Putting the Crowd Outside
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
by Jim Westmoreland
It is good to be back with you today. And, I want to thank those who led last week-to Jerry Bowen, Martha Dennison, our Elders, to Starling Lambert who not only does the sound system but coaches us before the service when we need to know what to do. We were blessed to have Tom Steiner, our West Area Minister be with us to preach, lead in Communion and be a part of our worship. Thank you for your prayers, cards and meals that have been prepared for Janet and I. We have felt your love and support. So far, so good on my foot. The doctor put a screw in it to pull some bones back together that provide the arch in the foot. I have about 6 and ½ more weeks to not put any weight on my foot. So, I'm learning to get around in a variety of ways.
As I began preparing for this week's sermon, I ran across a story that reminds me of the need for humility in preaching. It is the story about an elderly American Indian who attended church one Sunday morning. The preacher had not done his homework, so he tried to compensate for his lack of content with much pulpit pounding and loud shouting. After the service, when the old Indian was asked for his opinion of the preacher's message, he thought cautiously before replying, "High wind. Big thunder. But make no rain!"
My hope and prayer is that each week, there will be some "rain" --that there will be food and drink for your soul to encourage you, to teach and challenge you to help you to grow in your faith and in your service to God. No preacher bats 1000 with everyone, and I'm sure that sometimes it feels like "High wind. Big thunder. But make no rain." . . .
When we look at Jesus, we not only learn about God, but we learn about how we are supposed to live in relation to our heavenly Father. We are taught early about succeeding. Getting ahead in life, we've come to understand, is about making good first impressions and then backing up the impression with credible behavior. God turns this all upside down. God will love and accept us, to be sure, but it has nothing to do with favorable first impressions. In fact, were it simply a matter of impressions, God would've been through with us long ago. Jesus also was emphatic about the futility of trying to impress God by impressing men.
His words from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew ring in our ears:
 | "Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before others, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven" (6:1). |
| "When you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets" (6.2). |
| "When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray ... on the street corners to be seen by men" (6.5). |
| "When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do" (6:16). |
Jesus was not concerned about what others thought about Him, about whether He impressed them, whether they liked Him. He was not concerned about whether He was popular or not. There is a thread that is common to these three stories in our text today. It is seen in v. 25, "But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up."
"When the crowd had been put outside." These seem like strange words. Wasn't Jesus a people person? Didn't He care about the crowds and multitudes? Didn't He send the disciples out to reach others? Then, Why did He put the crowd outside?
Jesus and His disciples were walking and spotted Matthew sitting at a tax booth. Now, even though tax collectors were considered cheats who had sold their souls to the Roman government, Jesus told Matthew to follow Him, and he did! Later, Jesus apparently went to Matthew's house for dinner. Several people were there: Jesus' disciples and many other tax collectors and sinners were there, and, in addition, the Pharisees were there too.
Who were the Pharisees? There were very good, moral people, who legalistically obeyed the Jewish laws, but who did not understand what God was about through Jesus. They criticized Jesus for associating with sinners and undesirable people like tax collectors. They would distract Jesus, if they could, from His purpose. They would have Him focus His energy and concern on meticulously following all of their interpretations of the law, but Jesus responds to their question by saying, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick." He was not distracted by this crowd of Pharisees, whose hearts did not understand the basis for relationship with God as God's mercy.
During the early days of the Salvation Army, William Booth and his associates were bitterly attacked in the press by religious leaders and government leaders alike. Whenever his son, Bramwell, showed Booth a newspaper attack, the General would reply, "Bramwell, fifty years heace it will matter very little indeed how these people treated us; it will matter a great deal how we dealt with the work of God."(1)
While Jesus was responding to the religious leaders of the Pharisaic party who criticized Him for eating with sinners and tax collectors, another religious leader came to Him. This man was a leader of the synagogue in town. He interrupted abruptly, suddenly, saying that his daughter has just died, but asking that Jesus come and lay His hand on her, and he said she would then live. Such a contrast between the faith and insight of this man and the Pharisees! Should Jesus stay and debate with the Pharisees? The girl was already dead. What would He do?
He left to go with the man. Many people followed and others joined the procession as Jesus was going to visit a girl already dead. The noise and questions and demands of the crowd were always present with Jesus, and I'm sure it was this day too.
But then, the scriptures say that something else happened "suddenly." Suddenly, a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for 12 years came up from behind and touched the fringe of His cloak, believing that she would be made well only by touching Jesus' cloak.
Jesus had just been part of a big dinner at Matthew's with lot's of questions and conversation, first with the guests at the meal and then with the Pharisees. It was suddenly interrupted and he became part of a noisy crowd on the streets as he walked to the synagogue leader's house. The crowd could have dominated his thinking so that He would not have realized that someone had touched His cloak. But, He did realized it. He realized it because, though He was in a crowd, He was still very much present and available for those who needed Him and came to Him in faith. That is what this woman did, and Jesus turned and said to her, "your faith has made you well." How did Jesus stay so available? How did He stay so tuned in to people and God's direction?
Finally, Jesus reaches the home where the girl has died. Already there are mourners, flute players, and a crowd that is making a commotion. When He tells them to go away because the girl is just sleeping, they laugh at Him. And so, "when the crowd has been put outside, He went in and took her by the hand and the girl got up." In spite of all the distractions of the day, Jesus still knew what His purpose and focus was. It was not in the crowds or in their approval. He was able to put the crowd outside and focus on doing the will of His Father. That's what he calls us to do too.
In 1928 James Allen Francis published a story that your have probably heard many times before. "He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in still another village where he worked in a carpenter's shop until he was 30. Then for three years he traveled and preached. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a house. He did not go to college. He never visited a big city. He never traveled more than 200 miles from the place where he was born.
He did none of the things man usually associates with greatness. He had no credentials but himself. He was only 33 when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a stake between two thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing, the only property he had on earth.
When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Twenty centuries have come and gone and today he remains the central figure of the human race and the leader of mankind's progress.
All the armies that ever marched, all the fleets that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the lives of men on this planet so much as that One Solitary Life."
To reach out to sinners, to heal the woman, to restore the little girl, Jesus first put the crowd outside. We experience the distractions of the crowds of noise and distractions that keep us from serving Christ and specifically giving our time and energy to others. We get lost in the crowds that say "take care of number one, live for yourself, you don't have time for others."
God wants to use us to care for others and make a difference, but we've first got to put the crowd outside. Amen.
Century Christian Church, June 5, 2005 - Sermon by Jim Westmoreland
1. W. Wiersbe, The Wycliffe Handbook of Preaching & Preachers, p. 185.