Holistic Love of Jesus

Leader Guide

Unit 5 lesson 3

Scripture Luke 8:40-56

Lesson Overview: Social Dimension In this third lesson students will learn that Jesus healed people in a holistic way: socially, physically, spiritually, and relationally. Jesus loved and cared for the whole person. It does not take long to realize that Jesus was filled with love and compassion when it came to the suffering of others. The thing that was great about Jesus is that he didn’t just care about giving people food. He didn’t just care about making people feel loved. He didn’t just go around teaching people about God. When Jesus healed and cared for people it was in a holistic way.

Biblical Commentary Jairus is a leader of the synagogue in Capernaum. There is a great sense of urgency about his faith. Both Jairus and the woman subject to bleeding labor under the burden of ill health; the man for his daughter, the woman for herself. Both are overcome by emotion in their interaction with Jesus and fall to their feet before him. As they travel toward Jairus’s house, they meet a hemorrhaging woman. She would not be welcome at Jairus’s home due to the impurity caused by her chronic disorder. Her healing indicates that Jesus’s ministry extends from the leaders of the synagogues to those categorically excluded from the ritual life of the nation’s religion. This woman exemplifies the marginalized status of women in general but also one whose physical condition makes her a source of impurity to all who touch her. This probably explains her attempt to touch Jesus secretly. The verb touch appears three times in this section. Earlier, Jesus “reached out his hand and touched” the leper (5:13). Now, his casual attitude toward the woman’s impurity signals that her condition is not viewed with alarm. It also signals the priority he gives to compassion over ritual. In many of the sinner stories in Luke, desperate need pushes people into Jesus’s presence. In contrast to those preoccupied with rules and regulations, intense need drives some to violate the rules to break through to God’s grace. This points to the piety Luke’s leaders are encouraged to seek—rogue and reckless, not the tradition-bound type. The woman’s faith, fueled by need, is all that is required to receive God’s grace. The story implies that the formal structures of religion are not the arbitrating factor for healing and grace. As for Jairus’s daughter, Jesus tells his listeners that the only thing they need to do is “just believe, and she will be healed.” Upon arriving at Jairus’s house Jesus tells the girl, “My child, get up!” The girl rises to new life. As you teach and discuss this passage with your students, help them understand that Jesus doesn’t just care about people’s physical needs or just their spiritual needs. He loves people in a full and thorough way. As followers of Jesus, we must learn what it means to love others holistically.

Reflect on these themes: • Holistic ministry: Do you teach your students to love others in a holistic manner?

Think about your students: • Do your students have a self-centered Christian faith? • Do your students understand how Jesus loved and ministered to people in a holistic way?

Resources • Computer projector (creative option) • Computer (creative option) • Plant (creative option) • Journals (creative option)

Messages to Parents and Teens For Teens: The following are a couple of text messages, Tweets, or Facebook statuses you could send out to your students to promote the meeting and/or prepare them for it. • Hey there friends, please take a minute to read over Luke 8:40-56. How would this story be different if Jesus didn’t care or help the bleeding woman or Jairus’s daughter?

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• Do me a favor and look up the word holistic before you come to group this week. We are going to be talking about how Jesus’s love and compassion for people were holistic. For parents: Here are some text messages to get parents and teens talking before your next meeting and a follow-up email to equip parents to continue encouraging their teens to engage in living out God’s mission. • Please take a minute to read over Luke 8:40-56 with your students. Ask them how they think the woman must have felt to finally be healed. • This week we are talking about how, as Christians, we are called to love and care for people in a holistic way. Jesus didn’t just care about physical needs or social issues; he cared for the whole person. This is a follow-up email/message you may wish to send to parents regarding the content that you studied during group time. Dear Parents, This week we looked at Luke 8:40-56. This is the story of how Jesus healed the woman who was subject to bleeding and then raised Jairus’s daughter from the dead. We talked about how Jesus healed and ministered to people in a holistic way. He didn’t just care about making sure people had food to eat or if they were sick/injured; he cared for the whole person! As Christians, we must learn how to do the same. There is no point in telling people God loves them if we completely ignore the other struggles and issues of a person’s life. To do so is contrary to the life of Christ, who healed and ministered to the whole person. Here are a few questions you may wish to discuss with your teen: • What are one or two things you remember from your small group time? • What were the two ways that Jesus acted in love and compassion toward others? • What are ways that we can act lovingly and compassionate toward others today? • What does it mean to love and care for people in a holistic way?

