by CCW | 22 January 2012 21:09
Mean thoughts, mean words and mean deeds result in a mean world of mean people. How great the contrast with healing words and deeds that arise from healing thoughts?
Words can make or break our day. A word spoken in kindness and truth can build us up and encourage us. A word spoken in disdain and hate can unsettle and disturb us.
Here is an Epiphany story of two miracles. It is simply about the power and the truth of the Divine Word which challenges us about our thoughts, our words and our deeds.
Two miracles. Miracles, we have suggested are part of the teaching programme of the Epiphany season. They belong to God’s will and purpose for our humanity, to our being able to take delight and find joy in one another and in God’s world. All the healing miracles of the Gospel point to that picture of the restoration and perfection of our humanity. They signal the idea of creation redeemed and sanctified. But only through the encounter with Christ. Only through the manifestations of his essential divinity communicated through his perfect humanity.
Two miracles. One within the confines of the religion of Israel; the other, beyond its scope, and universal in its extent. A leper comes to Jesus. If you will, he says, you can make me clean. He is an Israelite and yet an outcast, an untouchable, if you will, someone pushed to the margins of society because of a grievous and contagious disease, as it was understood. Jesus’s response is absolutely astounding. First, he reaches out and touches the untouchable but then he says, “I will; be clean.” The leper has grasped something of the power and truth of the Divine Word in Jesus Christ. And Jesus has acted and spoken. There is a healing but it is accomplished within the confines of the religion of Judaism. The leper is bidden to do what Moses commanded and to offer a gift as testament to what God does through Israel. Fair enough.
But this miracle is followed by Jesus’ going to Capernaum and encountering there a Centurion who besought him on behalf of his servant, sick of the palsy. Jesus, in a manner similar to the healing of the Leper says, “I will come and heal him.” But the interest of the Gospel passage lies in the extraordinary indeed marvelous and astounding response of the Centurion. Who is he? Well as a Centurion he is from outside of Israel, a Roman officer in fact who is in charge of one hundred soldiers. When he hears Jesus response to his request for the healing of his servant, he responds with these amazing words. “Lord,” he says, “I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof, but speak the word only and my servant shall be healed.”
It is quite a moment. He explains, of course. He has men who are under his authority. To the one he says, go and he goes. To another he says come and he comes. To another he says do and he does. So speak the Word only! Amazing. Why?
Because he recognizes the truth and power of the Divine Word which cannot be confined by the limits of time and space. The Word of Jesus he is saying can be passed on down the line and it will effect what it purposes. That is to have a hold of the transcendent power and truth of the Divine Word.
Jesus marvels. His remark at this point is a kind of critique of Israel. The story as a whole captures both the religion of Israel and what will emerge as the religion of Christianity. Jesus says that he has found no faith so great, no not in Israel. And yet, what the Centurion is saying actually belongs to the vocation of Israel as defined by Isaiah: a light to lighten the Gentiles, a covenant to the peoples. God is not confined to Israel but makes himself known through Israel. Jesus rebukes Israel for having forgotten their true mandate and mission. Ultimately, Isaiah’s prophecy will be understood as fulfilled in Jesus.
The whole gospel story is however a testimony to the power and truth of the divine Word, something which belongs to the religious understanding of Jews and Christians and Muslims, especially through their common commitment to the philosophical traditions of the Greeks. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God” may be from John’s Gospel but it articulates a way of thinking that all three religions have in common philosophically. It is about a commitment to an intellectual principle, the Divine Word which accounts for reality. The Leper senses this in Jesus as does the Roman soldier. Do we?
There have been times in the history of the relations between Jews and Christians and Muslims that this sensibility has been understood and appreciated, particularly in Spain during the 9th to the 11th centuries (though not without some exceptions), a time of relatively respectful inter-relation and toleration; the convicentia of Jews and Christians and Muslims. But only through the Divine Word to which all are held accountable. The phrase which sometimes has been used is the people of the book which is not exactly correct. There is no one book that all three have exactly and authoritatively in common. It would be truer to say “people of the Word”, the intellectual and philosophical word which cannot be contained to one place and time.
This is the Centurion’s insight and it challenges us about the thoughts, words and deeds which we use with one another. His reply to Jesus is about humility. It is about nothing less than an openness to that transcendent power and truth of the Divine Word, the Word that seeks our health and happiness, our good and truth. What is needed in us is the same attitude of mind. To be humble and open in awe and wonder to the healing power of God’s Word in Jesus Christ. It makes all the difference.
Fr. David Curry
Epiphany III, 2012
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2012/01/22/sermon-for-the-third-sunday-after-the-epiphany-2/
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