Sermon 17th Sunday after Trinity NKS 2024

So much happens while music is playing. There are so many notes in the air. Suddenly some voices stop and others start. The ear and the whole body feel it. The unspeakable and the unspoken are in the air. Moods that affect us.

We know perfectly well. It is one thing to play or sing notes. It is something else altogether to turn them into music. Music is like everything else: love, justice, rejoicing, grief, desire/ longing. It requires courage, responsiveness, practice, preparation, genius to don the interpretation. People must hear the dance of the notes; they must be touched and moved by them.

Today, it is no different with the narrative to which we add music, song and narrative interpretation at least every other year. There is a lot happening at one and the same time. Levi, the tax collector, (perhaps Matthew the Evangelist) gets up and follows Jesus. Levi must have been touched by Jesus’ words and deeds and joins him. This is the first theme.

And then there’s a meal at Levi’s. This is in disharmony with the social music of the time. Can Jesus not even take himself seriously and avoid these types? He pays no heed to their traditions. It is as though he does not believe in justice! It is though he does not believe in their preparation for the Kingdom of God. It is as though he is rejecting the entire tradition of their training and heritage. It is no wonder that they fume with rage. That was the second theme.

The third theme: fasting. No, in those times it was not about mortifying the flesh in the hope of a better life. It was a public expression of mourning– mourning for something past, for something dead, for something lost. Whereas the disciples of tradition fast, Jesus’ disciples fête him. They must be mad not to conform.

So today we hear a story that can be summarised in three parts: follow me – I have come to call the unrighteous – and remember now: new wine in new wineskins. If you pour wine into old wineskins, you will end up spilling it all over yourself!

It is a showdown with those who want to play it safe, with the confident and with those who are absolutely convinced that they are doing the right thing. The culture of correctness is taking a beating. It is still reverberating and the corpse is spinning … from top to toe!

On this occasion, it becomes clear once again that it is not “justice” that stands at the top of Jesus’ agenda. It is the love that turns status on its head, masters into servants, the poor, the merciful and the compassionate into the blessed.

It is a whole new world and the truth that has come crashing down to Earth is that we humans live by compassion and forgiveness.

‘Follow me’ means that we are liberated from all sorts of humiliations that people might subject us to when they figure out what to do to be right. Our identity is not dependent on what others think of us. Those who follow Jesus experience being empowered, set free from the judgement and prejudice of others.

He makes it clear that being loved is feeling the affection and closeness of another person when you do not have much good to say about yourself and all you can really do is to feel annoyed or ashamed.

But there is another person who loves you, who picks you up, who makes you see and hear, who gives you life.

Jesus challenges the notion that love, mercy, forgiveness and insight only come conditionally, when you have overcome all your wickedness, lies, stupidity and rigidity. God’s deep-seated compassion and longing for humankind awaken courage in humankind to live.

That’s why we should not stop and be satisfied with the joy that he sits at the table with the self-important, the downtrodden and tax collectors. He awakens our humanity and our courage to go places we never thought we would dare to go. He makes us sing songs or play music. He gives us the courage to keep playing and singing, even though we do not always hit the right notes or can sense neither the graceful sound, the quiet sigh nor the overwhelming. And yet while we think, sing, play, hope and long, we can sense that there is a new wine and it will intoxicate us with life and freedom, with music, poetry and happiness. There is a wine that transforms and does not bring us to a standstill in our inadequacy. He overcomes both that inadequacy and shame with compassion and jubilation, with light and brightness and gives us a distinct feeling that be it with love or with music the same applies: no one can ever get enough!

Københavns Biskop, Peter Skov-Jakobsen