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Proper 4

Luke 7
1When Jesus had finished saying all this in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. 2There a centurion's servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die. 3The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. 4When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, "This man deserves to have you do this, 5because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue." 6So Jesus went with them.
     He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him: "Lord, don't trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. 7That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. 8For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it."
9When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, "I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel." 10Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well.


A Pennsylvania man found an envelope stuffed with $3,600 and returned it to the newlyweds who lost it after their wedding reception.  The couple had mistakenly driven off with their wedding album on top of the trunk of their car Sunday. The money had been tucked inside.

A man who is identified only as a "Good Samaritan," found $5,000 in cash inside a bank deposit pouch in a grocery cart outside a Food 4 Less store in Anaheim and used the deposit slip to track down the owner.

Eli Estrada found the bag of money on a street in Cerritos, near Anaheim.  A Brinks Armored truck had picked up the money at a Bank of America and a guard left the bag on the truck's bumper.  The bay contained $140,000.  Brinks rewarded Estrada $2,000 for turning in the money.

Jerry Mika of Draper, Utah, received a check for $2,245,342 that the State of Utah had sent him in error.  He returned the money.

It is said that Diogenes wandered around Athens with a lamp in daylight saying that he was looking for an honest man.  I guess he should have traveled to Anaheim.

The reason these stories make the news can be summed up with simple three words: man bites dog.  Anytime we hear something that is completely opposite to what we expect, it becomes a ‘man bites dog’ story and it bears repeating.  And the news is full of them.  Watch The National tonight and I can pretty well guarantee you that there will be one.  People love the counter-intuitive.

But why do people love the counter-intuitive?  Blame evolution.   We are a pattern-seeking species, our brains are wired to see and recall patterns in the world around us.  Those little red berries will make you puke.  My neighbour ate those mushrooms and he didn’t leave his cave for a week.  Try the blue berries, they rock.  We develop a sense of caution or ease depending on our experience of like objects and behaviours.  

We then translate these behaviors into a kind of global shorthand called ‘human nature.’  If $20 blows by, you might look around for a careless person nearby or you may simply slip it into your pocket and say to yourself, ‘cool, pizza tonight.’  That would seem to be human nature.  Look for an advantage, don’t work too hard to undo other people’s misfortune, order pizza.  We’re human, after all.  

Now you can get all self-righteous and say ‘I would put an ad in the Guardian and ask people to claim their twenty bucks.’  Human nature tells me you might get lots of sincere-sounding people who want to come between you and your pizza money.  

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When Jesus entered Capernaum, word came that a centurion's servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die. 3The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. 4When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, "This man deserves to have you do this, 5because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue." 6So Jesus went with them.

A Roman soldier cared about the health and well-being of a slave.  Man bites dog.

The centurion was aware of Jesus, heard that Jesus had the power to heal the sick, and asked for him.  Man bites dog.

The centurion had friends among the local Jewish leadership, enough that they were willing to plead with Jesus for help.  Man bites dog.

They praised the centurion, and insisted that not only was he a friend of the Jewish nation, but that he had personally paid for the construction of the local synagogue.  Man bites dog.

Jesus went with them.  Of course he did.  Who wouldn’t rush to meet the centurion who loved his slave, knew about Jesus, believed in his capacity to heal, was well-liked by the people under occupation, loved the Jewish nation, and built a synagogue.  Who was that guy?

He was, a ger toshav, translated to mean “resident alien.”  He was a gentile, a non-Jew who had respect for the Jewish religion but had not converted and wasn’t obligated to follow all 613 laws.  The ger toshav lived in Israel, observed ‘highlights’ of Judaism, but were not Jewish.  And while they had a unique status and were given respect, they were definitely at the bottom of the social hierarchy.  Here is Deuteronomy 5.14:

But the seventh day is the sabbath  of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.

So Jesus was intrigued, the locals loved this guy, and everyone wanted to help.  Man bites dog.

The story takes a twist, of course, since all good stories take a twist, as the centurion has second thoughts about troubling Jesus.  ‘Lord,’ he sends in a very long message, ‘don’t trouble yourself, I’m not worthy to stand in your presence.  However, I believe you can heal without seeing me or my servant.’  And then he adds one more thought:

“For I myself am a man under authority,” he says, “with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it."

He is so bold as to draw a parallel between himself and Jesus, not in a presumptuous way, but in a charming way, to say ‘I understand what it means to have power (of a worldly kind) and I see that you have such power in a realm beyond this one.’  The slave is healed.

But two more things are happening here in the realm of ‘man bites dog.’  We learn what the future holds for the church and we see an extraordinary group of people begin to form.  First the future: No one writing in the first century of the Christian era expected that the world would continue beyond their generation or the next.  There was a widely held assumption that Jesus would return and usher in a new age.  

But this passage anticipates another reality, the reality that came to pass when decade by decade and century by century passed without the world-ending return of Jesus.  Everyone who calls on the name of Jesus, everyone who falls on their knees in prayer, everyone who feels the life-altering reality of the relationship with Jesus must do so from afar.  They (we) must do so without seeing Jesus, without meeting him on the street or in a home.  And this may not change any time soon.  For this reason, the centurion stands in for all of us, with faith ‘beyond touch and sight.’  He is a pioneer, and he clears a path for all of us who look to Jesus without his immediate physical presence.

The second extraordinary thing we witness in this passage is the people: Jesus and his disciples, Jews who admire the centurion, friends of the centurion who bring a message (they were certainly gentiles like the centurion, and maybe even ger toshav themselves).  The crowd itself is a foretaste of the cloud of witnesses that would one day form a church, that would someday gather around the healing, teaching, loving presence of Jesus, and glorify his name.  The crowd is you and me, gathered in prayer and praise, living the compassion and mercy that was abundant that day long ago.  Amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 8:17 AM