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THE OUTSIDERS!

It’s not hard to spot a Pharisee in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John for they are scattered throughout the gospels. They weren’t professional religious rulers like the Sadducees or the Teachers of the Law. They were simply laymen who took religion seriously, very seriously. They believed in God, they believed the Scriptures were divine and authoritative, and they believed in the resurrection of the dead. They condemned adultery, cheating, lying, and stealing. They followed the rules, all the rules and then some. They were upright and, unfortunately, uptight. As such, they aren’t all that hard to spot for they are usually pointing the finger at someone else.
Nor is it hard to spot a Pharisee in today’s crowd. He or she always puts up a good front. They communicate to the world that they have it all together. They follow the rules and tack on a few of their own for good measure. Then too, unlike others who fail to follow the rules, they have no problems. In their self-assured smugness they quietly communicate to others that if they too followed the rules the blessings of life would fall into place.
In a humorous vein we see the Pharisee in Hyacinth as she works so hard at Keeping up Appearances before a watching world. We see it and laugh; and we also weep for she does so at the expense of meaningful relationships. On the sober side of the coin, we saw it in a small group of officers in the German army during Hitler’s reign of terror. This small group of officers were Christians who wanted to maintain a good testimony. As a result they refused to participate in the dances held in the officers club. But later, as part of the German military they participated in the deaths of millions of Jews.
You see, it’s very easy to spot a Pharisee in the gospel accounts. It is also easy enough to detect the Pharisee in others. In fact, hunting for the Pharisees among us is not only fun, it makes us feel ever so good! What’s difficult, what is not fun, is finding and seeing the Pharisee within ourselves.
Helping us to see ourselves is what three minor characters unknowingly do for us in the pages of the New Testament. These three minor characters are so minor that if they were sitting among us today, we wouldn’t be able to provide them with a name tag. We don’t know their names and yet they undoubtedly had a major impact on those who were the first to follow Jesus; i.e. the disciples.
The first of these three minor characters is found in Matthew 8:5 - 13. We read:
When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. 6 “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering.”
Jesus said to him, “I will go and heal him.”
The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 11 I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that very hour.
In the corresponding passage, found in Luke 7: 1 - 10, it is the Jewish elders who initially asked Jesus for help. When they came to Jesus they pleaded earnestly with him, saying,
“ This man deserves to have you do this, because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue.”
Note their emphasis on “deserving.” Rightly so, for the centurion was a remarkable man. Though he was an officer in the pay of Herod Antipas, though he was a representative of an army that occupied Israel, he served those he came to subdue.
Perhaps for this reason, though I believe it was for a more significant reason, Jesus went with them. When Jesus said, “I will go and heal him” in Matthew 8:7 he used the Greek word therapeuso from which we get our word “therapy.” The word Jesus used means to diagnose and recommend a system (a prescription in the broadest sense of the word) for getting well. It implied that Jesus had every intent of going inside the centurion’s home to see the servant.
This must have unsettled the Jewish elders for Jews just didn’t do that sort of thing. So at this point in time the Jewish elders were between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand they wanted to help this man who had been of good help to them. On the other hand, they didn’t want to be a party to how it was going to be done.
Fortunately, on their way, the centurion came to them, or rather he sent a group of friends to Jesus, with the same request but with an entirely different tone. For instead of thinking of what he should receive because of what he deserved, he confessed that he didn’t deserve anything. He confessed that he certainly didn’t deserve to have Jesus under his roof. So instead he requested that Jesus command that the servant be healed instantaneously - using a different Greek word for healing.
Jesus marveled at “such great faith” on behalf of the centurion. In fact, he was so astonished that in front of the Jewish elders he took the opportunity to declare that the kingdom of heaven will be populated by those like the unnamed centurion and not by those who claim to be children of Abraham and yet have no faith in God.
Ouch! They knew he had preached about this sort of thing but now it appeared that he actually meant it. Those on the inside were being shown the outside and those on the outside were being allowed inside the kingdom. The insiders, the ones who played by Israel’s rules, didn’t like it one bit and eventually they did something about it; they crucified Jesus.
In the meantime, the centurion’s message continues to haunt the world. Grace, God’s grace, is extended not to those who believe they have it all together but to all those oddballs who see themselves rightly; as undeserving. The centurion reminds us that the gospel is all inclusive. It is not simply for those who are Jewish, it is for you and for me.
