Homily for 6 July 2014, the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost--Christians Can't be Normal

Homily for 6 July 2014:  4^th Sunday after Pentecost

(Romans 6:18-23)                    (Matthew 8:5-13)

 

Today’s reading from the Gospel of St Matthew shows us once again how Jesus upsets ordinary expectations of how things should be.  What Jesus does in this short incident is not normal; in fact, it is far from normal.

First, the centurion who comes to Jesus is a Roman, or at least an officer in the Roman Army.  He is not a Jews and he belongs to a force that is occupying the Jews’ country—the country that God gave them.  So this centurion is doubly not one of Jesus’ people.  The “normal” thing for Jesus to do would be to say, “I don’t have anything to do with you, you stinking foreigner and unbeliever!”  But Jesus doesn’t do what is normal; He says, “I will come and cure your slave.”

Second, the centurion doesn’t ask for help for himself, but for his slave.  This is highly unusual—slaves were usually treated like animals; they would be killed if they got too sick to work.  But this centurion evidently cares deeply about his slave; he has recognized him and accepted him as a fellow human person.  Surely this attitude catches Jesus’ attention.  It is what Jesus has been preaching and practicing himself, not caring about the distinctions of race, class, religion, nationality, or physical handicap, but accepting people as children of God and therefore his brothers and sisters.

The third surprise is the centurion’s reaction.  He has such strong faith that he believes just the word of the Lord will cure his slave’s illness.  And he has a sense of his unworthiness, which is very unusual for a Roman officer dealing with a wandering Jewish rabbi.  Still, he tells Jesus, “I’m not worthy to have you in my home.  Just say that my slave is healed, and I believe that he will be healed.”  He says that’s the way things work in the army, and he shows his respect for Jesus by trusting that Jesus will do what He says.  And that is exactly what happens, though Jesus makes it clear that the slave will be healed because of his master’s faith.

The fourth and final upset in this story comes in the lesson Jesus draws from the centurion’s faith.  Basically, Jesus tells his fellow Jews that “this foreigner, this Gentile, this invader and oppressor of our country, who doesn’t observe the Law that God gave our ancestor Moses, has more faith than you or anyone else in Israel.”  The point is clear:  they ought to be ashamed.  Jesus carries the point further by saying that in the future the Kingdom of heaven will be open to anyone who believes, not just those born in the right place to the right parents.  Once again, this is radically not normal.

And how does all of this apply to us?  We are the descendants of the outsiders to whom Jesus opened the Kingdom, yet we often think of ourselves as deserving salvation, as the rightful heirs of the Kingdom, simply because we were born into Christian families, and were baptized and raised Christian.  It’s easy for us to become like the complacent Jews of Jesus’ time.

But we really have to be like the centurion, full of faith and humility and respect and trust.  We have to decide every day to have faith in our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ, and to be humble, and to live as Christians, so that Jesus will also say to us, “Go in peace; let it be done for you according to your faith.”

Christian life can never be normal.  Christians are called to be different from and apart from the world around us.  And for this we give thanks and praise and glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and ever and unto ages of ages.  Amen.