An Outsider? – Devotions for 3-26-25
Luke 7:3 “When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his servant.”
All people have insider groups and outsider groups. We have people like us who we like to be with and then there are people not like us and usually, we don’t want to hang around with them. This has been an issue for people ever since there have been differences in people. Just look at the average High School, so many different groups in one building! Look at our cities where groups of people who are like each other live in one area and others who are different live in different areas.
In Jesus’ time, it was the same. In Luke 7 there is a place where two very different people find common ground. This is a story about a Roman centurion who comes to Jesus for help.
How strange that is. This man was not a Jew and almost everyone Jesus dealt with were Jews, some who loved Him and some who hated Him, but almost all were Jews. But this man was not Jewish, He was a gentile and to make matters worse, He was a Roman soldier and indeed a leader of many Roman soldiers. This made him doubly hated by the average Jewish person. He was a gentile and one of the oppressors of the Jews. To most Jews, this man was a total outsider and without knowing him better, they would have avoided him and likely hated him just because of who he was and what he did for a living. But, for some reason he found friends in the Jewish community, even building them a synagogue in Capernaum.
One day, his servant gets sick. It seems in the context of this text that this servant was special to this Roman centurion. So, after hearing that Jesus was healing people he sent members of the Jews, elders from their synagogue, to ask Jesus if he would come and heal his servant.
When Jesus started to come to his house the centurion sent friends to Jesus to say he believed Jesus could heal with just His command, He did not need to come into the centurion’s house. That is interesting and very revealing. This Roman soldier knew that it was against the rules of the Jews for a Jewish person to come into his home. That would make the Jew “unclean.”
Imagine if you were prohibited from going into someone’s home just because they were different than you. Talk about artificial separations and divisions without valid reasons. The Jews and the gentiles were separated from each other and this man felt he needed to stop Jesus from coming into his house because he was a gentile. He didn’t want Jesus to become unclean.
How awful. A person could become tainted just by going into the home of an outsider. I can only imagine how dirty that must have made the centurion feel. Was he dirty? Was he unclean? Was he unworthy of being with the Jews? Was he unfit for being with God?
When we make artificial separations between people we hurt them. Those separations make one group feel superior and the other feel inferior. But in God’s world, there are no superior or inferior people. All people are equal in God’s eyes.
What that says to me is that we need to do all we can to make others feel welcome with us, with our churches and especially, welcome to come to the God we love. Let us break down any false barriers to others coming to the Lord. No one is unclean, all are welcome. Welcome them into your home, into your group, and into your church.
Invite them in.
Pastor Gary.
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