The second minor character is found in Matthew 15:21 - 28. We read:
Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.”
Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”
“ Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
Here is a woman that you and I would avoid on the streets of Phoenix. But, if by chance we had occasion to meet her, we wouldn’t like her. She’s persistent to the point of being a first class nuisance. She doesn’t take “no” for an answer and doesn’t take “hints” either. Thankfully, we don’t know her name. Otherwise, we would feel obligated to look her up in heaven and act like we wanted to get to know her!
On the plus side, however, it’s her persistent faith in light of what little information she had, and in light of being put off both by Jesus and his disciples that commends her to us. She was also quick enough to pick up on the Lord’s analogy about the pet dog and extend it to fit her situation.
Her extension of the analogy was accurate. All the time Jesus was feeding the children of Israel, placing truth before them, crumbs were being dropped to the Gentiles; just enough to give evidence to the fact that Jesus came for the sake of everyone. He even came for those who are radically different from us.
This is a hard lesson for me to swallow. For example, the other night I saw a girl at the ASU/Washington State basketball game whose upper body looked like an endorsement for some tattoo parlor. I confess that I don’t understand why anyone would get one tattoo, must less a baker’s dozen. Furthermore, I confess that I wouldn’t be able to get beyond the tattoos enough to get to know someone like this well enough to share the gospel with them. But this woman, in Southern Lebanon, vividly reminds us that we only love God as much as we love the person we love the least.
Another outsider that I don’t believe I would like is the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. You know her story well enough, but for the purposes of this lesson I just want to focus on her snotty replies to Jesus. Yes, I know that most people focus on how skillfully Jesus drew her to himself. But I want us to look at the woman’s side of the conversation. The first thing she said to Jesus is found in John 4:9:
“ You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
Do you really think this was a mere question? I don’t think so. I think this woman knew how to snarl at strangers and she barked out this question as her way of saying, “leave-me-alone-buster!”
Her next response was more on the sarcastic side. In vv. 11 - 12, we read:
“ Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”
“Yeah, right! You don’t even have a bucket to call your own. And who do you think you are anyway? Do you think you’re a better man than Jacob? Are you a better man than the one who dug this well for us?”
Then in v. 17 she attempts to put an end to this stupid little conversation. In reply to Jesus’ request for her to go get her husband, she said:
“ I have no husband,” she replied.
See you don’t even know what you’re talking about. “I have no husband. I’m not talking to you anymore; you’re beginning to meddle and I don’t like it.”
Jesus acknowledged her reply and filled in the information she neglected to share with him. Then in vv. 19 - 20 she replied:
“ Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
“Okay, so maybe you know what you’re talking about, but tell me something I don’t know.”
Jesus did tell her a few things she didn’t know about; primarily what it really means to worship God. And he also told her flat out that he was the Messiah. Just about that time the disciples returned and we pick up the story in vv. 27 - 30. We read:
Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
Now let me ask you a question. Why would anyone listen to this woman? Why would they listen to a woman they had put down, insulted, and whispered about for years? I mean, here is a woman who was an outcast. Here was a woman who came to the well at a time when no one else was around to bother her. The other women in the town didn’t like her and she didn’t like them. The men? Oh, they liked her well enough but the last thing some of them wanted was for her to be suddenly telling everyone that she had met someone who knew absolutely everything about her life.
They listened because she spoke with power. The power of the Holy Spirit energized her words, drew people out of their normal routines, overcame their prejudices, and prompted them to listen to what this woman was saying to them.
What can we learn from this unnamed woman? First, it is not our station in life that determines our value and worth, but rather our relationship with the giver of life. Second, authentic words are powerful words. This woman went back into town and spoke honestly about her past and her new found relationship with Christ Jesus. She no longer tried to hide, cover up, or sugarcoat her past. The shame she may have had in regards to her immoral life no longer dominated her. What mattered now, what motivated her to speak was her relationship with Christ. Third, anyone who responds to the offer of living water is capable of being used in His service.
Three outsiders, a Roman soldier who occupied their land, a Canaanite woman who must have reminded Israel of its bitter past, and a Samaritan woman who was despised twice over - by the Jews as well as by her own neighbors - all of them minor characters in the scheme of things. But together they had a major impact on the psyche of those who were drawn to Christ, they spoke loud and clear that the gospel was “good news” for everyone. Everyone except the Pharisees among us...or within us.

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