Outsiders In, Insiders Out-Matthew 8

The problem with insiders. Being a leader in the same church–UBF–for 35 years, I am “an insider” who knows the proclivities of the church, sermon emphasis, speech patterns, manner of prayer, preferred methodologies–called core values, etc. I know the good, bad and ugly of UBF. [Of course, they say that they “know” me too.] There is comfort, safety and security in “knowing” as an insider. But the problem is that insiders make assumptions and presumptions about God, people and the church. Insiders are like the Pharisees and religious leaders who assume and presume that they know God and people. But Jesus exposed them for not knowing who God–their Messiah–is [they rejected and killed him!], while they judged and condemned the “outsiders” who gladly received the good news of the kingdom of God (Mt 8:11).

Outsiders are in, insiders are out, because Jesus turns the world upside down and inside out. In Matthew 8 “outsiders”–the leper, the centurion and the disciples–recognize Jesus as Lord (Mt 8:2, 8, 25) and are welcomed into the kingdom of heaven (Mt 8:11), while surprisingly the “insiders” are “thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”  (Mt 8:12). Interestingly demons recognize Jesus too (Mt 8:29), while those possessed by demons do not. Jesus blesses the faith of those who humbly come to him, even commending the centurion as one with “such great faith” (Mt 8:10), while the disciples who followed Jesus were rebuked for having “little faith” (Mt 8:26).

[“A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, ‘Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.’” “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.” “The disciples went and woke him, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!’” (Mt 8:2, 6, 25).]

Jesus and Moses came down the mountain. Matthew tells us that Jesus “came down from the mountain” (Mt 8:1). Of course Jesus had to come down the mountain. But Jesus’ descent draws the subtle, yet significant, connection between Jesus and Moses.“Moses came down from Mount Sinai . . . with the two tablets of the covenant”  (Exo 34:29). This is the second time that Moses comes down Sinai with the tablets. The first time, confronted by the golden calf made by the people in his absence, Moses breaks the tablets, dashing them against the ground (Exo 32:19). The second time he returns with the tablets, and the skin of his face shines so brightly the people are afraid.

Jesus descends the mountain, but carries no tablets because he is the law. Like with Moses’s descent, a crowd awaits Jesus’s return. But the crowd is unable to see that on Jesus rests the glory of God. The crowd follows Jesus but do not grasp who he is. He is the fleshly embodiment of the law, and he will, like the first tablets of the law, be broken by the disobedience of those he has come to save. Moses broke the tablets of the law at the foot of the mountain of the Lord. Jesus will be broken by being raised on a cross. That he will be broken on the cross remains for many the reason they cannot see how Jesus can be the Son of God.

The leper—an outsider—recognizes who Jesus is. In the midst of the crowd a leper approaches Jesus, kneels before him and, for the first time in Matthew, designates him “Lord” (Mt 8:2). Lepers were subjected to a detailed regulation by the law. They were examined by priests to determine if they had leprosy; if they did they were forced to dwell “outside the camp” (Lev 13:46). Matthew does not tell us anything about this leper other than that he recognizes Jesus as Lord. That a leper, one regarded as unclean, could recognize that Jesus has the power to make him clean is not accidental, for as Matthew leads us through the story of Jesus’ ministry it will become increasingly clear that outsiders, those without status or power in Israel, are more likely to recognize Jesus as Lord.

What might it mean for the leper to identify Jesus as Lord.? It is not clear that the leper’s recognition of Jesus’ lordship includes the recognition of Jesus as the Messiah of Israel. Still, the leper kneels before Jesus, suggesting that he regards Jesus as one worthy to be worshiped because he knows that if Jesus chooses he can make him clean. Jesus not only chooses to heal the leper, he does so by touching him (Mt 8:3a), something people won’t do for fear that they might contract the disease. But Jesus touches this leper, and the leper is immediately cleansed (Mt 8:3b).

Jesus’ touching is not sentimental. Some read Jesus’ touching the leper in a sentimental fashion—like Jesus, we need to be ready to reach out and touch someone. It is not a bad thing to reach out and touch someone, but there is nothing sentimental about what happened in this encounter between Jesus and the leper, for what Jesus did for this leper was a deed of power that only he could do. Jesus’ healing ministry in Galilee has begun (Mt 4:23), but the power manifest in his healing ministry will attract those threatened by the display of such power.

Jesus does not perform cures to attract attention. Jesus cures the leper because the leper asks him to do so. Then he commands the leper to tell no one what he has done, but to show the priests he has been cured (Mt 8:4). Jesus expects the leper to keep the law of Lev 14 requiring that he be examined by the priests before he is allowed back into society. That the leper is not to tell anyone what Jesus has done suggests the difficulty Jesus’ healing ministry presents. Jesus cannot help but display the power that is his, but those who would follow him only because he is a person of power will fail to understand the kind of Lord he is. The controversies that the healings occasion force those he heals (and us) to recognize that following this leader will not be easy.

