It was a very unexpected meeting, in fact with someone I had never met before. It was unexpected because this person was the head of a charity in the city. I thought that the conversation we were going to have would be about money and fundraising, programming and planning. What transpired was very different, and it became very personal. It was as if two of us sat down in a room and kindred spirits met.
Even though we are from different faiths and very different traditions and races, it didn’t seem to matter. I thought this person was outstanding, and I wanted to know more about why this individual was helping out in this charity. It seemed like he could do almost anything. He had all the credentials and degrees to do a myriad of things well. But he decided to work in a poorer part of our city to help the needy. His story revealed it all.
He was born of parents of different racial backgrounds and from different countries who had found themselves serving their professions in Uganda. It was at a time when Uganda was ruled by a very ruthless and nasty dictator, Idi Amin. So his parents, after seeing people being executed sometimes for no reason and their colleagues were being intimidated, decided that they should flee Uganda with their children to a better land. They fled to Europe and from Europe to Canada, and in Canada they stayed. In Canada, they were home! It is a touching story.
It is a story that many people actually tell, and one that brings many people to our great land. It is hard to conceive of precisely what those who have had to leave oppression and tyranny really go through. We have been blessed! For the most part, (though not every group in our country feels this way) our leaders have been sensible and thoughtful and rational. Oh, we’ve had our leaders in Canada who have been misfits – eccentrics, hard-hearted, inept, addicts – but for the most part, our governments have been benign, and the desire to be responsible to something greater than themselves.
Therefore, it is hard for us to understand the passion that this young man felt for people who were in need. He had compassion in his heart that was born out of trouble and conflict and agony. Yet, here he was, sitting talking to me about caring for the needs of people in our city. It is hard for us to understand then quite the story that we have in today’s reading.
It is hard for us to grasp, as Canadians, the pure sentiment and strength of the relationship between the Centurion and Jesus, between an oppressor and the oppressed. Yet really, it is a love story. Not the love story as of Friday night with chocolate and wine and nice sentimental cards and lovey-dovey thoughts – not that kind of Valentine’s love – but a love that is nonetheless biblical, a love that is born out of charity and compassion and care.
The story of the encounter between Jesus and the Centurion is one of the most revolutionary passages in the whole of the Bible. It is the seminal moment. I have often thought that it is the Gospel in microcosm. It is virtually all there in one story for us to see. It is a winsome story of love, and a powerful story of reconciliation. But, I must confess when I look back over my own life, and I realize that there was a time when I was really questioning my Christian upbringing and my Christian faith.
I had grown up as a child in the manse and had been brought up in a religious environment and done all the churchy things and was baptized as a baby and even taught Sunday School as a young teenager – Lord knows what I taught them at the time, mind you! – I look back and I think, “There really was a time when I wondered about my faith and questioned it.” I was never an atheist, I never gave up belief in God, but I certainly was an agnostic, and wondered if it all made sense. In a world of violence, where is the goodness of God? In a world of sin, where is there really salvation? In a world that seems so set on destroying itself, where is the hand of a divine being? I struggled with it.
I remember talking to a friend of mine who was a devout Christian, and who had never lost his faith or really questioned it for that matter, and asked what I should do. He said, “You know, Andrew, there is a point in your life when you really should just sit down and read one of the Gospels from beginning to end. Just put aside all your preconceived notions and just read it.” So, I read Matthew and I read John, but as I was working my way through Matthew – I remember as if it were yesterday – I came upon Matthew 8 and the story of Jesus and the Centurion, and then it was as if the Gospel hit me. I get it!
This is why they call it “The Good News!” It is because the story of Jesus and the Centurion was not only revolutionary; it was the Gospel in two movements. The first part of the movement is a complete reversal of everything! The story is very simple. It begins with a request. The request is by a Centurion, who comes up to Jesus in the small Galilean town of Capernaum and says, “I have a slave who is paralysed and bitterly ill. Will you heal him?”
On the surface of things, this might just seem like an ordinary request. But for a Centurion to do something like this in a small town like Capernaum, which probably had 300 or 400 people, it was an immense occasion. But it was a simple request – “I have a slave in my home. Will you come and heal him.” We don’t know how the Centurion had heard about Jesus, but clearly stories of Jesus were circulating around the towns of Galilee and along the coast. Clearly he knew Jesus had something special so he goes to him.
What is interesting is the response. We are never quite sure how to translate the response from the Greek. It could be a question or it could be a statement. Some versions have “Am I to come to your house to heal your slave?” or another one is, “I will go” or “I shall go and heal your slave.” Either way, it implies that Jesus was ready to go, and that is revolutionary! It is revolutionary because Jesus, a Jew, is willing to go to the home of a Gentile to heal a slave that belongs to a Centurion.
