All through the last half of the movie Reds the viewers were prepared for Jack Reed’s death. After he had lost a kidney when he was a young man, his physician had warned that an infection could be fatal to a person with one kidney; there were no "wonder drugs" in the World War I period. Toward the end of the movie, when Jack was hospitalized with a high fever in Petrograd, Russia, it was rather obvious that his time had come. His wife, Louise, who had reached his side after a long and difficult - and illegal - journey, stayed by his side throughout his ordeal. He called out, deliriously, unintelligibly. But, suddenly, he regained consciousness; he looked alert and almost healthy again. The two of them talked - Jack coherently and animated - and then he asked her for a drink of water. He seemed to fall asleep again, and his wife touched his forehead, apparently to see if the fever had returned. Then she picked us the empty water container and went to fill it.

When Louise discovered that the larger water container outside the room was empty, one could almost anticipate what would happen next. She had to walk through crowded corridors, with sick and dying peasants lying on the floor, to find another supply of water. On the way to get the water and again when she returned, she passed a woman who had set up a small chapel in a spot in the corridor; an icon and cross stood before her and she prayed, made the sign of the cross repeatedly. It seemed as though she were praying for everyone in the place, because the combination of limited medical facilities and drugs plus the overcrowding seemed to indicate that most of the people in the place were beyond help. The old woman - in the face of official policy that was deliberately stamping out the Christian faith in Russia - was calling on God to comfort and heal her loved one and, perhaps, all; the sick people in that place. Jack, however, was beyond any human help - not even Louise had prayed for him - and when Louise returned to his room he was dead of an infection that could be controlled today. A doctor folded Jack’s arms on his chest, but Louise - at the very end of the picture - unclasped them and held one as she sobbed out her grief and pain.

Now things never got that far that day in Capernaum when a Roman centurion sent emissaries - elders of the Jews from the synagogue which he had built for them - to restore the health of one of his slaves. The centurion really loved the man; he wasn’t concerned simply with his commercial value, which might have been considerable if he were still a young man. Whatever his age, the centurion wasn’t ready to allow him to die without doing everything he could to restore him to health. Apparently, Jesus was his last resort, and remarkably, he called on the Christ to heal this beloved servant.

Tradition established long before that day, and continuing up to the 1930s in Africa and parts of the Middle East, decreed that the treatment of a slave should be quite different than this. Antoine de St. Exupery, in Wind, Sand and Stars, tells how the Arabs treated their slaves toward the end of the "slave era" in Africa in the mid-1930s. The Arabs were kindly - in their own way - to slaves, even allowing slaves the comfort of their tents and a cup of their tea at the end of the day. But they retained them until they were too old to work any longer, then they released the slaves from their service. Antoine says that these old "bags of bones" would beg for a short time, going from tent to tent, but when they were too weak to beg for food any longer, they would go out to the desert, sit down, and slowly slip away into death. The Arab children would run around them as they played in the sand, almost oblivious to the death that was soon to occur; they had seen it many times while they were young. And the old, discarded slaves would be swallowed up by the sands - almost naturally - as they ended their days of servitude and were finally released forever in death.

It was not to be that way with the centurion’s slave in Capernaum. He was not going to be turned out, for this centurion was not a cruel Roman officer - nor was he a heartless Arab ready to accept the will of Allah; he was concerned. He cared about the man and that’s the reason he called upon Jesus Christ to come and minister to the slave. That he loved the man was unusual enough, but that he would turn to this Jewish healer, Jesus, to seek help and healing was absolutely remarkable. Jesus was his last resort and his mysterious faith, coupled with his sense of personal unworthiness, convinced him that Christ would not fail him. But if this story ever got out, if it were circulated by his troops so that other Roman officers heard about it, he would be a laughing stock among the professional officers and men. And if rumors of his appeal to Christ ever reached Rome, it is almost certain that the least he could expect would be recall and reassignment to another field of occupation or battle. Who knows what the worst thing might have been that could happen to him. But the centurion didn’t care about any of these considerations. He appealed to Christ through the elders of the synagogue. They could call him "Jew lover" but that didn’t matter a bit to him.

Of course, we are like the centurion in one respect; we, too, call upon God as the last resort. But, in too many instances, that is virtually the only time that we pray vigorously and desperately to God about anything. Ours is not a time of devout dependence upon God in ordinary - or extreme - situations. The old peasant woman praying before cross and icon is foreign to us until things are out of our control. Then we cry out desperately, "Lord, help me, or I perish." We keep God on a shelf, or in a closet, for good luck or as a final resort. The cross is a good luck symbol to be worn as jewelry or to be made as a "sign" or silent means of praying - superstitiously (?) - to the only God there is. Isn’t it time to remember that Jesus said, "They (we) ought always to pray and not lose heart," because God hears our prayers and is able to do something - one way or another - about the impossible situations we find ourselves in in life. How could a Roman officer have more faith in the Christ than we, who call ourselves Christians? But he seems to, doesn’t he?

