.emd_dl_grey {
-moz-box-shadow:inset 0px 1px 0px 0px #ffffff;
-webkit-box-shadow:inset 0px 1px 0px 0px #ffffff;
box-shadow:inset 0px 1px 0px 0px #ffffff;
background:-webkit-gradient( linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0.05, #ededed), color-stop(1, #dfdfdf) );
background:-moz-linear-gradient( center top, #ededed 5%, #dfdfdf 100% );
filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorstr=’#ededed’, endColorstr=’#dfdfdf’);
background-color:#ededed;
-webkit-border-top-left-radius:0px;
-moz-border-radius-topleft:0px;
border-top-left-radius:0px;
-webkit-border-top-right-radius:0px;
-moz-border-radius-topright:0px;
border-top-right-radius:0px;
-webkit-border-bottom-right-radius:0px;
-moz-border-radius-bottomright:0px;
border-bottom-right-radius:0px;
-webkit-border-bottom-left-radius:0px;
-moz-border-radius-bottomleft:0px;
border-bottom-left-radius:0px;
text-indent:0;
border:1px solid #dcdcdc;
display:inline-block;
color:#777777 !important;
font-family:Georgia;
font-size:15px;
font-weight:bold;
font-style:normal;
height:41px;
line-height:41px;
width:250px;
text-decoration:none;
text-align:center;
text-shadow:1px 1px 0px #ffffff;
}
.emd_dl_grey:hover {
background:-webkit-gradient( linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0.05, #dfdfdf), color-stop(1, #ededed) );
background:-moz-linear-gradient( center top, #dfdfdf 5%, #ededed 100% );
filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorstr=’#dfdfdf’, endColorstr=’#ededed’);
background-color:#dfdfdf;
}.emd_dl_grey:active {
position:relative;
top:1px;
}
Soldiers show up on four occasions in Luke’s Gospel, and in its sequel, the book of Acts. A group of soldiers questions John the Baptist about how to live righteously in Luke 3. A centurion asks Jesus to heal his servant—our Gospel lesson for today. Another centurion passes judgment on Jesus at his death in Luke 23 with the words, “Surely, this man was innocent.” And in Acts 10we read about Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Cohort, who is the first Gentile to be converted and baptized.
Perhaps it’s not surprising that soldiers should be found in these documents. Operating as Police force, expeditionary force, and occupying army, they were the iron fist that kept the Pax Romana. And yet, Luke presents them not as unthinking arms of Roman military might. We don’t expect to hear words like these: “You’ve spoken to these people, John, but not to us. How, John, should we soldiers live before God?” “Surely this man was innocent.” “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. . . . Only speak the word and my servant will be healed . . .” Here’s Luke’s description of Cornelius: “He was a devout man who gave generously and prayed constantly.” Luke presents soldiers always positively.
Listen: “This soldier is worthy of you! He loves us! He built our synagogue!” A group of Jewish elders bring this description to Jesus, requesting that Jesus heal this man’s servant. Imagine Palestinians in Gaza saying this of an Israeli Colonel on CNN. Imagine Northern Irish Republicans saying this of a British Lieutenant at the height of the Troubles in the 1970s and 80s. That’s the kind of dynamic here.
Not only is the centurion well loved by people who are supposed to be his enemies, he is a man of deep humility. He refuses to meet with Jesus, sending second group of friends to tell Jesus, “Lord I am not worthy of your company.” Furthermore, he understands who Jesus and his mission. “I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I speak and people obey. All you have to do is speak, and my servant will be healed.” He is a man of deep faith—trust—in this healer whom he knows but has not met. He does not seek Jesus out for entertainment. He does not follow Jesus just to see a miracle. And yet he knows in whose authority Jesus stands, with whose authority Jesus speaks, and what will happen if and as that healing word, God’s healing word is spoken. Jesus acts with the full authority of God and the Centurion gets it. “Only speak the word!” he says.
And Jesus’s response? “I tell you not even in Israel have I found such faith!” Jesus validates the description of this man, ostensibly an enemy of God and God’s people. Not only does the Centurion understand at a profound level Jesus identity and the nature of Jesus’ mission, but Jesus knows him. And in an ironic twist, Jesus does not go to this man’s house; he does not meet him at all; he never even speaks the word of healing, but the servant is healed anyway. Jesus never meets this Centurion. But he knows him. He commends him. He acknowledges his faith and he heals his servant.
In the same words, Jesus judges the people of God. “Not even in Israel have I seen such faith.” Israel’s faith is lacking. And we’ve run into this judgment before. When Jesus came to the Nazareth synagogue in Luke chapter 4, he is met by fawning and compliments but as far as Jesus is concerned, these conceal an audacious request: “Do the miracles for us that you did at Capernaum.” And Jesus reply, in part? “There were many lepers in Israel in Elisha’s day, but only Namaan the Syrian was healed.” Namaan, you will recall, was, like the centurion, an officer in the Syrian army, an enemy of God’s people. But he submitted to the word of the prophet Elisha and was healed of his leprosy and sent on his way. And how did the fawners and fans respond? They tried to throw Jesus off a cliff, thereby verifying his judgment.
