For quite a while I’ve been wanting to do a study on Jesus and His interaction with people. I’ve been curious about how He related to people, how He impacted people’s lives, and how He instructed people. And so now finally, this opportunity to bring the message today has given me an opportunity to do that study, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to share what I’ve learned and grateful that you all are willing to put up with yet another week of amateur hour.
I did my study in the book of Matthew. Now according to Matthew, Jesus’ first interactions with individual people were when He called His disciples and Matthew really elaborates very little on how Jesus interacted with the disciples beyond saying that Jesus simply said “Follow Me”. I’ve always found it fascinating that these people dropped everything to follow Jesus, but the Bible really doesn’t shed a whole lot of light on what caused the disciples to leave their lives behind in the way that they did, but suffice it to say that Jesus must have been quite persuasive.
It’s really not until the eighth chapter of Matthew that we begin to find the first interactions between Jesus and individual people. In the eighth chapter Matthew begins with the story of a leper approaching Jesus and saying “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean”. According to Matthew, Jesus puts out His hand, touches the man, and says “I am willing, be cleansed”, and the man was immediately healed. In this first healing we already see something remarkable, even beyond the miraculous healing. As is so often the case, there are layers to this story, and without our knowing the background information it’s easy to miss the deeper meaning.
Let me read a little passage from Leviticus 13:45-46: “Now the leper on whom the sore is, his clothes shall be torn and his head bare; and he shall cover his mustache, and cry, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ He shall be unclean. All the days he has the sore he shall be unclean. He is unclean, and he shall dwell alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.
A person with leprosy was expelled from the community. Lepers had to live by themselves, and when they encountered other people they were required to yell loudly “Unclean, unclean” so that people would know to stay away. It was strictly forbidden for a leper to touch anyone and people would always give lepers a very wide berth. And so, as if it wasn’t bad enough for them to be afflicted with an awful disease, they became social outcasts as well. It is understandable that people would avoid lepers though, leprosy is contagious, and just as we sometimes, during passing of the peace, refuse to allow people to shake our hand when we have a cold, so it was that people sought to protect themselves when they were around someone who had a contagious and debilitating skin condition. Add to all of that the fact that if you did touch a leper, it made you ritually unclean yourself; unable to attend worship for a specified period of time, and in some instances even preventing you from interacting with your own spouse or your own family. And then all of that is followed by an elaborate cleansing ritual. And so, it’s no wonder that people stayed far away.
So, looking at this story, what is the first thing that Jesus did, even before He declared Himself willing to heal this man? He reached out and He touched him. This man may conceivably have gone for months or even years without human touch, and Jesus compassion was such that His first instinct was to touch the man. The leper was instantly healed, but understanding this underlying story we see that the physical malady was only a part of what Jesus healed. In touching this man, Jesus was restoring him to his place in the community. The love and compassion that Jesus exhibited in the act of touching him would have carried a deep meaning to this man, and to anyone else who witnessed the event.
The next person Jesus healed was a centurion’s servant. The centurion asked Jesus to heal his servant, who was paralyzed, but he told Jesus that he was unworthy to have Jesus come to His house. The centurion explained that, as a man both under authority and with authority over others, he knew that when he commanded something be done that it would be done. He told Jesus that he knew that Jesus was able to heal his servant without Him actually having to be there. Jesus commended the man’s faith and healed his servant right then and there.
The Bible doesn’t tell us if the centurion was Jewish or not, though the text implies he was not “I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!” Jesus said. The Jews of Jesus’ day despised the Romans and resented the occupation. The centurion, Jewish or not, would have been viewed by the general public with great disdain, but Jesus didn’t hesitate to heal his servant; or to commend the man for his faith. It didn’t matter to Jesus whether this man was Jewish or not, and since centurions were conscripted from all over the Roman Empire, it’s entirely possible that the centurion wasn’t even middle eastern, and the centurion’s race didn’t matter to Jesus either. The only thing that mattered to Jesus was the compassion and love that He had for this man, and for his servant.
Next Matthew tells us that Jesus visited Peter. Noticing that Peter’s wife’s mother was sick, Jesus took her hand and healed her. Peter’s mother in law immediately got up and began attending to Jesus and his disciples. That evening many sick people were brought to Jesus and Matthew tells us that He healed them all.
Now, tell me something… What DIDN’T happen here? What does the Bible tell us Jesus said to these people? Except for commending the centurion; nothing. Jesus wasn’t evangelizing, He was responding to the needs of people with compassion and love.
In the next two chapters of Matthew, Jesus heals a demon possessed man and a paralytic. He raised a girl from the dead, restored the sight of two blind men and then Matthew tells the story of the woman who had suffered with a bleeding issue for years who touched Jesus’ cloak thinking that if only she was able to touch His cloak that she would be healed. Again, we need to understand the underlying story. Her bleeding made her unclean, and being unclean, it was strictly forbidden for her to touch anyone, due to the fact that touching them would have made them unclean as well. Jesus immediately realized what had happened, but Jesus had no trouble with her touching Him. Instead, He commended her faith and healed her. It didn’t matter to Jesus that she was “unclean”, it didn’t matter to Jesus that she was a woman. Jesus simply saw someone in need, and in keeping with the love and compassion that are at the core of His being, He healed her.
Matthew then tells us that “Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd.” Matthew never once focuses on who ended up following Jesus; that just wasn’t the point. Matthew focused on the compassion and love that Jesus exhibited.
