Matthew 8

Over the last few chapters of Matthew we have heard Jesus spell out his "manifesto" for the Kingdom of Heaven.  He has told us in his own words what his Kingdom will be like.  In chapter 8 he moves beyond words and we see the Kingdom in action.

The Kingdom of Heaven carries the purity of God and brings it to earth.

In Matthew's Gospel the purity of Jesus is infectious.  In the Old Testament ritual impurity was something that transferred from the impure thing to an otherwise clean person.  With Jesus it is completely different, he touches a leper and far from the ritual uncleanness of the leper infecting Jesus the leper is made well.  The same is true with the centurion.  Jesus offers to break the religious taboos of his day by going to the unclean house of an unclean enemy of the people of Israel.

I'm not as sure on this one but I think because of the context the same is probably true of his healing of Peter's mother-in-law (and yes, that's Peter "the first Pope"'s Mother-in-law. I don't suppose he was the first man in history to be unfortunate enough to have a mother-in-law but no wife?).  First Century Rabbinic attitudes toward women were pretty severe.  Jesus by contrast is very comfortable around women.

The final group of unclean people that Jesus draws close to with his infectious purity are those who are demon possessed.  In the Old Testament demons are normally referred to as "unclean spirits."  Despite what many people would say the Bible draws a distinction between people who are physically ill and people who are suffering from demon possession.  Every illness in Biblical times was not explained in terms of demons or possession.

Already then in the space of just 17 verses Jesus shows his Kingdom at work in the lives of the physically unclean, those who were foreign and therefore seen as unclean, those who were unclean because of their gender and the spiritually unclean as well .  "Blessed are the poor in spirit" he said in his manifesto, "for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven"