Monday, 19 January 2015

SERMON 52 - SUNDAY 18 JANUARY 2015


Sermon at St. Lawrence’s Parish Church, Stratford-sub-Castle, Salisbury - Evensong - Sunday 18 January 2015

Matthew 8:5-13; Luke 7:1-10

May I speak in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen

When I was just a little boy, we had a small 9-inch TV, A Bush if I remember correctly, which would take about five minutes to “warm up” – so you had to use your Radio Times to know in advance when to switch the set on – and once the cathode tube was glowing you had the excitement of watching just one channel – BBC TV. That channel only became BBC 1 when BBC 2 arrived.  We didn’t even have ITV so Coronation Street, Peyton Place, Danger Man, No Hiding Place, the Flintstones and other goodies could only ever be seen when I went around to a friend’s or cousin’s. Life was simple, your knowledge of news events came from either the radio, one TV channel or newspaper.

Today that is all very different.  We are bombarded with news and information all the time.  This one small hand held computer – my mobile – is far more powerful than all the then sophisticated equipment which landed Man on the Moon. Even as I stand here preaching to you, messages will be pinging their way to me through emails and social media; and as events unfolded last weekend in France I was intrigued by the differing emphases being placed on the event by the different news agencies – all with their own political or social or cultural agenda – CNN News, Sky News, RT News, BBC News, Al Jazeera News, even Chinese News.  All of these and many many more are available so that we can get the news story which best suits us.  The same event can be portrayed in so many different ways and even to some, what may appear to be a terrible act of terrorism may be, to others, an heroic act of religious fervour.  Now I am not for one moment condoning the acts in Paris last week but simply pointing out that such events set in their historic background may appear different many years later.  For example are Nelson Mandela, Martin McGuinness, Michael Collins, Jomo Kenyatta, Oliver Cromwell or William Wallace terrorists or freedom fighters?  We must leave it to our own judgement of history to decide – and it will very much depend upon what books of history we read for each will have its own agenda – hero or villain.

This leads me to tonight’s gospel reading from Matthew – the healing of the Centurion’s servant – but before I even go into analysing and commenting upon it – it is worth remembering, like the news stories of last week, Matthew’s account is not the only one – Luke also has this story in his gospel which is written in a different style entirely. You will find his version at Luke 7:1-10 and it makes an interesting comparison when read after Matthew’s – and I think we can assume that this is the same event and that there were not two different centurions with servants being asked to be healed by Jesus especially as both events occurred in the same city of Capernaum.

In tonight’s version we have the Centurion himself seeking out Jesus – we are told that the Centurion came to him and said “Lord my servant is lying at home paralysed in terrible distress” – to which Jesus immediately says “I will come and cure him” prompting the Centurion to reply strangely, “Lord I am not worthy to have you under my roof but only speak the word and my servant will be healed”. The Centurion then goes on to say that he is a man of great authority and can command those under him to come and go as he pleases and this pronouncement of his great authority and command amazes Jesus, who immediately does as the Centurion asks and heals the servant remotely. This is one of only two occasions when Jesus acts to heal a non-Jew or does so at the request of a non-Jew (actually we don’t know for certain that the servant was not a Jew and the Centurion himself might have been Jewish because very often officers in the Temple or Royal Herodian Guard often used titles similar to those used by their Roman lords as a sign of solidarity with their conquerors). The other occasion when Jesus healed a non-Jew was the Canaanite woman. So what was the reluctance of the Centurion to have Jesus come to his home? In fact, the translation of what precisely Jesus said in response to the original request is in some doubt and it might not have been that Jesus said “I will come and cure him” but rather Shall I come and cure him”? - a question rather than a statement.  We cannot be certain but in Matthew’s version the Centurion himself makes it clear that Jesus is not to bother himself coming because he believes he can cure the servant remotely.

Luke’s version is significantly different. In it, Jesus is still in Capernaum but it is not the Centurion who requests Jesus to heal the servant but a group of Jewish elders whom he sends out to find Jesus. These elders impress upon Jesus the fact that this Centurion is a good friend to the Jewish people – he built them a synagogue apparently - and so Jesus goes with them to the Centurion’s house; but when close approaching the property some friends of the Centurion – not the Centurion himself – come out and tell Jesus not to trouble himself coming into the house – and a similar conversation takes place as in Matthew’s gospel about commanding people to come and go – but this is with the friends and not the Centurion – indeed, in the whole narrative by Luke the Centurion not once appears himself – and I think this is significant. It was when those friends returned to the house that they found the servant restored to good health. So in both accounts we do have the common denominators of a reluctance for Jesus to come to the house and an absolute faith in Jesus’s ability to heal the servant.

So what can we glean from this?  Well I think the first thing to note is that as there are two versions of this story and each of them has some distinct differences. We can take neither of them as being a definitive expose of the actual true events. Just as all those different TV channels gave differing accounts of the Charlie massacre in Paris, so these two gospel accounts vary.  However, the Charlie Massacre did take place, there are common aspects to all the versions reported and we must take our own view of what we are being told by looking at all versions.

Similarly, the bible is a living book.  When reading it we must be open to what it says to each one of us.  To me, the common story of the Centurion is that here we have someone, somebody, who is not a Pharisee or Sadducee, who has heard of Christ’s healing ministry and fully believes. In his sending out of the twelve elsewhere in Matthew (10:6) Jesus tells them not to bother with the Gentiles – that his and their mission is to minister to the “Lost Sheep of Israel” and as we saw earlier, Jesus’s healing ministry seems fairly restricted to Jews only. However, here, because of the massive faith which the Centurion has – that Jesus can heal remotely – he is demonstrating that Jesus has come for everybody and, as we know, St. Paul later was to deliberately spread the gospel to many Gentile cultures.  It is interesting that there are two other important events in the New Testament involving Centurions – the Centurion at the foot of the Cross who announces that Jesus is indeed the Son of God when all around were jeering and Cornelius who was baptised by Peter in Acts (10) where Luke devotes a whole detailed chapter to his and his family’s conversion and Peter’s revelation that it is okay to eat non-Kosher food.

So let’s not get too obsessed with getting every little detail in our heads as we read our scripture. Accept and reflect upon the lessons or narratives they seek to convey. The gospels were written at least 50 years after the events they seek to record.  Today with our mobile phones, our “TwitFaces” or whatever, we crave instant accurate information.  Sometimes it is good to sit down and reflect on the message. Here the message I think is simple – Jesus Christ’s healing hand is available to all who genuinely believe that he and the Holy Spirit are with us here and now – even if, as in Luke’s version, the Centurion who believed never actually saw him.

This reminds me very much of the words of Jesus recorded in John 20:28 to Doubting Thomas “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet come to believe”.

May we all be so blessed.

Amen

 

MFB/Sermon/52

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