Romans
6:18-23 (4th Sunday after Pentecost)
Matthew
8:5-13 (4th Sunday of Matthew)
In some
ways things have not changed much in the Middle East since the time of
Christ. Religion and politics are often
closely connected there, and some believe that God wants them to hate and kill
those whose beliefs and ancestry differ from their own. To this very day, many innocent
people—including Orthodox Christians and others—suffer in Syria, Egypt, Iraq,
Palestine, Israel and elsewhere for being the wrong kind of human being in the
eyes of someone with a gun, a bomb, or some other weapon. Whether a government, a terrorist group, or
some kind of militia, the result is often the same for those unfortunate enough
to fall into their hands.
Likewise,
in the time and place of Jesus Christ’s earthly ministry, many saw a close
connection between their religion and their politics, their faith and their
nationality. They wanted a savior, a messiah, who would be a political,
military ruler who would free their land from the control of the pagan Roman
army of occupation who believed that their gods protected their empire. By the end of the first century, they persecuted
Christians who would not worship the gods of the Rome because they were
considered traitors who would not do their part to serve the empire. They crucified the Lord as though he were a
rebel, one who challenged the authority of Caesar. That is why the sign at the top of the cross
identified Him as the King of the Jews.
The Romans used His death to remind the Jews what would happen to anyone
who dared question their authority. The
leaders of the Jews and the Roman authorities rejected and killed the Son of
God because he was perceived as a threat to their particular combinations of
religious and political power.
So
imagine how strange it must have seemed to everyone when a Roman centurion
asked Jesus Christ to heal his sick servant.
A centurion was a Roman soldier with a hundred men under his authority,
but this centurion had so much humility that he knew immediately that he was
not worthy that Christ should enter his home.
And he had so much faith that he knew that the Lord did not need to
enter into order to heal his servant.
“Only speak a word, and my servant will be healed,” the man said. Our Savior marveled at his faith, which
surpassed that of anyone in Israel, of any of the Jews. This humble, faithful Gentile (who was a hated
foreigner and an officer in a brutal army of occupation) was a sign that “many
will come from east and west, (from all over the world), and sit down with
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.”
In
other words, this gospel passage shows that God’s promises to Abraham and his
family from the Old Testament apply to everyone with faith in Jesus
Christ. He is the Messiah of the Jews in
Whom God’s promises are extended also to the Gentiles, to the entire world, to
all people regardless of nationality, culture, or politics. That is how a Roman centurion became the model
of faith, the great example of a stranger, even an enemy, who will join in the
heavenly banquet with the saints of the Hebrew people.
He is
a sign of hope for us all, for we are Gentiles whose ancestors were not Jews,
but who have become heirs of the promises to Abraham in Jesus Christ. In Him, our ethnic heritage does not matter;
our nationality and politics are irrelevant in the Kingdom of God; they do not determine
whether we share in the blessings of life eternal. For as we see in the Lord’s encounter with the
Roman centurion, true humility and faith are not the exclusive possessions of
any nation or interest group. People
from all over the world will enter God’s Kingdom not because of the passport
that they hold, the party to which they belong, or their ethnic heritage, but
because they have become participants by grace in the eternal life of the Holy Trinity.
It
was dangerous to say in first-century Palestine and it is still a bit
uncomfortable to hear in twenty-first century America, but it is the truth: God’s reign is not limited by national
boundaries or political ideologies. We
love, honor, and serve our country, and pray that God will continue to bless
America, but our nation is neither our salvation nor our god. And whatever our political views may be, they
must not become our religion; for if we worship even the best earthly powers,
we will end up hating our enemies, serving a false god, and shutting ourselves
out of the true Kingdom, which is not of this world.
The distinctions between Jew and Greek, between Hebrew
and Roman, are broken down in Christ Jesus.
The same is true for all the national, ethnic, and political
distinctions that divide people today in our own country and around the
world. There are no political parties in
the Kingdom of God, no nations at war with one another, and no rival ethnic groups.
No earthly country or faction is “the
chosen people” or the savior of the world.
Our kingdoms, empires, and nations come and go, regardless of how good
or evil they may be. God’s reign alone is eternal and we must always be on
guard against the idolatry associated with the love of earthly power.
Did you notice that Christ did not call upon the
centurion to resign from the Roman army, become a Jew, or oppose any of the
policies of the empire? Instead, He simply
praised the faith of that humble man, healed his servant, and used the occasion
as an opportunity to prophesy that many foreigners will join the great
patriarchs of the Old Testament in the Kingdom of heaven, while many Jews will
be excluded.
What an amazing and shocking thing for the Jewish
Messiah to say! Do not forget that the centurion was an officer in the army
that brutally occupied our Lord’s homeland.
Contrary to what everyone expected, Jesus Christ apparently had nothing
against him on that account. He was not
concerned with kicking out foreign invaders.
He did not treat the centurion as an enemy soldier to be defeated or a
political foe to be overthrown, but instead as a child of God in whom He saw faith
superior to that of His own people.
As hard as it is for us to understand, in Jesus Christ
the usual worldly distinctions that divide people are irrelevant. He is the second Adam Who heals our common
corruption and conquers death, which is the wages of sin for all human beings. The
blessings of life eternal are available in Christ to all who have the humility
and faith shown by that most unlikely believer, the Roman centurion.
Unfortunately, it continues to be tempting to ignore
St. Paul’s advice to live as “slaves of God” and not as “slaves of sin.” The difference between serving God and
serving the corrupt ways of the world is not always easy to discern. Powerful forces in every society want us to
worship at their altar and to make God in their own image. To figure out how to respond to them in our
given time and place, we need to follow St. Paul in asking what fruit they
produce in us. No matter how virtuous we
believe our opinions and actions are, we must ask whether they lead us to greater
holiness. In other words, hatred and
self-righteousness in our hearts are simply symptoms of our slavery to sin, no
matter how right we may think we are (or how right we may be) about
anything. “The wages of sin is death”
and we must be on guard against the temptation to turn the merciful and
life-giving way of Christ into just another version of the fatal lust for
earthly power and self-justification that has dominated corrupt humanity ever
since the fall of Adam and Eve.
As Orthodox believers, we know that it is nothing but
pagan idolatry to put the ways of any earthly kingdom before the demands of the
Kingdom of God. For our hope is not in
nations, armies, or politicians, but in our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ
who calls all humanity to the eternal blessedness of a kingdom not of this
world. And, yes, all really does mean
all who like the Roman centurion receive Him with humble faith. So let us now follow the example of this righteous
Gentile as we join those who come from East and West to sit down with Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, in the heavenly banquet already
available to us in the Body and Blood of our Lord. Let us lay aside all earthly cares that we
may receive the King of all, for He is truly the Savior of the world.