Text for the Week: Words Lead to Life

Scripture: Matthew 8:1-13

Now when Jesus had come down from the mountain, large crowds followed him. ² A man with a skin disease came, kneeled before him, and said, “Lord, if you want, you can make me clean.”

³ Jesus reached out his hand and touched him, saying, “I do want to. Become clean.” Instantly his skin disease was cleansed. ⁴ Jesus said to him, “Don’t say anything to anyone. Instead, go and show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded. This will be a testimony to them.”

⁵ When Jesus went to Capernaum, a centurion approached, ⁶ pleading with him, “Lord, my servant is flat on his back at home, paralyzed, and his suffering is awful.”

⁷ Jesus responded, “I’ll come and heal him.”

⁸ But the centurion replied, “Lord, I don’t deserve to have you come under my roof. Just say the word and my servant will be healed. ⁹ I’m a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and the servant does it.”

¹⁰ When Jesus heard this, he was impressed and said to the people following him, “I say to you with all seriousness that even in Israel I haven’t found faith like this. ¹¹ I say to you that there are many who will come from east and west and sit down to eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. ¹² But the children of the kingdom will be thrown outside into the darkness. People there will be weeping and grinding their teeth.” ¹³ Jesus said to the centurion, “Go; it will be done for you just as you have believed.” And his servant was healed that very moment.

Questions

1. Jesus comes down off the mountain and begins healing people, what might Jesus be teaching us in these actions?
2. Does the skin disease have any significance outside of the fact that the man was in need of healing?
3. The centurion was not Jewish what does it say to us that Jesus would heal his servant?
4. How do Jesus’ actions relate to my life, how am I like Jesus and how am I like the people he heals?

Background

Related Scriptures: 2 Kings 5:1-19; Mark 1:39-46; Luke 5:12-16

Mark and Matthew both present Jesus as a teacher then immediately going out to heal people. The idea conveyed is that Jesus’ teachings bring new life and healing to the people who encounter him.

Jesus going from teaching to healing is also meant to demonstrate that we cannot simply be intellectuals trying to make sure we know all the right teachings or believe all the right things. True belief takes us to the people in need of healing.

Because skin diseases (often translated leprosy) kept people away from worship healing them had a symbolic meaning to 1^st century Jews, like the inclusion of the Gentiles it was a sign that God’s kingdom had arrived on earth. Jesus’ healing of a man with a skin disease followed by the healing of a Gentile is meant to show God’s kingdom (as described in the Sermon on the Mount) was here.

Reflection

One of the areas where I am trying to grow in my ability to read Scripture is to see all of Scripture as a story. While I, like so many people, believe I am persuaded by facts, the truth is that I am, like every other person, most likely persuaded by facts placed in a story. Facts on their own are hardly persuasive, facts placed in a context and demonstrated are very persuasive.  Jesus knew this and lived his life so that people could see his teachings (the bare facts) lived out in him (story). The Gospel authors were also very aware of this fact and so when they wrote down the events of Jesus’ life they did so to help us understand how his life fit into the story that he was telling. And these stories in Matthew are a perfect example of how Jesus’ life becomes a story to illustrate his teachings.

It is not arbitrary that Jesus comes down off of the mountain and heals people, and the people that Matthew chooses to describe in this scene add to the symbolism. People with skin diseases could not enter sacred spaces like the temple and the reasons were very obvious to the rest of the community. Individuals with such diseases were like walking billboards for the impurity and sin rampant in the world. They were a reminder of all of the things that keep us from God. The Roman centurion was similar, not only was he a Gentile, an outsider, he was a commander in the army that was actively oppressing God’s people and promoting paganism in their land. These two characters are very representative of who does not belong in God’s holy space, which itself is a representation of God’s presence to come with God’s kingdom. These healings demonstrate exactly what the God’s Kingdom is and the reality of it’s coming. The climatic moment of the story of the man with the skin disease is when Jesus touches him, an action that would normally make Jesus unfit for worship in God’s presence restores the man to God’s presence. And the centurion who Jesus should not visit is offered a visit, and responds with a level of faith he should not possess. Place yourself in the position of the crowd, people who have grown up in a Jewish culture understanding what it means for a person to have a skin disease or to be a pagan Gentile. Now after a lifetime of knowing that these are people who are excluded from God’s presence, Jesus comes and says to you, God’s kingdom is here, this is what it looks like and then brings healing and inclusion to these individuals. How do you respond to this, what is your thought about a man who brings physical healing to people so that they can enjoy God’s kingdom more richly?

Jesus’ healings as he descends the mountain are a symbolic action representing how a life committed to living out the Sermon on the Mount transforms not simply the individual but the entire community. Jesus’ commitment to living out the Sermon brings healing and transformation to the people around him who previously had no hope. I am not trying to say that Jesus’ physical healing did not occur or are merely symbolic or that we cannot perform similar actions today. I am saying these episodes from Jesus’ life work on multiple levels and that one of these levels is as a symbolic reminder of the power of living lives dedicated to God’s Kingdom. These stories are meant to help us remember the lessons of the Sermon, that a life lived according to this message brings healing and power into the world around us as well as our own lives.

Jesus provides us with a practical example that when we commit to embodying the ideals of the Sermon on the Mount we place ourselves in the position to bring life and health to people who right now might believe they are excluded from God’s presence. If Blaise Pascal is correct when he says, “Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known.” then in part this means that as we live out the loving lives in accordance with Jesus’ teachings we make God known, not simply to ourselves but to the world around us. As we do this God’s loving power is freer to move through us and the world around us transforming the lives of those we interact with on a daily basis.