When the Pharisees heard this, they said, “It is only be Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.”

Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.” He then went on to say, “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.”

In the movie, The Gospel According to Matthew (directed by Reghardt van den Bergh and starring Bruce Marchiano as Jesus), Marchiano plays this scene in an unsophisticated temple. As the men gathered around him listens, van den Bergh ingeniously placed a woman behind a latticework room divider. She is obviously a prostitute; everything about her cries, “for sale.” Yet, as she peers through the lattice, her eyes plead, “Can you save even me?”

Marchiano gives her a quick glance, as though to say, “Yes, I see you,” but to not embarrass her. He then ontinues to speak to the men, reciting, “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad….”

Marchiano, as Jesus, then looks back up to the woman, eyes full of love and compassion. He continues, “…for a tree is recognized by its fruit.”

With one gentle look—a look that seems to pass into the woman’s very soul—he smiles, then moves back to the men.

A House, Some Seed, and a Fruit Tree

Oh, to have the eyes of Jesus look upon us with such love! Such compassion and gentleness! Do we, as today’s Christian women, not yearn to see His beautiful face and to have his eyes behold ours in such a way?