The Centurion hears Jesus’ words and he thinks “Maybe Jesus doesn’t have to come to my home.” He knows and he understands the dynamics. And then, he restates his position, and it is one of the most powerful things that has ever been said, “I am not worthy to have you come to my home. Yet, when I tell people to go, they go; and when I tell people to come, they come. I am a man of authority. I am a man of power. Yet in humility I come to you and I ask you to heal my servant.”
A Centurion is a person who, by definition, is in charge of a hundred men: A powerful figure; a sign of Roman oppression everywhere. Wherever there was a Centurion there were a hundred soldiers and, if there were a hundred soldiers that were settled in Capernaum. That makes up almost one quarter of the entire population of the town. They were dominant oppressors and the ruling power. And yet, here is this Centurion with all his power telling men to come and to go – the most powerful figure within the Roman army at the local level – he comes to Jesus and he recognizes Jesus’ authority. He recognizes Jesus for who he is and, he still asks him to heal his servant!
Jesus reverses the whole order of things. Jesus says, “Truly, I say to you in all of Israel I have never seen anyone with greater faith than this.” Can you imagine what the standers-by are thinking: “Jesus is telling us that the Centurion, who represents Roman power, has greater faith than any one of these men in the whole of Israel! This is the complete reversal of everything that we hold to be true! It is impossible!” To the Centurion, who has come and humbled himself, Jesus has handed him the greatest love that anybody can ever give: “You have great faith!” It turned everything upside-down. It transformed everything! This man who should have been the symbol of all that was un-godly and unholy and oppressive is now being held up as a man of faith, because he recognized in Jesus the power of God. He says, “You can heal him. Just say a word. That is all you have to do. Just say a word and my slave will be healed.”
In 1979, I met a person who I would call great. You know what it is like, sometimes when you are in the presence of somebody who is really, really great, you know it. There is a charisma about them, there is a power about them, and you know you are in the presence of greatness. Well, this was one such man. His name was Archbishop Festo Kivengere. What made him great was something that had happened two years before.
It was February 1977, and Idi Amin was in charge of Uganda. The Archbishop of Kampala, a man called Luwum was put on trial for the simple reason that he had spoken out against the execution of innocent people. His fellow Bishop, Festo, sat on the front steps of the courthouse waiting to hear the verdict of the trial, which went very quickly indeed, was that he was guilty of sedition and guilty of trying to overthrow the government. A few days later, the Archbishop of Kampala was executed.
Festo Kivengere had no idea what to do. He was frightened: for his congregation, for his people, for his own life. His congregation arranged for him to be taken out of the country, because they knew that the same fate would befall Kivengere that had befallen Luwum. So he left the country. Over the next few months he began to write a book. This book was revolutionary and was titled I love Idi Amin. When people heard this, they were horrified! They were mortified that he would write something so trite. But then as they began to read it they realized the power of what was behind it: "The Holy Spirit showed me that I was getting hard in my spirit and that my hardness and bitterness towards those who were persecuting us could only bring spiritual loss. So I had to ask for forgiveness from the Lord, and for grace to love President Amin more".
He went on later in his book to say: "Peace between an oppressor and the oppressed is not automatic; it is the gift of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. It comes when hearts are exposed to the love of Jesus. But this will always cost something, for the love of Christ was demonstrated through suffering and those who experience that love can never put it into practice without some cost."
A year after the book was published, in a prayer meeting in Pretoria, for three days I and a group of others sat down with Festo Kivengere asking him, “What was it that moved you so much to be able to write a book like this?” He quoted the story of the Centurion and Jesus. He said, “If Jesus could listen to the plea of the Centurion, if Jesus could elevate the status of the slave, even though Idi Amin did not have the faith that the Centurion had, still I realized the revolutionary power of the love of Christ.” Festo Kivengere, God bless his soul, died of cancer in 1988 – one of the truly great men of the twentieth century! The Centurion story changed his life!
What many don’t realize is that Kivengere’s book began a revolution, a revolution where churches rather than hiding in the hovels of fear spoke out and said, “The Church can never be defeated by the power of evil, but can only live in the power of love.” The Church that rose from the ashes of the hatred of Idi Amin was the Church that was compassionate because of Kivengere. Idi Amin is no more, but the Church that he tried to kill off survives.
There is something more about this reversal. It is a reversal of how we see faith. Faith is profoundly changed in all of this. Whether it is faith in the time of Jesus seen to be rooted in tradition, in a belief in one god, but in certain activities that won God’s favour, certain things that had to be done to show that people loved God, faith was exposed by Jesus as something entirely different. It was a faith born in recognition of the universal. By the universal, I mean that even a Roman Centurion can recognize Jesus.
