In this week’s Come Follow Me chapters, the tension is building as almost every miracle Jesus performs is met with hostility and opposition. The wonder of miracles, prophecies fulfilled, and power claimed is catapulting our hero toward stage two of his hero’s journey; the enemies of Jesus are closing in.
The Miracles
These chapters are full of miracles; Jesus heals a leper and forgives sinners and calms a storm. Crowds bring “demon-possessed” and sick people from all over and Jesus heals them all “with a word” (Matt 8:16). He heals a centurion’s servant (Matt 8:13) and touches Peter’s mother-in-law’s hand and heals her too (Matt 8:14-15). In Jesus’s words, “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor” (Luke 7:22). Again and again in these verses, Jesus points to the sick and the sinner and the poor – these are the only people he heals. Why?
The Opposition
Jesus isn’t just healing people with glittering magic and rainbows, all of these chapters are boiling with tension and opposition. Often we focus on the miracles of Jesus as the focal point, however, these same miracles are fueling hate and fear. Why?
“He’s blaspheming!” (Mark 2:7) they shout. “He is out of his mind,” (Mark 3:21) his family says. “He has an impure spirit” (Mark 3:30), others say. Many “were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus” (Luke 3:2) as they watched and waited for this rebel to give them a reason to kill him. Almost every miracle is followed by a reaction from Jesus’s opposers.
In one story, Jesus “looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts” asks a crippled man to “stand up in front of everyone” in the synagogue where Jesus heals the man’s shriveled hand on the Sabbath.
Before he performs the miracle, Jesus asks, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill it?” Jesus is angry and frustrated with these people who choose to close their hearts and ears to his message, who choose control and order and rules over compassion, relationships, and life.
This miracle only heals the stranger’s hand, it does not heal the stubborn, accusing hearts. It seems that Jesus never performs a miracle without first the person admitting that they need healing; Jesus pours miracles on all those who ask (the sick, the hungry, the poor, the possessed, the sinner); however, the stubborn hearts will not admit their humanness and the “Pharisees [who were there] went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus” (Luke 3:4-6).
Why do some watch and wait for Jesus to heal them while others watch and wait for Jesus to break their rules? Why do some love Jesus and others view him as a threat? Why do we often want to appear as the righteous when it is the sinners who surround Jesus? How are we like the sinners? How are we like the righteous?
Who are the sinners?
Jesus isn’t just healing bodies, this seems to be easy for him, he is trying to heal stubborn hearts. This is the challenge because while he can command demons and illnesses and death, he does not control the hearts of people. Agency is a real thing.
When Jesus says “I have not come to call the righteous but the sinners,” (Mark 2:17) he means he comes for everyone: “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear” (Mark 4:9, Mark 4:23). He calls and calls to “anyone” and everyone to be healed and forgiven because we are all sinners, they were all sinners, but only some admitted it.
When Jesus said he came not for the righteous, but for the sinners, he meant he came for everyone. But only those who know they are sick can be healed. Only those who listen to the rumblings in their belly can be filled. Only those who recognize the extent of their wounds and their wounding can be made well.
Evans, Rachel Held. Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church. Thomas Nelson Inc, 2015.
Why then, are we always trying to be like the righteous? The stubborn-hearted? The unteachable and unhealable?
Who did Jesus always heal, touch, greet, meet, eat with, bless, teach, and commune with? Always. Every time? It’s not the righteous. It’s not the rule followers. It’s the sinners. The sick. It’s everyone who knows they are sick, those too weak to pretend or hide behind righteous appearances, those who tell their histories and shady stories, the ones who recognize the extent of their wounds, and those who allow others to be sinners, too.
How can we be more like the sinners Jesus came for?
What is Faith?
In Matthew 8:5-13 Jesus is “amazed” by the faith of a centurion who asks him to heal his servant. Jesus says to the centurion, “I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.” Compare the centurion’s faith to the faith of the disciples in Matthew 8:23-27. Both ask Jesus for a miracle. Both receive the miracle. However, while the centurion has “great faith,” Jesus says that his disciples have “little faith.” Why? What is the difference?
Jesus often performs a miracle after “seeing” someone’s faith (Mark 2:5) but he also, like on the boat with the storm, doesn’t require faith for miracles. What is faith?
Jesus says to the woman who “lived a sinful life”: “Your faith has saved you; go in peace” (Luke 7:50).
Did her faith save her? Or did Jesus? Again, what is this faith that saves and heals?
Jesus says, “her many sins have been forgiven – as her great love has shown” (Luke 7:47). What can we learn from this woman about forgiveness and love?
Was it faith that brought this woman to weep at Jesus’s feet (Luke 7:38)? Was it love? Did her sins give her more faith and a deeper love (Luke 7:41-43)?
Sinners can be Heroes
Simon, a Pharisee who invites Jesus over for dinner, says that Jesus should know that this woman “is a sinner” (7:39), implying that Jesus shouldn’t let this sinner touch him. But by now we understand that Jesus loves and calls and came for the sinners. He defends the nameless woman and embraces her tender rituals, accepts the goodness and love she has created in her life and tells Simon a parable concluding that “whoever has been forgiven little loves little” (Luke 7:47). What is Jesus telling us about sins?
The demand for the perfect is the greatest enemy for the good . . . heroes grow and learn from encountering their shadow but villains never do . . the closer you get to the light the more of your shadow you see . . . truly holy people are always humble.
Rohr, Richard. Falling Upward. 2015.
According to Richard Rohr, who in Jesus’s stories are the heroes? Who are the villains?
The “stubborn-hearted” people in these stories never encounter their shadows or sins. They demand perfection from Jesus and sinners and from themselves, and as we see again and again in these chapters, the demand for the perfect is the greatest enemy for the good.
Jesus loves the sick and the sinner because they encounter their shadows, they make choices and then grow and learn from them, they listen and ask and fail and try. They are made holy through their humility. Like the sinful woman who anoints Jesus and washes his feet with her tears, our goal isn’t to be perfect, her life is full of sins, it is to live and be forgiven, to be healed, and to love. None of these miracles could happen without the people who needed them.
(All quoted and cited scriptures are derived from the NIV bible.)
I loved this so much! I read it earlier in the week and then just read it again with my kids/husband. It produced great discussion in my family. Thank you for this post!