did not pass by a leader whose daughter had died and he did not pass by a woman who was suffering from a bleeding issue for 12 years. He did not pass any of those by. And while those are not your issues, It indicates to us who Jesus is and how Jesus is, that if He would not pass them by, He will not pass you by. Take Matthew, a tax collector. to his neighbors, to his community. He had betrayed them and betrayed God, siding instead with their Roman occupiers, getting rich on their backs as he benefited the people who were oppressing them. He was no friend, he was no ally, he was a danger, he was a threat. and Jesus did not pass him by. And we say, well, yeah, of course, but Matthew changed. And we trust that he did. You can't spend years with Jesus and not be changed by it, but he had not changed that day. That day he was still in the tax collecting booth when Jesus called him. Jesus didn't wait for him to change, to not pass him by. Jesus called him from the place where he was into a new life. And night Matthew hosted a dinner party and he brought his friends and who were his friends but other tax collectors and so-called sinners and they gathered together at the meal and Jesus was there with them. He did not pass them by and in that meal he indicated to those onlookers that he was more troubled than they thought. Because while our English versions say they were at dinner together, what the versions of the Greek said is they reclined together, which was not uncommon. That's how meals were shared in those days. You'd recline together. You will be near each other. It's a closeness that we would be uncomfortable with during a dinner. But it was a show of respect. And so the Pharisees could watch this happen. They could point to this and say, see, we told you this is how he is. Obviously, he's a friend of tax collectors and sinners and therefore must be more like them than you would. want to admit. It's the kind of thing we hear people say when maybe one person from one political party ends up having dinner with a person from another political party and all the media wants to make a big deal of it. Look, these two people have had dinner together and then their supporters start saying, well, maybe we can't really trust the one we thought we could trust because there he is having a meal with a person of the party we can't like. If you're not fully one of us, if you're willing to be with someone like that, then how can we trust you would be someone we can support. And that's kind of the mentality, kind of the way they were going about it. The Pharisees were wanting to plant that doubt, to give suspicion, to make an accusation about Jesus' character by pointing to who he would have dinner with, who he would spend time with, and Jesus knew they would do that. Jesus knew that they wanted to control the narrative and say things about him, and if they could point to that moment, that would give them a chance to undermine him. And knowing that's how they would do, he still had dinner with the tax collectors and with the sinners. And he explained it. He explained his behavior. Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Despite the assumptions the Pharisees wanted to make about him, despite the attacks they wanted to place on him, the mischaracterizations Jesus was willing to dine with, to be alongside, to befriend tax collectors and sinners because he was a healer and he knew the way that healing actually happens. Healing requires proximity. It requires closeness. It even can demand touch. You don't heal someone by shaming them into submission. You don't heal someone by avoiding them until they've gotten right enough for you to be invited in. You don't heal someone by passing them by. At least Jesus did. He operated by his understanding that God means mercy, not sacrifice. That's what God wants. God prefers genuine compassion and grace over some kind of public show that pretends to look like it's for God, but really is trying to look good for somebody else. And so in doing for God, Jesus does not pass by sinners, but calls sinners that we may be healed. by his invitation, by our following, by his mercy. That we will become those who are less likely to pass others by because we realize that Jesus did not pass us by. And so while Jesus was explaining this to those who were making accusations about him, a leader, and we can presume a synagogue leader, someone who would have known the cost to him and to Jesus for coming and request Jesus help, he would have known that as a synagogue leader, he was going to have to pay for choosing Jesus as a source of help, for seeking that Jesus would give him some kind of assistance. And yet he still came and he asked Jesus, would you please come and see to my daughter who has just died. And he knew what he was asking. He knew that he would be judged, that he would be scorned by his neighbors, by his community, by his fellow synagogue leaders for choosing to turn to Jesus and yet he did. Because there are certain matters in life where your peers opinion is put into proper perspective. You always choose your child's life and well-being. over whatever judgment they may render against you for choosing that. And so he did. The synagogue leader did because as important as it was to him to be a synagogue leader, it was more important to him to be a father. And as a father, he knew that he was willing to pay that price for his daughter. He also, as a synagogue leader, knew that Jesus would pay a price for this. To touch a corpse would make somebody ritually unclean. Jesus would have to go through a cleansing process before he could return to the temple. He knew he was asking a lot of Jesus to come and to touch his daughter. He asked anyway. And Jesus went anyway. Because the man was right. Jesus not only could heal his daughter. Jesus was willing to have mercy for him and his daughter and was willing to sacrifice his cost in order to do so. And while they were making their way for Jesus to go and to bring healing to his daughter, the bleeding woman found Jesus on the path. and she, someone who also would make Jesus ritually unclean should he touch her. She reached out to him hoping, hoping, in fact taking what she thought was something he may not give. She didn't, couldn't demand of Jesus that he would heal her. She wasn't even sure he would pay her attention. Who was she to a rabbi? Who was she to someone people were calling the Messiah? She didn't know if he would give her the time of day, but if she could just touch his clothing. And so she did. And when she did, he turned around and he looked at her and he opened his mouth. And you can imagine that she was waiting for the attack to come when he said to her, take heart, daughter. faith has made you well. She believed that Jesus had the power and it turns out he only had the power but he had the mercy to grant her the healing she sought. And he called her daughter, having just been with a man whose daughter had died and was willing to sacrifice everything in his life to bring his daughter back to life, Jesus was willing to call this woman daughter when he could have called her any name he wanted at that time. He did not pass her by. So what do we have? Tax collectors, sinners, synagogue leaders and their children, women bleeding for years, insiders, outsiders, those with sudden needs, those with long-term needs, you and me and whatever circumstances we have going on in our life, Jesus does not pass us by which is cause for celebration. When we sing our final hymn today, our final song today, I hope you sing as those who understand Jesus does not pass us by. He pauses for us. He pauses with us. Even if the healing is not immediate, is not obvious, or is not the way that we would have had it go, Jesus gives it. At some point, he gives it because whatever the personal cost to him, he desires mercy and is the first to grant it. And in return... He asked that he not be the only one to grant it or the last. And we turn to him with our humble prayer, when others thou art calling do not pass us by. We recognize that we are blessed if he chooses to not pass by as we're humble about that. He also wants us humble enough to not bypass others, to not dismiss them, to not think so lowly of others or ourselves as to think Jesus would prefer not to deal with us and to think so highly of him to think he does. choose and want to deal with us. And so therefore we stay in close proximity to him. we invite others into that same close proximity. praying, pass me not, O gentle savior, and hearing his reply, I never will. and now it's the same with you. And so Lord, we pray. that you will not pass us by. We give thanks that you do not pass us by because you are our source of hope and healing. You're the one who calls us before we are worthy and who changes us through proximity to you. You're the one who meets us with our own variety of issues and does not turn away. Help us Lord to be a community that hears your call and follows. That demonstrates mercy and peace in a world with too many examples of vengeance and war. We pray for just and lasting peace throughout the world, including in Ukraine and Russia, between Israel, Iran, Lebanon, and the United States. We pray for those whose lives are endangered by the wars and for those who have lost loved ones due to them. We pray for wise leadership to help us get past this. We pray also for wise leadership within our church, particularly today, the United Methodist Church of South Carolina as we gather for our conference. Let the meeting be what you need it to be so that you will be honored within it and beyond it. As we remember together that your love and mercy are such that you hear and respond when we ask for help, that you hear and respond when we ask for forgiveness. So we ask you now to hear us in the quiet of this moment as we silently confess our need for help and our confession of sin.