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Lesson Guide

Explore As you open your group time together, give the students an opportunity to share highlights from their week. Also allow students to share praises or prayer requests. Open your group time in prayer. Option: What Would It Be Like… Purpose: To introduce the theme of holistic love to your students. Read these two scenarios to your students and discuss the questions afterward. Scenario #1: You are rushed to the emergency room because you fell out of a tree. After being carried into the waiting room and waiting for 20 minutes in severe pain, the doctor calls you in and evaluates your injuries. After a few tests, she informs you that your right leg and left arm are both fractured. The doctor tells you that you will need a cast on your arm, and she proceeds to put it on. Once your arm has been completely wrapped, she informs you that you are ready to go. You give the doctor a confused look and ask, “What about my leg?” She shrugs her shoulders and says, “Eh, I don’t really care about broken legs.” ASK: What would be going through your mind if the doctor told you she didn’t care about your broken leg? What would it be like if every doctor you visited was interested in helping your broken arm but no one cared about your broken leg? Scenario #2: After church you notice a man you have never seen before walk up to your pastor. The man looks distraught and asks your pastor if he would pray for him. While you can’t hear the words from the prayer, you notice the man begins to cry. After the two of them say “Amen” together, the man asks your pastor if it would be all right if he took a bag of groceries from the church’s food pantry to help feed his two children at home. Apparently, the man lost his job over a month ago and is struggling to find work. Your pastor quickly finds another guy in the church who helps the man get the groceries he needs. ASK: What would you think if your pastor completely ignored the man’s request for food and told him to leave the church after they finished praying? How do you think Jesus would have reacted if the needy man asked him for help? SAY: In this week’s lesson we are going to talk about how Jesus cared for people and how we can learn from his example.

Encounter Ask a volunteer to read Luke 8:40-56. You may want to have these verses read in two different versions to help students better hear and understand the passages. Option: Questions Surrounding the Text Purpose: To help students explore and understand the passages through discussion and conversation. ASK: What do you think it would have been like to be sick for 12 years and no one able to help you? Why do you think the woman came trembling at Jesus’s feet in verse 47? SAY: In the time that Jesus lived, if you were sick, a lot of people refused to associate with you. They labeled you as unclean or cursed by God. Sometimes if people were sick for a long time they were treated as outcasts, and no one talked to them or befriended them. So, when Jesus healed this woman, he didn’t just heal her physical body, but she was also healed and restored in her relationships with other people and her social standing in society. • How do you think this woman’s life changed after her encounter with Jesus? • What do you think it would have been like to be Jairus in this story? • What do we learn about Jesus in this passage? • As you think about the rest of the Bible, what are other ways that Jesus healed people and showed his love for others? SAY: The amazing thing about Jesus is how he loved and cared for people. He didn’t just care about one part of people’s lives; he provided healing for the whole person. A word to describe Jesus’s ministry is holistic. • What do you think the word holistic means? SAY: Jesus didn’t just care about giving people food. He didn’t just care about making people feel loved. He didn’t just care about teaching people the Scriptures. He didn’t just care about making sure people had a place to sleep. He cared about the whole person! Just like if you had a broken arm and leg, you would hope a doctor would care about both injuries. As followers of Jesus, we are called to love and care for people in a holistic way, just like Jesus. Option: Real-Life Case Study Purpose: To help students better understand what holistic care looks like through a real-life example. (This option works best once students have already read and discussed Luke 8:40-56.)

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SAY: In Kansas City, Missouri, there is a center called the City Union Mission that has been around since the 1920s. They minister to hundreds of homeless men, women, and families every day. They provide three meals a day to the homeless, 365 days a year. The Mission also provides tutoring to adults and students. There are daily chapel services the residents are encouraged to attend. The Mission operates under seven main goals: • For their residents live in affordable, permanent, and safe housing after one year. • Gain sufficient income and a budget plan to pay off debt and meet their needs. • Learn to exhibit responsibility for available resources, such as property. • Complete education and job training. • Establish healthy relationships in their families, in the local church, and the community. • Identify and make changes in attitudes and personal attributes, such as honesty and responsibility. • Identify self-destructive addictions and work through realistic recovery issues. ASK: In what ways does the Mission care for people’s physical needs? In what ways does the Mission care for people’s social and relational needs? In what ways does the Mission care for people’s spiritual needs? What are some ways that we as Christians can love and minister to people in a holistic way like Jesus demonstrated and how the City Union Mission strives to do?

