Who Belongs at the Kingdom Table? Mercy Over Sacrifice
Proper 5 · Matthew 9:9–13, 18–26 · Hosea 5:15–6:6

When Jesus called a tax collector and sat down to dinner with the very people religious society had written off, the Pharisees asked the question that still echoes today: “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” In the second message of our summer series, The Kingdom Announced, we discover that Jesus’ answer — “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” — is the defining ethic of the Kingdom of God. From a tax collector’s banquet to a woman healed after twelve years of exclusion, we’ll see a Kingdom that is not a reward for the already-righteous but a rescue for the sick, and a table set far wider than we tend to expect. Along the way, an honest question for every church: who have we decided doesn’t belong here — and what would it mean to open our arms the way Christ opened his?