The Lordship of Jesus was not just a sentiment or an idea, it was not limited to a clan or a group or a tribe; it was the Lordship of Jesus that reached even into the Roman heart, for when that Centurion came and said to Jesus, “Will you heal my slave?” the Centurion was bowing before Jesus himself, and Jesus knew it. Far from being on an ego trip, Jesus simply responded by elevating the Centurion, by lifting him up. This, I think, is the great power of faith. The power of faith is to say to God, “I am not worthy. I cannot do this on my own.” The power of faith is to recognize that it is in the hands of the Lord himself that healing takes place. It is faith then that reversed every preconceived notion about what faith is. It is a faith we need to recapture.
It was also about healing. Here is another point: the Centurion was an incredible person. Wouldn’t you have loved to have met him? He was somebody who cared for his slave and his servant. He didn’t have to. The prevailing attitude of the time was that a slave was an inanimate object: chattel to be sold. Aristotle said, “They are no different than a farm implement, and you can treat them the same way as you do a farm implement. You can’t have friendship with a slave any more than you can have friendship with a cow or a chicken.” That is how they were thought of.
Gaius, the great Roman legal scholar and great mind said that slaves were inanimate objects and that when they got old they should be sold, because they have passed their expiry date, so who needs them anymore? That is how they were treated. That was the prevailing attitude at the time. What is the response of the Centurion: to risk everything, to look weak, to go into the small town of Capernaum, where he is supposed to be the supreme ruler, to talk to a Jew called Jesus, and say, “Come and heal my slave.” This is a complete reversal of the way things were!
Jesus’ response to the Centurion is a revolution, a revolution that probably should have manifested itself in some disdain or judgement or hatred, but rather in an embrace of love. It was fascinating that when I sent out the title of my sermon to the staff about a week ago in advance – I always do this – I never get a response. Yet, I did this time from Reverend McMaster: “I love the title of your sermon! You might want to consider this when you preach it.” So I considered it. He went on: “You do realize that this is the fiftieth anniversary of The Beatles coming to North America, don’t you?” David – always the guitarist!
I said, “Well, yes, I do.”
He had already included the words of a song. He said, “You really should read these again in the light of your sermon:”
It is a song by The Beatles. You know what it is going to be, don’t you? Revolution! This is what The Beatles wrote:
You say you want a revolution
Well you know we all want to change the world
You tell me that it is evolution
Well, you know we all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don’t you know you can count me out
You say you’ve got a real solution
Well, you know we don’t love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know we are doing what we can
But, if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is brother you will have to wait
The Beatles wanted a better world. Whatever you think of them, they definitely wanted a better world. There were moments of idealism that rose from their songs, and they reached the heights with songs like Revolution. They saw the dangers. They saw the fragmentation. They saw the nuclear holocaust coming, so they thought, and they were frightened. They wanted a better world.
When I look at the story of Jesus and the Centurion, I see a better world. I see it! I see this compassion and love of a Centurion for a non-being and for Jesus’ embrace of the other. I see what Kivengere saw when he wanted to talk to Idi Amin. You see it in Jesus’ eyes, can’t you? A better world – a world where he is Lord!
There is one thing he also knew, and that was the religious division of his day. Jesus must have infuriated the religious powers that be! He said, “There will be a great banquet, and at this great banquet they will come from the East and the West, Gentiles, and they will sit down at this table and those who think they should have the high place there will be thrown out.” A complete reversal of what was the hope of Israel! The hope of Israel was a Messianic banquet, with the behemoth and the Leviathan would provide a meal for God’s people, and God’s people would have a banquet for their Messiah, and all the other nations would be left outside of the banquet. Jesus points to the Centurion and shows that people like the Centurion are coming to the banquet.
Jesus wanted to heal the brokenness of the world. He wanted a revolution based on his grace and his love and his Lordship, and the Centurion was the one who showed the way. He changed everything. For those of us who want healing in our lives there is the word to us that just one word and we will ask it, and it will be given no matter the distance. For those who want to heal a broken world, there is one Lord who can in fact redeem and change and love even the unlovable. For those who want to heal the pervasive attitude that believes that human life is mechanical and not worth anything or only worth something when it is productive or physically well, Jesus heals that. He says, “All human life is a gift.” And when there is that brokenness in one’s soul, and your own soul needs to be healed, think of the Centurion, think of the compassion he had, think of Jesus’ response to him: “For in all of Israel there was no one who had greater faith than he.” What an example for us all! Amen.