Texts: I Kings 8:1, 11, 41-43a; Luke 7: 1-10
When it wants to, the
Judeo-Christian tradition can handily divide the world into those who are God’s
chosen ones and those who are not. In
1980 the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Rev. Bailey Smith said,
“With all due respect to those dear people . . . God Almighty does not hear the
prayer of a Jew. . . . It may be politically expedient, but no one can pray
unless he prays through the name of Jesus Christ."[i]
I suspect Rev. Bailey Smith never
read I Kings 8:42-43. If he had, he’d have discovered that King Solomon, on the
day the Temple in Jerusalem was dedicated, petitioned God Almighty to hear the
prayers of Jews AND nonJews like you and me and Bailey Smith. If God hears
Bailey Smith’s prayers at all, it just might be because a Jewish king long ago asked
God to hear even the prayers of a Southern Baptist preacher like Smith or a UCC
minister like me.
Oh, I know many scriptures endorse
religious chauvinism. In fact, the alternate lectionary reading from I Kings
for today is the story of Elijah competing with the prophets of Baal to prove
whose god was superior (I Kings 18: 20-39). Spoiler alert: Elijah’s God won.
I’m not claiming that all gods are equal. But claiming that no other religion
has validity draws you into the “my God can beat your God” competition which
devolves into “I can beat you” which further devolves into “I can destroy you” which
might eventually become “So I will.”
I, too, am tempted to
categorize people rather than learn from those with different beliefs. Like you,
I have a favorite news source and harbor suspicions about those who favor other television,
print, or internet news sources. I struggle, as perhaps you do, to stand up for
my ethical, political, and theological convictions while being in loving relationship
with those of differing perspectives. And the opposite can also present a
challenge: to love and admire someone without assuming that person shares my
opinions on important topics. We as a diverse faith community also find it difficult at times to respect differing perspectives and especially to remember that different perspectives on politics and religion exist within our united and caring community.
So I welcome the examples of
Solomon, who assumed God was at work among people of other religions, and, from our Gospel reading, an unnamed centurion who supported and received help
from people of differing beliefs. Maybe the key movement in this delicate dance
between fidelity and compassion is humility. Some believe that to be faithful
requires bombastic certitude that God is on their side and an unswerving
devotion to a set of beliefs. But Luke’s story of the humble centurion presents
a different kind of conviction: a commitment to care.
Prepare to be “amazed,” as
was Jesus, to see a powerful leader evince a gentle humility. Prepare to meet a person of deep faith who
believed he could experience God through someone of a different faith. Prepare
to watch Jesus upending our preconceptions by naming as his hero a person
participating in the oppression of his people.
Prepare to think of healing in this story as happening on a larger scale
than you’ve come to expect.
It’s an amazing story about
holding one’s beliefs lightly in order to live faithfully.
Shockingly, this humble faith
is portrayed by the last person from whom we’d expect it. The oppressed Jews certainly
would not expect humility from the commander of soldiers from the occupying
army of the Empire. The faithful Jews would not expect Jesus to lift up a
gentile as the paragon of faithfulness. But Luke’s very construction of this
story establishes the humbleness of our hero because the unnamed centurion
remains “off stage” of this drama. To
help you appreciate the unusual way the story is told, I am going to ask for
six volunteers to pantomime the story with me.
All six will start out at the centurion’s home over here. I’ll give you further instructions as we go
along.
First we need someone to play
the centurion and someone to be the young slave. You’ll remain “off stage” to
your right for the whole reading. The sick
slave might lean weakly. The centurion will stand beside him.
The next two volunteers represent
the Jewish elders. These are the religious leaders who voluntarily vouch for
the kindness of the centurion when they appeal to Jesus for his help. One of you will read these words when I give
you the cue.
Finally, we need two to be the friends of the centurion, who will later intercept Jesus as he makes his way
to the centurion’s house. One of you
will read these words when I give you the cue.
I’ll take the role of Jesus. The rest of the congregation becomes the
crowd which is following Jesus.
Remember, we’re looking to
the story to learn what a person of faith is like. I’ll begin reading again our Gospel lesson and this time we'll see it enacted. Imagine what the crowd saw and didn't see:
* * *
“After
Jesus had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered
Capernaum. 2A centurion there had a slave whom he valued highly, and
who was ill and close to death. 3When he heard about Jesus, he sent
some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave. (Elders move "on stage" next to Jesus.)
4When they came
to Jesus, they appealed to him earnestly, saying, (Elder 1) “He is worthy of having you do
this for him, 5for he loves our people, and it is he who built our
synagogue for us.”
6And Jesus went
with them, (Jesus and elders move toward
the centurion’s house but remain "on stage") but when he was not far from the house, the centurion
sent friends (friends move to Jesus) to
say to him (Friend
1), “Lord,
do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; 7therefore
I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word, and let my servant
be healed. 8For I also am a man set 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 slave, ‘Do this,’ and the slave does it.” 9When
Jesus heard this he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd that followed
him, he said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” (Friends and elders return to the centurion's house, "off stage.") 10When
those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good
health.
The actors of the drama may
return to their pews. (applause!)