Engage Option: My Community, My World Purpose: To encourage students to think about their community and world and what it would look like to love and minister to people the way Jesus did. (You may want to use a white board or poster to write down students’ responses.) Challenge students to think of the various physical, spiritual, relational, and social needs of people in their community. This can include people at their school, people who live in their neighborhood, people who go to their church, and everyone else who lives in the area. Here are a few examples if your students are having difficulty. Physical issues: food, clothing, shelter, medicine, etc. Spiritual issues: people who don’t know about God’s love, people who are not part of a local church, those who have a negative impression of God and the local church, etc. Relational issues: people who are lonely/outcasts, depression, senior citizens at retirement homes, those who may not have any friends, people who get picked on, etc. Social issues: people who need tutoring, people who need jobs/employment, people who are discriminated against, etc. ASK: What are ways we can love and minister like Jesus to our community when it comes to the various needs of people we mentioned? What are some gifts, talents, resources, and interests God has given you that you could use to love and serve others in our community? Next, challenge students to think of the various physical, spiritual, relational, and social needs of people all over the world. Physical issues: starvation, malnutrition, dirty water, disease, sickness, shelter, etc. Spiritual issues: people who have never heard the gospel, countries where Christianity is illegal, etc. Relational & social issues: war, starvation, human trafficking, terrorism, human rights, etc. What are ways that we can love and minister like Jesus to our world when it comes to the various needs of people we mentioned? What are some gifts, talents, resources, and interests God has given you that you could use to love and serve others in our world? SAY: As followers and disciples of Jesus we must realize there is no such thing as a Christian faith that does not engage our community and world with a holistic love like Jesus. The question is not, Should we love and serve others? but, How will we love and serve others?

Closing Reaffirm the following truths to your students: • Jesus loved people in a holistic way. • We are called to love and serve people’s physical, relational, social, and spiritual needs. Close your lesson in prayer. Pray that God would help us not only be people who talk about loving and serving others but also people who love with our hands and feet.

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Creative Options Explore: Planning a Play Purpose: To help introduce this week’s topic to the students. You will need a white board or poster to write down students’ answers. SAY: Let’s pretend for a minute that all of you are in charge of putting on a play that will be seen by every single person in the city. You are all on the directing team, and you have three months to plan and perform the play. I want to know the top 10 things that would need to happen to put on a successful play. ASK: What would happen if you completely ignored or forgot to do #1, #4, #6, #9, and #10? How would that affect your performance? What if you completely ignored #2, #3, and #8? How would the play come out then? Okay, last one. What if you ignored steps #1, #2 and #7? What would the side effects be? SAY: I think it is pretty safe to conclude that in order to put on a successful production, you need to incorporate all 10 of these steps into your planning. In this week’s lesson we are going to talk about the way Jesus loved and cared for people and didn’t just ignore different areas of people’s lives but cared for the whole person.

Encounter: Growing a Plant Purpose: To help students understand the concept of holistic care by using a plant as an object lesson. For this option, bring in a potted plant and set it in the middle of the room. ASK: What does a plant need to grow and stay healthy? What would happen if you had enough water and light but no soil? What would happen if you had enough soil and light but no water? What would happen if you had enough water and soil but no light? SAY: Properly caring for a plant is a good way to remind us of how Jesus cared for people and how we are called to care for people. Jesus cared for the whole person: physical, spiritual, social, and relational. When Jesus healed the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years he not only cured her physically; he also restored her socially and relationally by making her no longer unclean. ASK: What could happen if we as Christians made sure people had food and water but didn’t care about sharing Christ or treating them with love? What if Christians constantly talked about Jesus but didn’t care about the physical and social needs of the community? SAY: I hope you are getting the point. To love and serve people like Jesus requires that we get to really know people and minister to them holistically.

Engage: Journal It- My Community, My World Purpose: To encourage students to think about their community and world and what it would look like to love and minister the way Jesus did. (This option can be done once students have already completed the My Community, My World option.) If you have internet access where you have your small group, show your group www.birdsofhope.org. SAY: We have talked a lot about what it looks like to love and minister in a holistic way. In 2010 two girls, Emily and Allyson, decided they wanted to do something about people in Africa who don’t have clean drinking water. They learned about an organization called Active Water that helps provide Africans with filters to clean the water. To raise money for the filters they began making handmade birds that they sold for $5. Since they began, they have raised thousands of dollars for their cause. How awesome is that? I want to challenge you to think of the unique ways God may be challenging and calling you to love and serve your community and world and write about it. You can also use this time to write out a prayer asking God to help you to be the hands and feet of Jesus. (Give students about 10-15 minutes to complete this.) After they are finished, give them the opportunity to share the different ways God may be challenging them to love and minister to their community and the world.

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