Church in hard places part 2

The Gospel of Luke is unique among the other gospels in that he places an emphasis on Jesus as friend of the outcasts.

Luke provides us with numerous examples of people who have been shunned and despised by others. These were lepers, tax collectors, prostitutes and others sinners, or had found themselves in their situation through no fault of their own. They also included the poor, the lame and afflicted, widows who had lost their social standing.

All of these were seen as failures or rejects by society and not worthy of inclusion or attention. However Jesus pursues them and pulls them out of their misery and re-creates their stories.

Luke 5:12-16
"While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with
leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him,
“Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus reached out his hand
and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And immediately the
leprosy left him. Then Jesus ordered him, “Don’t tell anyone, but go, show
yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your
cleansing, as a testimony to them.” Yet the news about him spread all the
more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their
sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed."

As Jesus is walking around in a town, he encounters a man with leprosy. When he
sees Jesus, he falls down at his feet and begs him, saying “if you want to, you can
heal me.”
Jesus is overcome with emotion and does something that would have made himself
ritually unclean.
Leprosy - Infectious disease. It mainly affects the skin, eyes nose and
peripheral nerves.

• The leper would have been an untouchable and practically invisible except for
when others saw him and would actively avoid him.
• He would’ve been completely shunned by society for being ritually unclean
because of his dreaded skin disease and the ensuing deformity. When near people
they would announce themselves “Unclean”.
• Lepers would have had to leave their friends and family and live in their own
separate leper commune away from everyone else.

Quote from a missionary visiting a Leper colony in India:
“There were two or three dozen makeshift homes crammed within the small walls
of this musty complex, and each shack sheltered a man or woman who looked
like they had been plucked right out of the first century. Their open sores were
held together by bloodstained bandages, many of their appendages had been
sanded down into irritated nubs, and their noses had been ground down to the
point that they were almost totally flat—two holes in their faces through which
they could barely draw each difficult breath.”
“Seeing leprosy alive and well was the pinnacle of culture shock for me as a
sheltered American college student. It rattled me from the inside out. It was
traumatizing. I had no idea that people on planet Earth were still suffering this
way.”

The way Jesus himself interacted with leprosy victims is a great illustration of God’s compassion for us.

In first-century culture, and especially among the ultra-religious elite, a victim of
leprosy was often believed to have been afflicted by God. His disease resulted from
some sin, attitude, or choice that deserved just punishment, and one of God’s chief
tools for administering such justice was the infliction of this debilitating, humiliating,
and miserable disease.
It was the application of the age-old law of retribution—bad things happen to bad
people.

Romans 5:6-8
“6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Jesus didn’t run away, turn his head, or try to avoid the diseased man.

Jesus wasn’t a clean-cut Savior, He was the God with dirty hands.

Jesus welcomes the leper and does not fear contracting the disease himself. Although he could have simply spoken a word and healed him, he knows the leper’s deepest need and desire for physical contact. Therefore he places his hand upon him. This act of touching was prohibited because it was ceremonially unclean to touch a leper and you could have transmitted the disease.

Jesus wanted, and willing pursued, to be close to him.

Jesus said "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come
to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Luke 5:31

If Jesus pursued the vulnerable, and marginalized of society shouldn’t his church
do the same?

Matthew 22:34-39
"Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Jesus says, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
The challenge is do I love others in a way I desire to be loved?