Romans 6:18-23; Matthew 8: 5-13
Our Lord’s
ministry violated many of the religious and cultural sensibilities of
first-century Palestine in shocking ways.
Contrary to all expectations for the Jewish Messiah, He asked for a
drink of water from a Samaritan woman with a broken personal history, engaged
in an extended spiritual conversation with her, and then spent two days in a
Samaritan village. He invited Himself to
the home of Zacchaeus, a corrupt tax-collector for the Roman army of
occupation. And as we read today, He not
only healed the servant of a Roman centurion, but said of this man, “Truly, I say to you, not even in
Israel have I found such faith.” This encounter
is truly astounding because the Jews expected a Messiah to defeat the Romans by
military force, not to praise the faith of their officers.
The Lord’s
statement that the faith of this Roman soldier was superior to that of any of
the Jews surely struck just about everyone in that time and place as being not
only foolish but also blasphemous. By
doing so, He made clear that God’s blessings are not defined by nationality or
cultural heritage, for “many will come from east and west and sit at table with
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven, while the sons of the
kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness…” Though it was commonly overlooked at the
time, God’s promises to Abraham were for the blessing of “all the nations,” not
merely one group of people. These
promises have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ such that all with faith in Him
are now His beloved sons and daughters. (Gen.
22:18; Gal. 3:8-9)
Our Lord’s fulfillment of the
ancient promises had nothing at all to do with setting up an earthly kingdom in
Palestine or anywhere else. Remember
that before the Savior began His public ministry, “the devil
took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the
kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, ‘All these
things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.’ Then
Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! For it is
written, ‘You shall worship
the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” (Matt. 4:8-10) The crowds
welcomed Christ to Jerusalem as a conquering hero on Palm Sunday because they
thought He was their military liberator from Roman rule. When it became clear that He was an entirely
different kind of Messiah with no interest in launching an armed rebellion,
they yelled, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”
a few days later (Lk 23:21). The Savior
then told Pontius Pilate that His kingdom was not of this world, which
is why His followers would not take up arms to defend Him. (Jn. 18:36)
The kingdom which
Christ proclaimed may well appear just as foolish today according to our conventional
standards, for it has no geographical boundaries and is not a nation-state; it
does not require any particular ethnicity, culture, or language for its citizens.
Even as the promises to the descendants
of Abraham have been extended to all with faith in Christ, the ancient hope for
an earthly realm in a particular part of the world has been fulfilled in the
Body of Christ in which all may participate even now as a foretaste of the blessedness
of the kingdom of heaven, regardless of where they live. As St. Peter wrote to the early Christians, “You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you
out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who
had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.” (1 Pet. 2: 9-10)
We rightly pray for God’s blessings upon our nation and all
the nations and peoples of the world. And
like Christians of all times and places, we must resist the temptation to view the
positive dimensions of our collective life as ends in themselves to be worshiped
as false gods that distract us from faithfulness to Jesus Christ. Remember that the chief priests told
Pilate “We have no king but Caesar!” as they called for the Messiah’s
crucifixion (Jn. 19:15). The pagan
Romans later killed Christians because they would not worship the gods believed
to preserve their empire. Our Lord and
His martyrs looked like fools, or worse, to those obsessed with their own
political interests. We are certainly
not immune today from the temptation to reject our Lord and His Cross by giving
our primary allegiance to our desires for power, domination, and vengeance
toward our enemies and rivals. This
temptation, which is rooted in the fear of death, is made all the more worse
when we convince ourselves that we are actually serving Christ as we pursue the
nationalistic path that He so clearly rejected.
Obviously, our
Lord did not view the Roman centurion according to conventional earthly terms,
even though He was well aware of the man’s role in serving the empire under the
authority of which He would be crucified.
By all outward appearances, they would have been sworn enemies, but
Christ did not see him that way or require him to quit the Roman army or become
a Jew. He simply marveled at the
centurion’s faith, granted his request, and noted that “many will come from
east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of
Heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness;
there men will weep and gnash their teeth.”
Our hope is to be
among those “from east and west” who are gathered into the kingdom of heaven by
our Lord’s gracious mercy, which we receive through faith in Him, regardless of
our national, ethnic, or political identity.
Even as not all the descendants of Abraham fulfilled their calling to
receive the Messiah in faith, we cannot blithely assume that being Orthodox
Christians somehow guarantees us the blessedness of the kingdom or makes us
justified in condemning anyone. The
greatest obstacle to the healing of our souls is pride, which often manifests
itself in the belief that we are somehow better and more deserving of God’s
favor than others for whatever reason.
Such pride is the deadly enemy of true faith, but the centurion somehow
managed to avoid that trap, despite the high standing given to him by his rank
in the armed forces of the mighty Roman Empire.
He humbled himself before the Lord, saying, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you
come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.” Even as Christ did not see him as a Roman
enemy, he did not see Christ as either a threat to the empire or someone
inferior by worldly standards. Quite the
contrary, the centurion had somehow acquired the spiritual clarity to know
where he stood before the Lord Who would heal his servant in such a miraculous
fashion. Even as the centurion, tax-collectors, prostitutes, Samaritans,
demon-possessed Gentiles, and other outcasts received Christ in faith, we must
never presume to declare that anyone is beyond His love or cannot find healing
through faith in Him.
Like that blessed man, let us
entrust ourselves to Christ with such humility that our passions do not keep us
from knowing that we stand before Him in need of constant mercy, as do all
people. Instead of fueling the pride,
domination, and vengeance that so easily blind us spiritually and lead us to idolatry,
let us unite ourselves so fully to Christ that His character becomes evident in
us. When that happens, we will manifest
in our own lives His mercy and forgiveness in ways unconstrained by devotion to
any of the false gods of this world to the point that we will love even our
enemies as God loves us. No, that is not
the easy, popular, and conventional way of living in our time or in any other,
but it is the way of the Savior Who conquered death itself through His Cross
and glorious resurrection on the third day.
It is only by uniting ourselves to Him in faith and faithfulness that we
may hope, along with the centurion, to be among those who “come from east and
west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of
Heaven.”
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