Another outsider—a centurion—recognizes who Jesus is. When Jesus enters Capernaum, a town with a Greek name, a centurion, an officer in the Roman army, comes to him requesting that he heal his servant (Mt 8:5). Like the leper, this non-Israelite addresses Jesus as “Lord” (Mt 8:6). Unlike the leper he does not kneel, but he clearly recognizes Jesus as a person of power and authority, because he is also a person of power and authority (Mt 8:9). Even so, the Roman officer refuses Jesus’ willingness to visit his home and heal the servant, because he does not think he is worthy to have Jesus under his roof. This Gentile may respect the Jewish prohibition against entering homes of Gentiles, but “not worthy” (Mt 8:8a) may also indicate that he knows his life and profession are antithetical to Jesus’ life and work. The centurion rather asks Jesus to speak the word of healing, believing that his servant will be healed (Mt 8:8b). Again it seems that an outsider is better able to recognize Jesus than those who think they know what the Lord of Israel should look like and how he should act.

The faith Jesus commends is the recognition that Jesus can do what he asks. Jesus, amazed by the centurion’s declaration, confesses that nowhere in Israel has he found such faith (Mt 8:10). Such an understanding of faith renders problematic those accounts of faith in which faith is assumed to be intrinsic to the human condition, i.e., faith understood as a subjective quality that gives life meaning. Even accounts of faith in which faith is identified with the need to have some general purpose in life are far too sophisticated. The faith that Jesus praises–exemplified by the centurion–is that which trusts that Jesus is who he says he is and that he can do what he says he can do.

Subjects of the kingdom thrown out. It is this faith that Jesus says will be found in those who will come from the east and west to dine in the kingdom of heaven with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Mt 8:11), while their heirs will be thrown into darkness (Mt 8:12). This is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy that the nations will stream to the Lord’s house established on the highest mountain. All peoples will be drawn to that house because there they will be taught the ways of God (Isa 2:3–4).

How you respond to Jesus. Jesus declares that the fulfillment of this prophecy, also found in Mic 4:1–8, has begun in this centurion’s faith. The prophets have foretold that the nations are to be gathered to worship at the temple and that the nations, by observing the law, will learn to live in peace. That Jesus finds the faith of Israel in this centurion, a man of war, should not surprise us. Who better than those who know war to recognize the one who is peace? The apocalyptic language of outer darkness (Mt 8:12; 22:13) in which there will be gnashing of teeth (Mt 24:51) suggests that much is at stake in how we do or do not respond to Jesus.

Jesus receives our infirmities. Later that evening, after Jesus has cured Peter’s mother-in-law (Mt 8:14-15), many possessed by demons are brought to him, and he casts out the spirits with a word and cures all who are sick (Mt 8:16). This exercise of the power of healing is not without cost. Isa 53:4 says the Messiah will bear our infirmities and carry our diseases (Mt 8:17). Jesus is able to do so because he is at once like and unlike us. The power he displays is the power to receive our infirmities, to suffer as we suffer, without that suffering becoming, as it is so often for us, a perverse form of violence and control that we exercise against God, ourselves, and our neighbors.

Reading Scripture rightly is how the church understood Isa 53 through the life of Jesus. On the road to Emmaus the resurrected Jesus instructed two followers how to read scripture. They report that the tomb is empty, but they leave Jerusalem. They did not understand that “the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory” (Lk 24:26). So Jesus, “beginning with Moses and all the prophets,” helps them understand that this king will be “numbered with the transgressors” bearing our sins so that we can live free of sin (Isa 53:12). Matthew witnesses to the lesson Jesus taught on the road to Emmaus.

Where’s your home? Some recognize that Jesus is different (Mt 8:18). A scribe claims that he is ready to follow Jesus wherever Jesus goes (Mt 8:19), but Jesus rebuffs him because Jesus has “no place to go” (Mt 8:20). The scribe identifies Jesus as “teacher,” but he doesn’t understood that this teacher teaches a wisdom forcing us to abandon what we take to be home. “Foxes have holes, and birds who have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Mt 8:20), Jesus replies. You can’t stay home and follow Jesus.

Follow one who suffers. This title, “Son of Man” (cf. called Lord by the leper and centurion) is from Ezekiel (2:1, 3, 6) and Daniel (7:13), suggesting that the Son of Man is the agent of God’s final judgment. Jesus is the herald of the kingdom, but what it means to be the herald cannot be determined from the title “Son of Man.” This title in Ezekiel and Daniel signals the beginning of an apocalyptic time, but that time is present in Jesus. Jesus identifies himself as the Son of Man, but one characterized by humiliation and suffering. Jesus as the one who inaugurates the new age reveals the triumphant return of the Son of Man to be unlike any victory we can imagine (Mt 17:12; 20:18, 28; 26:2, 24). It will never be easy for the disciples or for us to learn how to be with one who would establish the kingdom by being crucified.

Follow life not death. Another “disciple” asks Jesus if he might first bury his father (Mt 8:21). Elijah allows Elisha to return to his family before following him (1 Kg 19:19–21), but Jesus demands that this disciple leave his family behind: “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead” (Mt 8:22). To be a disciple of Jesus requires such dedication because what Jesus is and does means that “normal” is reconstituted. A disciple of Jesus stands in the presence of life itself, yet remains captured by death, wanting to bury the dead. Jesus, who will die on our behalf, requires that those who would follow him not let death determine their relationship to the living.

