Jesus has to explain to his allies why he is partying with the sinners rather than fasting with revolutionaries. Then, after having gathered in the lost - the tax/toll collectors and "sinners" - he suddenly gets called to a high-status household, but on the way heals a marginalized woman suffering from menstrual bleeding. Chapters 8 and 9 have Jesus entering the worlds and lives of people who are very separate from each other: a leper, gentiles, women and men, social outcasts, low and high-status people; in all of these situations, he brings healing, both social and physical. And finally, he heals two blind men and casts out the demon from a mute man, punctuating this section of the story with images of liberation from Isaiah.

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