It’s hard to do good for people who don’t deserve it, isn’t it?

We all have those people we work with or people in our families that we would rather punch in the face than give a minute of our time to. I bet you can name a few people right now that would you rather work around or completely remove from your life. Words like compassion, friendly, joy don’t seem to fit into our narrative with these so called toxic people. Right?

Am I making sense here?

This is a tension that many of us live with day in and day out. I wrestle with this too, but check out one of the story that Jesus invites us into. Remember the story of the Sermon on the Mount? You know, love your enemy, turn the other check and yup…even go the extra mile. Or, blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Before we walk this out…I’m not talking about justified self defense or protecting your family here.

Sounds great doing a study on the sermon on the mount or reading it in your daily devotional, but living out in real life…well that’s a quite a different thing all together. Well it gets better because Jesus brings it all in by ending the sermon with this, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

OK, let’s hit the pause button here. In the last couple of months using the sermon on the mount as the litmus test, are you a wise man or a foolish one?

Show of hands please!

If you’re honest with yourself you’re probably in the camp of fools, right? You know that family member that you wish would go away or that work colleague that you’d like to literally take out back and punch in the face.

Jesus isn’t just saying these things because they’re new and revolutionary…He wants us to do this! We hear this on any given Sunday and we’re like, YEAH praise God! Then we walk out the door and want to call fire and brimstone down from Heaven on a few people.

So do you think that Jesus just leaves the story right there? You know, just a bunch of words? Well, check this out.

Shortly after the brilliant sermon He just gave, He comes down from the mountainside with an energized crowd following Him and comes face to face with a leper. Put on the breaks! We have all this momentum and this guy with leprosy comes into the scene and kneels before Jesus. The scene goes still as all eyes are on Jesus because everyone is wondering what He’s going to do. Will Jesus live out what He shared on the Sermon on the Mount? Because this is that guy that NO ONE wants to be around! They might not have leprosy, but I’m sure you have a person like this in your sphere.

The Leper says, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” And Jesus does the coolest thing…He stretches out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

…and the crowd goes wild. This guy Jesus is walking His talk. Jesus was willing to stop everything and give this man His undivided attention.

Would you have done that?

Oh, it gets better because what happens next is crazy! After healing the leper, Jesus comes into Capernaum and a centurion came to Him asking for help He said, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.” Here’s the kicker, because most of us miss this.

A Roman centurion, who represented all the history between the persecuted Jews and the Roman empire, has the balls to come up to Jesus and ask Him this. Lets roll the tape back a bit. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnusa, a military commander of Rome, lays siege on the city of Jerusalem and badly damaged the Temple. The Jewish people had to accept the terms of Rome, and they became a province of the Roman Empire in 64 BC, setting up the scene for the coming birth of Jesus. No too long after this, Rome appointed Herod to be king over Israel and the kicker…he was an Edomite which was very offensive to the Jews. Although he was known as Herod the Great, he was not great at all and creates chaos for the people of Israel. This man was absolutely hated! Next on the scene was Pontius Pilot who was always at odds with the Jews and introduced crucifixion to the land.

Getting the picture here? Rome and anything that represented Rome was hated and this is what this Roman centurion represented to the crowd that followed Jesus.

The times and circumstances are different, but we’ve all been in this place. That person whose wounded us the most and has hurt us the deepest comes to us and wants something. We react like Jesus, right? Heck no, we say…”are you kidding me?!?! Have you forgotten the pain you’ve caused me? All the history?” At this point many of us find ourselves at “golf foxtrot yankee!”

The irony here is that this centurion’s servant is suffering and the centurion is the personification of suffering.

“So what does Jesus do? He said to the centurion, “I will come and heal him.” But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith.”

Wait a minute!!! …what?!?!?

Ok, so where am I going with this. Jesus trades Heaven for Earth to introduce a brand new way to live life and a brand new set of ethics that would fly in the face of common sense. Basically Jesus is saying that if you treat a Roman like the Romans treat you than you’re no better than a Roman. Jesus is calling us to something completely different.

Ouch. Tough stuff and I personally wrestle with it, how about you?

Why is this stuff so difficult? Well, its because we always identify with Jesus in this story rather than the leper or the centurion. We look over Jesus’s shoulder in these circumstances and decide from on high if we’re going to be compassionate. In reality we’re really standing behind the leper and the centurion.

We always take on the victim role and see ourselves as the offended, rather than the offender. This tension is at the core of Jesus’s message and He is inviting us to live life a brand new way.

Are we really going to follow Jesus or be self-righteous and just treat people the way we think they deserve to be treated? We all leverage the wrongs and hurts from others to justify our hurtful reactions to others, don’t we!

You are not Jesus! You are the leper…you are the centurion…you are the offender!

Let that soak in for a bit!

The story of the leper and centurion has shaken me up and I hope it shakes you up too. Hopefully next time you’re confronted with your “leper” or your “centurion”, you will take the opportunity to do for someone what you hope your Father in Heaven will have grace and compassion to do for you.