* * *
As you can see, you couldn’t really see the centurion in the drama of which he’s the hero. He never walked on stage and never directly
encountered Jesus. His words were spoken
by others. Similarly, his faith was not showy. This powerful man’s humility was
underscored by the fact that he remained on the sidelines—with the servant. The greatness of this man was tied to his
compassion for the lowly young servant who was weak, sick, near death. Of course, we must take into account the injustice of slavery, which we will do in a few minutes. For now,
we focus on the unnamed centurion’s immediate effect on others in his community. Remember that we and Jesus met this military leader indirectly, through the
testimony of others, as we now review.
First, the Jewish elders appeal
passionately to Jesus on the centurion’s behalf because he “loves our people”
and he even built a synagogue for them.
I think about the protests after 9/11 as some Christians tried to block
the construction of mosques—in New York, in Murphreesboro, TN, and elsewhere. Just this week we’ve learned that a mosque in
Mobile was denied permission to expand their facilities, perhaps because of
usual zoning restrictions or perhaps not. Yet here’s a Christian scripture speaking favorably about interreligious support where a house of faith is built, at least in
part, by people of a different faith. This story doesn’t mean all religions are
equal. It does suggest that people of
different religions can care for one another.
And that cooperation creates a healing in a very fundamental sense. This is, after all, a story about healing on
several levels, a point to which I’ll return later.
Next in the story we meet friends of the centurion who may very well be Gentiles like the centurion. They vouch for the centurion’s power and
humility. Although the Jewish elders have previously volunteered that the
centurion is worthy of receiving Jesus’s miracle of healing for the servant,
the centurion has instructed his friends to say he does not feel worthy to host
Jesus in his home. Perhaps the centurion belatedly remembers Jews are
considered ritually unclean by entering a Gentile’s home. So a powerful
military leader respects the custom of the native people while subordinating
himself to Jesus—more evidence of the leader’s humility.
And Jesus responds with
amazement, and with the highest commendation he gives anyone in Luke’s gospel. But clearly Jesus is not commending the
centurion’s religious beliefs. Jesus does not seem interested in the man’s
beliefs. Jesus simply observes a caring
man who trusts him to help.
And Jesus does.
But isn't it curious how little
attention is given to the actual healing—also “off stage”?
In other stories, Jesus heals
someone with words and actions and the reactions are often dramatic. But in
this story Jesus never agrees to heal the boy, never mentions the sick slave,
and of course never meets either the slave or his master. Jesus simply hears the story and commends the
centurion’s faith. We learn indirectly and without any detail that the healing
took place. Wouldn’t that have been a
scene to develop dramatically?
It seems Luke missed a
narrative opportunity to develop the climax of the story--unless the author's purpose was to turn attention elsewhere, unless the real healing happens elsewhere.
What happened in our reenactment "on stage"? I saw Jewish elders and Gentile friends coming together for a common purpose.
Perhaps it is society that is sick. We, today, would certainly see that slavery itself is a sign of societal illness, that military occupation terrorizing people is also sick, that oppressor and oppressed alike are made ill by hatred. The centurion requests healing for the sake of his young slave, but his simple human concern may be all the balm that is needed to start a systemic healing at the heart of this story.
Perhaps it is society that is sick. We, today, would certainly see that slavery itself is a sign of societal illness, that military occupation terrorizing people is also sick, that oppressor and oppressed alike are made ill by hatred. The centurion requests healing for the sake of his young slave, but his simple human concern may be all the balm that is needed to start a systemic healing at the heart of this story.
Society is diseased when our
stereotypes and rigid belief systems prevent us from seeing one another as
brothers and sisters. Faith heals, in this story, by healing the fabric of
society as one man places his faith in God’s goodness, as one person moves
closer toward compassion and equality and a bedrock trust that healing can
happen.
We do need, at times, to make
a stand, to speak our minds. Let’s not
pretend our opinions and beliefs don’t matter.
But the centurion shows me
the healing power of humility that can draw us together despite political,
theological, and social differences—especially when those in power extend
themselves humbly to those without power.
Robert Tannehill’s commentary
on Luke offers us helpful context for this story and a suggestion that perhaps the community for which Luke was first written was experiencing the social healing the story promises. He reminds us that the previous chapter of
Luke focuses on Jesus’s theme of loving the enemy (p. 116) and “is a carefully
crafted attempt to awaken the imagination so that radically new ways of
relating to enemies will result” (117).[ii]
He continues: “The willingness of the Lukan audience to accept Jesus’ teaching
of love of enemies may have been increased by their own experience of a
community in which Jews and Gentiles, poor and rich, had joined in mutual
support. To some extent Jesus’ way of
loving enemies had worked, although a diverse community is likely to have had
persistent tensions. . . . Differences
in deeply-held religious beliefs often breed hatred and violence, but the
community of Jesus is being told that it must find ways to love these enemies”
(119). Therefore, "the experience of
meeting and worshiping with a Roman soldier or official in a Christian
community might have led some Christian Jews to believe that love of their
national enemies, the Romans, was possible” (120). The early Christians were starting to heal these social diseases!
The centurion’s story suggests
we might actually be a more faithful people when we’re less dogmatic, when we
can love those we’d once called enemy, when we hold our faith firmly enough to
make a difference in the world, yet lightly enough to hear a new word. Here's hope for the healing of the world.
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