Rebuked for fear in a storm. Next, Jesus retreats to a boat (Mt 8:23)—where is no place to escape. The disciples find themselves in a windstorm that threatens to swamp the boat, but Jesus–like Jonah (Jonah 1:4–6)–is asleep (Mt 8:24). The disciples fear for their lives, so they wake Jesus, believing that he can act on their behalf (Mt 8:25). Jesus rebukes them, not because they wake him, but because they are afraid. Why should they be afraid? They called him “Lord.”  Their faith, unlike the centurion’s (Mt 8:10), is “little” (Mt 8:26a). Little faith is an ongoing characteristic of the disciples (Mt 14:31). But little faith is better than no faith. The disciples are at least in the boat with him. They also recognize him as the one capable of saving them. They ask, “Lord, save us!” (Mt 8:25) Jesus rebukes the wind and sea, and it becomes calm (Mt 8:26b). The one capable of healing the sick and forgiving sinners is the same one with the power to command the wind and waves. We would not expect less of the one who was with the Father “in the beginning” (Jn 1:1-2).

What manner/sort/kind of man is this? The disciples are amazed that Jesus is able to command the wind (Mt 8:27). Irony is seldom associated with the gospels, but Matthew’s report of the disciples’ question—“what sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?”—is ironic. We know what sort of man this is because we know how the story ends. So we assume a position of superiority over the disciples. But that is pride we must learn to discipline if we are to be witnesses to the “sort of man” this man is. Matthew uses irony to teach us, the church, not to turn our recognition of Jesus’ triumph into a status.

The church should recognize that we too are of little faith–like the disciples. The church, like the disciples’ boat, is the ark of safety in a storm-tossed sea. Our temptation is to try to row to shore to escape the storm, but when we do so we fail to witness to the one who is peace. The church’s safety comes through the confession of our sinfulness—our refusal to live in accordance with who Jesus says he is. It is only through the confession of sin that the church becomes for the world what the world cannot be for itself. To discover how little our faith may be requires the willingness to follow Jesus as he confronts the demons.

The demons know who Jesus is (Mt 8:29a). Jesus comes to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes, and he is confronted by two fierce demoniacs (Mt 8:28). They recognize him to be the Son of God, the same description bestowed on him by the Spirit at his baptism (Mt 3:17). Demons recognize the Son because they—more than we—are able to recognize who threatens them. Demons draw their existence from death and are, therefore, able to recognize the one who is life. They fear that Jesus has come before the appointed time (Mt 8:29b), but they discover that the appointed time is now. The disciples fear Jesus’ absence as he sleeps in the boat (Mt 8:25); the demons fear his presence (Mt 8:29).

Sin leads to self-destruction. Faced by Jesus the demons ask him to cast them into a herd of swine (Mt 8:30). Using the word the centurion had asked him to speak (Mt 8:8), “go,” Jesus sends the demons into a herd of swine, who rush to drown themselves in the sea (Mt 8:32). The demons obey. What else can evil do once it loses its parasitical hold on that which is good? The demons’ self-destruction is indicative of sin, for sin cannot help but lead to our self-destruction because sin is quite literally to try to be what we are not.

Don‘t want those who can drive out our demons. The swineherders report Jesus’ exorcism of the demoniacs and the loss of the swineherd to the nearby town (Mt 8:33). The whole town, a town that may be constituted by Gentiles because they have pigs, comes out to meet Jesus. We might assume that he would at least be received as someone of power. He has driven out the demons from the demoniacs. But as soon as they see him, they beg him to leave their neighborhood (Mt 8:34). Outsiders are often as unwilling as the people of Israel to receive someone capable of ridding their lives of demons. If we have to choose between a life we know, even a life possessed by demons and ruled by death, and a life of uncertainty to which Jesus calls us, a life that may well expose us to dangers in Jesus’ name, we too may ask Jesus to leave our neighborhood.

We would rather be ruined than changed. Jesus complies with their wish that he leave them to their own devices. In TSOM he told us not to judge (Mt 7:1), and not to toss pearls before swine (Mt 7:6), so he does not force himself on those who are not ready to receive the gospel. The habits of the world are hard to break. What Jesus offers cannot help but change our lives, challenging our habits derived from our love and fear of death. Like those who ask Jesus to leave their neighborhood: “We would rather be ruined than changed, We would rather die in our dread Than climb the cross of the moment And let our illusions die.”—W. H. Auden, “The Age of Anxiety.”

Reference:

1. Hauerwas, Stanley. Matthew. Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. Brazos Press, Grand Rapids, MI, 2006.
2. Hauerwas, Stanley. Cross-Shattered Christ. Meditations on the Seven Last Words. Brazos Press, Grand Rapids, MI, 2004.
3. Hauerwas, Stanley; Willimon, William. Where Resident Aliens Live. Exercises for Christian Practice. Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN, 1996.