The story of the centurion comes too close to the story of Namaan, for us to ignore it. Here, in the faith-filled Centurion, we a modern day Namaan. Here is a Gentile, an enemy of the people of God, with faith. A Gentile, an enemy, who is commended to those very people as an example worthy of emulation. Luke, it seems to me, invites us into to live in this story. He invites us to see our world through eyes enlightened by the Holy Spirit through the telling of the Gospel. As we do, here, it seems to me, is what we begin to see.
First, faith can found in marginal places. This is a theme that runs through Luke. Shepherds receive the angelic announcement of the birth of God’s Son. Think also of Mary—a nondescript Jewish teenager, in every way ignorable—she is the one who has found favour with God. Now, this centurion, this enemy of God’s people, is presented to us as an example of faith. An example of righteous living. An example of a life enlightened by the grace of God.
No doubt all of these examples were of great encouragement to Theophilus, the person to whom Luke writes both his Gospel and his sequel, the book of Acts. We don’t know much about Theophilus. We don’t even know if Theophilus was a real person. He may have been; he may have been a literary creation, a kind of everyman, Luke’s ideal audience. Either way, Theophilus is a marginal figure. He is a Gentile, he is attracted to Christian faith. He is either inquiring or had just been baptized. And one of the many, many things Luke tells him is that the God of the Gospel, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, has come for the marginal people. The people on the edges. The people whom this world passes over. These are the ones on whom God has shed his glory. These are the ones whom Christ has come to save. These are the ones to whom the Holy Spirit is given.
What a great encouragement to us! To know that as we move out into the margins for the sake of mission, that God is already there. Already preparing, already creating faith, already preparing people to respond to the Good News of the Gospel. It may be, that as we go, we will be surprised—as apparently Jesus himself was surprised—by the kind and depth of faith that we will find.
Not only can faith be found on the margins. For those who live out of this story, it is also the case that faithlessness can found in the community of God’s people. This is no doubt a hard part of the Gospel for us to hear—certainly it was hard for Jesus’ hearers to take it in when he first told them in Luke chapter 4. They responded to his rebuke with a murderous rage. “Do for us the miracles!” We’ll follow you, Jesus, if you give us a little bit of the flash we heard about when you were in Capernaum. But Jesus is not some sort of Aladdin’s genie. He will go in the freedom of the Gospel just as Elijah and Elisha had done before. Elijah was sent not to any of the many widows of Israel, but to a widow in Sidon. Namaan the Syrian, and not a leper of Israel, was sent to Elisha. Jesus did not go not to the center of political power—to Pilate’s seat or Herod’s throne. Jesus did not go to the centre of religious devotion, to the Temple and its leaders. In Luke’s Gospel, he appears in all these places only as he prepares to die. Instead, Jesus goes to the margins, to insignificant women, to shepherds, to centurions.
The point? Being a visible part of the people in power, the people of God is not a permission slip to approach Jesus with a list, as though he is some sort of Santa Claus who is at our beck and call . And that, it seems to me, is a temptation always for all of us—that we will become too familiar with Holy Things. That we become too “friendly” or perhaps presumptuous with God. That we will become like the miracle seekers rather than the synagogue elders who commended this centurion to Jesus.
And that is the third stop we need to make today. It is striking to me that this Centurion—as devout and generous as he was—still had need of intercessors. He still had need of people to go to Jesus for him. And that is precisely what the synagogue elders did on his behalf. They brought his request to Jesus and they endorsed it. This man is worth your time, they said to Jesus. And in this, they had a better estimation of this man’s value to the Lord than he himself did. Recall his words, Lord, I am not worthy to have you come into my house.
Jesus responds to the friends’ request. There is no need to get into speculation about what Jesus knew and when. What we ought to see instead is that throughout, here Jesus is responsive. In this story, he does not take the initiative. He responds first to the synagogue elders. He responds second to the group of friends. In both responses, he turns in grace toward this centurion, this man who should have been an enemy, but who was rather a man of deep faith.
My friends, not only are there times when we are too convinced of our own worthiness, to the degree that we become sinfully presumptuous upon the goodness of God, but there are also times when we cross paths with people who are too convinced of their own unworthiness to approach that God, who in Christ is already seeking for them. Such people need friends. Friends like the synagogue elders who act as mediators, as intercessors, to bring those friends to Jesus, so that Jesus might respond to them. Friends very aware of their own dispensability, and of the indispensability of Christ.
In our Gospel today, Jesus goes to the margins and finds faith, he judges a community too familiar with holy things, and he responds to friends who are willing to stand with those who feel unworthy. And now he invites us to his table that we may, by his Spirit, be drawn into that very life. May we, as we are sent from this place to take that life into the world, find ourselves willing to go the margins with eyes to see the faith that is there, eyes still open to the surprising moves of God in our midst and out of it, and hearts that are willing to embrace even those who may feel the furthest away from the love of God.