As we get deeper into the study, we find a pattern to these interactions. The healing of people, more often than not results in deep feelings of gratitude among the healed, who either end up following Jesus, or going home and telling absolutely everyone they meet what Jesus had done for them.
As we reach the twelfth chapter of Matthew, we begin to find a different type of interaction. Matthew tells the story that Jesus and His disciples were walking through a grain field, and his disciples, hungry from their journey, began to pick some of the heads of grain and eat them. Unfortunately, they were doing this on the Sabbath, and picking the heads of grain was considered work, and was therefore prohibited on the Sabbath. The Pharisees confronted Jesus about this, and Jesus responded that He was Lord of the Sabbath, and that if the Pharisees truly understood God’s Word, that they wouldn’t be accusing the innocent. It was just the beginning of the problems that Jesus had with the religious establishment. Not too long after Jesus went into a synagogue where the Pharisees intended to trap Him. A man with a withered hand ais in the synagogue, and the Pharisees asked Jesus if I was lawful to heal on the Sabbath. Again, Jesus corrected their misunderstanding of the Law before going ahead and healing the man’s hand in the presence of the entire assembly.
The Pharisees and teachers of the Law ended up receiving the brunt of most of the harsh words that Jesus spoke in the Bible, and it may be fair to ask where was the love and compassion of Jesus as he dealt with these particular children of God? I believe that when we ask ourselves this question that there are two things at which we need to look.
First, Jesus made it clear that the Pharisees were turning people away from God’s love. The Pharisees demanded adherence to a multitude of interpretations of the Law. This demand to adhere to all of these regulations, ended up creating a religion of merit. Those who followed the minutia of the Law were, as a result, right with God, and those who didn’t follow the minutia of the Law were considered to be sinners, and were assumed to be outside of the umbrella of God’s love; and this was just wrong. Jesus needed to make the point that God’s love is not conditional on human goodness. God’s love is given out of the depth of God’s grace as He seeks to call as many of His beloved children to Himself as He possibly can. The Pharisees were interfering with that process and Jesus reacted forcefully in defense of those who were being incorrectly taught that they weren’t worthy of God’s love.
Second, when humans are stubbornly sure of themselves, and convinced of the rightness of their beliefs, it’s nearly impossible for them to be convinced that they may possibly be wrong. I believe that Jesus WAS acting in love and compassion as he sought to break through their wall of certainty and teach them that their faith is actually designed to be centered not on following rules and regulations, but rather to be centered on living lives of love, compassion, and justice. This is the very heart of God’s law, as exemplified in the life of Jesus.
And so, we see in the interactions that Jesus had with these people, a depth of compassion and love that flowed from His very core. And here is the truly revolutionary thought: Jesus didn’t have any ulterior motives when He healed these people. Jesus had no expectation that He would be compensated in any way for healing them, and Jesus never actually asked for anything in return, except that they responded to Jesus’ love and compassion by living lives of love and compassion themselves. This is what Jesus asks when He says “Follow me”.
It’s not a matter of “I’ll heal you if you follow me” or “I’ll heal you if you love me”, or “I’ll heal you if you tell everyone about me”. No! In fact, Jesus usually admonished people NOT to tell anyone about what happened. For Jesus, kindness and compassion was all the reason He needed to step in and help those who were in need; and when Jesus calls us, it is this to which we are called.
And there was something else that I learned in this study as well. Most of you have heard me speak of sin before, maybe many times before, but I’d like to take a moment to remind you that there are several root words in the Greek that are all translated into the English word “Sin”, and all but one of these words have some variation of meaning related to the performing of an evil act, permitting an evil act, having the propensity to commit evil acts, or failing to prevent an evil act, and these words pretty much sum up the modern conception of the meaning of the word “sin”, and yet all of these words combined are used only a handful of times in the Bible. The remaining word, ‘amartia. appears 151 times in the Bible. Now ‘amartia is a word that an archer would use if he shot his arrow and hit the target, but missed the bullseye. It is a word that literally means to miss the mark, or to fail to meet a set standard, and it is a word that could appropriately be translated “Imperfection”.
I’ve always held the theologically conservative view that forgiveness of our imperfections is necessary in order to restore a right relationship with a holy God who cannot look upon sin, so to me, the forgiveness of sin has always been something that was God centered; we need His forgiveness so that we may have communion with Him. And while that is true, my study of how Jesus interacted with people has led me to a discovery that forgiveness of our imperfections is actually US centered, because the forgiveness of our imperfections removes the barriers in our own lives that prevent us from becoming the loving, caring, compassionate, people that God designed us to be. It removes the barriers that prevent us from understanding the depth of love that God has for us, the esteem in which He holds us as His beloved children, and the unshakable faith that He has in us to be His messengers carrying His message of love and compassion to a world that is desperately in need of hearing it. He’s not forgiving our imperfections in anticipation of some future event when our faith becomes sight. He’s forgiving our imperfections in order that we may set aside the things that stand in the way of our loving the world with an extravagant love and with unmerited grace that emulates the love and the grace that God has for us; and in so doing, become citizens of heaven in the here and now, helping the rest of the word to see God’s love through us.
The author Madeleine L’Engle Camp once said “We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”
This is how Jesus interacted with people, He loved them, pure and simple. Out of the depth of love and compassion that is the very core of who Jesus is, he loved them, sensing and filling their deepest needs, and sending them on their way, whole, forgiven, and joyfully proclaiming the grace that had touched their lives. Let us seek to become people for whom love and compassion are the very core of our being as well, and let’s love those who cross our paths in this life in such a way that they may see the light of God’s love shining in us.
Amen.
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