Great Faith of the Centurion: Sermon on the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Gospel: Matthew 8, 5 – 13)

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

The Roman centurion and Jesus Christ

In one of his homilies, St. John Chrysostom teaches us that Jesus requires only one great work of us, that of faith in Jesus. The Gospel reading for today gives us an example of the faith in Jesus that Jesus wants us to have. A centurion, a Roman soldier, has a servant who is sick at the centurion’s house. The centurion comes to Jesus and asks him to heal his servant. Jesus offers to come to the centurion’s house to heal the servant. The centurion says, “Don’t bother; I am not worthy for you to come under my roof but speak the word only and my servant will be healed.” The centurion has such faith in Jesus that he believes that Jesus’ mere word is sufficient to heal his servant without even the physical presence of Jesus by the servant’s side. We can contrast this faith of the centurion with the lack of faith of the father of the epileptic child in another Gospel reading, where the father says to Jesus, “If you can, help my child.”

That is why Jesus responds to the centurion’s faith by saying: “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith as the centurion’s, no, not in Israel. And I say to you that many will come from the east and west and will dine with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be thrown out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

The centurion has perfect faith in Jesus even though he is not a Jew whereas the father of the epileptic has no faith in Jesus even though he is a Jew. In other Gospel readings we see other more intermediate examples of greater or lesser faith in Jesus. What this Gospel reading is teaching us therefore is the importance of faith in Jesus. That is why Jesus says to the centurion, “Go your way. And as you have believed, so let it be done for you.” It is according to the centurion’s faith that Jesus heals the centurion’s servant. Jesus is calling us to have such faith in him as the centurion had.

We are being called to faith in Jesus.

It might be wondered, however, just what faith in Jesus is. What is this faith in Jesus to which we are being called?

One part of faith is belief. Jesus wants us to believe in him. Not as a great man who made an impression two thousand years ago. But as the Son of God. Jesus says in the Gospel of John “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” Jesus wants us to believe that he himself is the Resurrection and the Life. In the Gospel of Mark, when Jesus is on trial, the High Priest asks him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” Jesus replies, “I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” Jesus wants us to believe that he is the Christ, the Son of the Blessed.

Another part of faith in Jesus is trust. Jesus wants us to trust him. When Jesus is walking on the water, Peter asks to walk on the water too. Jesus agrees and Peter starts to walk on the water. But Peter starts to doubt when he is walking on the water and begins to sink. Jesus tells him, “Why did you doubt?” So part of our faith in Jesus is to trust him and not to doubt. Our life always has difficult times. In those difficult times we are to trust Jesus. That doesn’t prevent us from asking Jesus to heal our servant or friend or child or even ourselves, or to remove the difficulty from our life, but it does call us to trust Jesus if he seems to be delaying his answer to our prayer.

Another part of faith is love. Jesus wants us to love him. Jesus tells us that he who loves Jesus is he who keeps the commandments of God. Jesus tells us that he will love the person who keeps his commandments and manifest himself to him. So we love Jesus by keeping his commandments and Jesus loves us in return and manifests himself to us.

In the Gospel reading, Jesus says that many will come from the East and the West and dine with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven. What this means is that if we have faith in Jesus, including keeping his commandments, then when we die we will go to Heaven and together with the Patriarchs we will be united with God, we will know God and his Son Jesus Christ. That is what it means to dine in the Kingdom of Heaven; it means that we know God and his Son Jesus Christ. Jesus also calls this Eternal Life.

And we can begin to dine in the Kingdom of Heaven in this life. First this is possible when we eat the Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Communion. Second, it is possible in the sense that if we keep the commandments of Jesus Christ then Jesus will love us and manifest himself to us. And this manifestation of Jesus to us, however humble, will be a taste of the Kingdom of Heaven promised to us. The beginning of all these things is faith: belief in Jesus, trust in Jesus and love for Jesus manifested in keeping his commandments to love God and neighbour.

Amen.

Deacon-monk of the Great Schema Theophanes (Constantine), St Barbara’s Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Edmonton. July 17, 2016