Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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His Name Was Peter.
His name was Peter.
Peter was Intelligent.
The picture here is of him on his school's drafting team.
He was the kind of kid who would not stand out in a crowd.
Had a commodore 64, played dungeons and dragons, liked shooting hoops, and throwing a baseball, but never played organized sports.
During high school, life seemed to change for Peter and he seemed to focus more on grades.
He turned inward, but there were moments you could draw him out and get him to talk for a moment.
Peter was in my youth group.
I wish I could tell you that he and I were good friends, I regret that I did not know him better, but we were not.
We casually talked at church, and he occasionally was at youth group activities, but for whatever reason, he did not attend youth group events as often as the rest of us in the group did.
We graduated High School the same year and while many of us left Daytona Beach for Lipscomb University, he headed off to Texas for school.
Something happened during his first semester, no one knows exactly what but, it shook him enough that he wanted to return home.
His parents told him to stay and the next day he took his life.
Now, I am not trying to blame myself for what happened, but there is a weight I carry to this day.
Could I have done more?
Could I have been more open?
Tried to connect better?
Been someone he knew he could have called for a listening ear.
This weight has shaped me and given me a concern for the outliers, those who do not quite fit in.
Those we might call outcasts.
Those who by either their own choice or society's doing, do not fit in.
Most of those people are dealing with something, some struggle or pressure they are under.
They struggle with:
Abuse that has been done to them.
Financial difficulties that are leading them to unbearable stress.
Social anxieties.
Pressure placed on them by others to conform to something they are not.
Unplanned pregnancies.
Failing health or devastating illness.
Some who have never really felt love.
A sin they want to leave behind but cannot figure out how that is done.
Every Sunday morning these people sneak through the door of our church, while we are catching up on how each other’s week has been.
They do not want to initiate anything, they are too scared of rejection, but inwardly they are hoping someone will reach out to them.
Hoping they might make a connection and many of them leave without a genuine connection being made.
Here is the tension I want us to wrestle with this morning.
In the after mash of COVID, where so many of us have lost a sense of community, why do we wait until it is too late to step forward with arms wide open?
Why do we wait for people to reach out to us before we reach for them?
I want to challenge us today to lean into creating community that will heal and grow everyone involved.
His Name Was Jesus.
Jesus had a different way of dealing with the outcast.
In fact when asked in Matthew 9 why He ate with the outcasts, his response was:
Jesus Himself showed mercy to the outcast.
Jesus called them to connect to Him.
You may have a heard of a few of them:
The Leper, where everyone else turned and ran away, Jesus reached out and touched him.
The man at the pool, who had no one to help him to the water, who was “unclean” Jesus helped restore His legs by taking a moment to care.
The sinful woman who came to anoint his feet with perfume and her hair, this woman who was most likely a prostitute, Jesus showed love and mercy.
The woman at the well, who came out in the heat of the day, when no one else was around so that she did not have to deal with their ridicule.
Jesus shared with her the truth, in love, and made her his first evangelist to the Samaritans.
I could spend this lesson listing how Jesus made the first moves to help people feel loved and cared for in a world that made them feel like outcasts.
I want us to know today that Jesus calls us to love the outcast and reach out to them.
We will see lives change when we show people Jesus and our care and concern for them.
So, this morning, I want us to look at two back-to-back stories in Luke that can help us see how we can be like Jesus to those who are feeling like outcasts.
Here we have a man who people walked by most days.
Maybe occasionally, the would toss him a few coins.
He most likely had someone who saw him to this spot and to home, but we are given the impression that for the most part he was unseen by the masses.
Mark’s gospel tells us the name of the blind man, Bartimaeus, but Luke here does not reveal his name.
I think the reason for that is that for Luke it sets the stage for how unimportant this man was to the crowd.
But on this day, a man who looked over by the back of the crowd, who found out Jesus was near began to yell out to Him and people told him to be quiet.
I wonder why, people told him to be quiet?
By this time Jesus had a reputation of being a healer, so why would they not want to see a miracle.
I can only assume that they just simply felt that he was not worth Jesus time.
But Jesus felt different.
Jesus showed Him mercy.
Will come back and make some observations in a few moments, but for now let’s simply sit with the fact that Jesus saw this one man important when other’s did not.
let’s continue reading our next narrative.
If you spent anytime in Sunday School, you remember this story and maybe a song about this short little tax collector.
Maybe as you grew up you learned why he was so hated.
Up until this day he was not someone who was very desirable.
He worked for the Romans and was viewed as a traitor.
As a chief collector he oversaw all tax collectors in that area and was directly responsible for amounts of taxes owed by the people.
By his own admission he cheated his people and collected more money from them then he should.
He lived a very lavish lifestyle while the people he cheated lived very poor lives.
Most of his fellow Jews would want to see him dead and I imagine on this day as they saw him trying to get close to Jesus they positioned themselves to block his view, probably with a smile of their faces.
In the story before we see the man yelling for Jesus, here were are not told he did anything to get Jesus’ attention, but we are told Jesus looks up and see him, telling Zacheus that He is going to spend the day with him.
So here is Jesus going to HIS house to stay.
What will people think?
Maybe they will think differently of Jesus.
Maybe they will rethink following him.
But Jesus, saw something different, he saw Zacheus’ heart and that day his heart changed.
Zacheus repented of his sins and promised restitution.
We are not told if he gave up his job.
If he ever became liked, but we know from this point that he treated people fairly and that he was different.
So, two stories chosen out of many that help give us a glimpse of how Jesus looked past the rough, hardened exteriors of people who many disregarded and saw their hearts.
What can we learn from these two stories that can help us be Jesus to those outcasts we encounter?
I have three observations.
Jesus loved the people who were easiest to hate.
You might be able to show compassion to a blind man who has nothing.
You might be able to give him money, help him home on occasion.
You might even once or twice invite him home for a meal.
But I don’t think even today many of us find a tax collector easy to love.
But what about others we encounter today?
The teenager who is struggling with their sexuality.
The husband who gave up his family for what he thought was better on the other side, that person who is riding your last nerve.
Those are the people who we choose many times to turn away from?
But the question we must ask ourselves is would Jesus turn away from them?
Sometimes, we will encounter people who are not easy to love.
Maybe, they live in unsightly places or haven’t bathed in days.
Maybe, each time you try to give them advice, they do the opposite and it never goes right for them.
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