The story is told of a hunter from a remote area in Northern Canada who went to see the local missionary who had been preaching in the village.

“Let me ask you,” the hunter said, “If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?”

“No,” the missionary said, “Not if you did not know.”

“Then why,” asked the hunter, “did you come to tell me about them?”

Annie Dillard tells that story in her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

What the story seems to suggest is that God, sin, and hell are things that do not exist until a missionary comes to town and starts preaching about them.

Some preachers are more than happy to tell you all about sin and how it can land you in a lot of trouble – eternal trouble.

But while some preachers spend much time and energy talking about how people are all sinners – as if that were the primary definition of who we are – and THE most important topic for sermons and Bible Studies - I prefer to focus, not on what is WRONG about US – but on what is RIGHT about GOD – and so today’s sermon title is all wrong.

It made sense on Wednesday, when I thought I knew where the sermon was headed – but, as sometimes happens, the Spirit had another sermon in mind – one that didn’t materialize until after the bulletins were already printed.

The preferred title would be – CALLING ALL WHO ARE BELOVED – for surely, that is how God sees us.

“Beloved” more accurately describes our core identity as far as God is concerned – and THAT ought to be what concerns us.

God declares that we are beloved – regardless of who we are, and in spite of what we do.

This is not to say that what we do doesn’t matter to God – but what we do does not alter our identity as God’s beloved.

First and foremost, we are loved - created in the image of God – created to bear witness to the love of God - and when we get that firmly planted in our brains and our hearts – when we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are BELOVED OF GOD - then we can turn our attention properly to the shadow side of ourselves – that side of us where pride and greed and jealousy, and all those other things that we call ‘sin’ resides – that part of us that yields to the various temptations that present themselves to us daily – that part of us that sometimes gets in the way of us having a close, intimate relationship with God.

And when we turn to face our shadow side, we find that God is already there, waiting to forgive us and restore us to our better selves.

Long before there were preachers, churches, or sacred written texts, there were the essential human experiences of both community and alienation, of connection with and estrangement from the Divine – from God.

Paintings of those experiences can be found on the walls of prehistoric caves, and richly symbolic stories about them still exist from times that pre-date the written language.

Before there was any such thing as the Christian doctrine of original sin, there was a story - about a man and a woman - the first man and woman - who lived in a beautiful garden full of peacocks and calla lilies and panda bears.

This paradise contained everything their hearts could desire, including the close, sheltering presence of God – with whom they walked and talked.

God asked them to care for the garden – and set one restriction before them – only one - Don’t eat the fruit of one particular tree – which, of course, became a temptation for them – and as the man and woman gave in to the temptation, it altered the relationship between themselves – and between themselves and God.

They experienced the consequences of choosing unwisely – for the humans found themselves sent out of the Garden where they came to know the harsher realities of life.

The story is an eternal one that speaks the truth of lost innocence and broken relationships and the implications of pride, which often lies at the heart of disobedience. We disobey because we think we know better.

It is a story that helped our ancestors better understand themselves and the world in which they lived - a world that contained both good and evil - both life and death.

It is our story. It includes us. We are there in the garden – being loved – being asked to care for the garden - but also being tempted to do what we have been told not to do - and, sometimes we manage - and sometimes we yield to the temptation.

We are people who sometimes sin – but our primary identity is NOT that of pridefully-disobedient, temptation-yielding, sinner.

I believe that the identity we claim for our self, matters.
It matters in terms of how we think about ourselves, how we view and interact with the people around us and the world as a whole.

Some of you may remember me telling you about an experience I had while I served as Chaplain at a Guidance Conference.

I was leading an activity with the students in which we were looking into the meaning of our names.

I had done my research, and had given each of the students a card on which was written their name, its inherent meaning and the spiritual connotation associated with their name.

There was also a verse from scripture which was significant for their name.

I asked that they read their card and then spend some time considering what was written, and think about the ways in which any of it resonated with them – or not.

In the discussion time, a while later, one of the students spoke through her tears.

Her name meant “Beloved of God” – and she said that it was the very first time in her life that she had ever known herself to be ‘beloved’ of anyone.

That became a defining moment - a transformational moment for her.

That was close to 10 years ago – and while at that time, she presented herself as rather insecure and withdrawn theology student, I now experience her as a much more confident, self-composed, articulate minister.

She embraced the meaning of her name – and lived into her identity as ‘beloved of God’.

Who we believe ourselves to be, matters.

Michael J. Formica is a board certified counselor, integral life coach, teacher and self-development expert who writes and lectures extensively on spirituality, psychology and related disciplines.

In an article in Psychology Today, he writes:
By holding firm to our sense of identity, and remaining conscious of the source of that identity, we can better weather the storms of uncertainty and chaos with which we may be confronted.
From this vantage, the crisis becomes a problem to be solved or, in the best of all possible worlds, an opportunity to be exploited.

To return to the couple in the garden, their disobedience did not ultimately break their relationship with God – because that relationship was not dependent on what they did, but on who God is.

The nature of God, as we read in the psalm, is steadfastly loving, righteous and just – and we know from other places in scripture that God’s nature is that of forgiving, merciful, compassionate and gracious.

It was true then. It is true now.

It is with all this background that we finally come to the reading from Matthew’s gospel.

To the religious authorities it was scandalous that Jesus kept company with the likes of Matthew.

Tax collectors like Matthew were considered traitorous – working as they did, for the Romans – and his trade easily lent itself to extortion.

Tax collectors often took more money from people than was required by law, and they often kept it to line their own pockets.

Tax collectors’ money was not acceptable as an offering at the Temple. Their evidence was not accepted in the court of law.

Like his tax collecting colleagues, Matthew was an outcast – used by the Romans – despised by his own Jewish neighbours.

It’s not clear who the other ‘sinners’ were who dined together that evening – no word of who they were or what they did.

They were all lumped together and labelled ‘sinners’ - and it was thought by many that Jesus ought to have known to keep his distance – but instead, he called to Matthew to “Come and Follow” – and then dined at Matthew’s house.

I realize that Jesus explained that his reason for doing this was because he had come, not to call the righteous, but the sinners – thereby identifying Matthew as a sinner - however, I wonder if Jesus used the terms ‘’righteous’ and ‘sinner’ because they were the terms used by the religious authorities to categorize people – the terms that Matthew and his friends would have understood.

However, another, perhaps more scandalous, but possible option is that Matthew himself – the author of the gospel, some decades later, writing about himself and his encounter with Jesus - put those words into Jesus’ mouth.

Perhaps, at the time of the encounter, Matthew considered himself to be nothing but a sinner – having, no doubt, heard everyone speak of him and his kind in such terms.

In his commentary on this passage, George Buttrick writes; (When he looked at Matthew), Jesus saw a child of God and a herald of the kingdom in the unlikely man – before the man himself awoke to his destiny.” (The Interpreters Bible – Volume 7 – page 352)

Consider for a moment, the way in which you think of yourself.
What are some of the words that you associate with yourself?

Not the words that describe what you DO – but the words that describe who you ARE.

To add to that list, let me suggest these words from scripture:

You are God’s child – Galatians 3:26

You are Jesus’ friend – John 15:15

You are God’s work of art – Ephesians 2:10

You are totally and completely forgiven – 1 John 1:9

You are created in God’s likeness – Ephesians 4:24

You are God’s messenger in the world – Matthew 1:8

You are the light of the world – Matthew 5:14

Let the story be told of a congregation in rural Ontario who was once told by a preacher who they were – who they really were – not because SHE said so – but because GOD said so.

Amen – and to God be all the glory.