Thirty years ago, it was claimed that at least one hundred and twenty-five Episcopal churches in the United States were conducting regular healing services. There was nothing superstitious or spectacular about these weekly worship sessions of confession, Scripture, sermon, and the laying on of hands. Alfred Price, Rector of St. Stephen’s Church in Philadelphia, once said that his congregation discovered that God could heal relationships as well as people, and that is why St. Stephen’s had two services every Thursday, one at noon and the other at 5 p.m. St. Stephen’s, according to Price, was experiencing all sorts of difficulties and dissension in the late 1940s; the choir seemed to be the seat of the trouble. One Sunday morning, Dr. Price entered the choir room for prayer before the worship service only to discover a verbal battle was taking place. "It was the last straw," he said. He asked the choir members to join hands, form a circle - and then he prayed, desperately - and from then on, things were different. God healed the broken relationships, the animosities, the petty jealousies, that were there. And because he had demonstrated his power in this area of human, almost insoluble, problems, he reached the conclusion that God means what he said through Christ - that we ought always to call upon him for help and healing. The healing services began shortly thereafter; many Episcopalian congregations have continued to have healing - or teaching and healing - services for almost thirty-five years.

How did the centurion know that Jesus could cure his servant? He couldn’t have had more to go on than rumors that had circulated like wildfire around the lake region after Jesus had begun his ministry, could he? Or maybe he had been at the edge of the crowd when he had done some of the miracles for the people of, Capernaum on that occasion when he had healed Simon Peter’s mother-in-law. And why would he call Jesus "Lord," that honored word for the Saviour that has almost disappeared from our language? How did this Roman become a believer? We’ll never know, but what we do know is that he placed the life of his slave in the hands of almighty God. That is an act of faith worthy of any believer, isn’t it? He really believed that there is a God who loves and cares for his creatures.

In his book about James Jones and the Jonestown massacre, James Reston insists that Jones didn’t believe in God - nor did many of his closest followers.1 One of his assistants was Charles Beckman, an ex-Marine, who couldn’t read nor write and of whom it was said, "Neither could he believe in God." Beckman went so far as to say, "I was never a believer in Jesus Christ or God, ‘cause I never saw nothin’ he’s done. You can crawl on your hands and knees and cry your eyes out all day long, but no burden’s lifted. How can they prove to me there’s a God?" Jim Jones became his god, converted him so that he even begged for the Temple. Beckman was struck by a cable, seriously injured and lay close to death, but someone placed a picture of Jones on his chest. When he looked at it, the picture faded, and he felt better. "The more I looked at it," he declared, "the better I would feel" (and the more the picture faded). James Jones was the only God he knew or wanted to know. But the emperor wouldn’t suffice as the God and Creator of all for a Roman centurion. The book, Our Father Who Art in Hell, and this incident of 2,000 years ago seem to ask you and me, "Who, really, is your God?"

The trouble with this tale from the Galilean ministry of Jesus is simply that the Roman centurion comes off as more of a Christian than we do, I’m afraid, and in more ways than one. He not only - and rather miraculously - believed in Christ, but he had a deep sense of personal unworthiness that you and I quite often lack. Rather, it is our sense of worth - before God, and because we believe in Christ - that impresses us, prompting us to protest to God when tragedy enters our lives with an "I don’t deserve that" kind of attitude. We can resent God and blame him for pain and suffering, or even the lack of financial security and wealth, as though faith in Christ were a means to escape from the unpleasant side of life.

"Charles Rhoads," wrote Tom Davies in an article titled, "Man Wants Heavenly Return on Investment," "has not been blessed."2 Rhoads said, "I lost my job, I lost my business, I lost my family, I lost my children, I lost my house, I lost my car. I lost everything but my life." Rhoads appeared to be a modern version of Job on the basis of what he was going through but didn’t deserve. Three years ago, he had begun contributing to Oral Roberts’ fund-raising drives on television and, says Davies, "Rhoads felt he was guaranteed a blessed life ..." He claimed he had given $7,000 to $10,000 to Roberts in that period of time; actually, it turned out he had given considerably less than that, and the money that was given belonged to his wife. In a letter to Roberts, demanding the return of his money, he complained "how you and God failed me." He said, "Instead of the Lord’s blessing me, I lost everything I had. If this is the Lord’s blessing, I don’t need it." Rhoads just doesn’t believe that God should treat him - or allow life to treat him - as he has been treated. He seems to be saying - and doesn’t he speak for so many of us as well? - that he deserves more and better than he has received from God in this life. "Lord, I am worthy of all that you and life can give me. After all, look at all the things I have done for you" - or, "I thank you, Lord, that I am not like other people, ... or even like this publican ... I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all I have." "Have you forgotten, God, all that I have done for you?"

What we need to remember, really, if there is to be any difference in our lives and our faith, is what God has done for us in his Son, Jesus Christ, not simply what we have done for him. Then we will see things in perspective and we will be able to face the realities of life - the good and the bad - knowing that God wishes us no evil, pain, or suffering in this world. But when we remember Christ’s fate in this life, we realize that our faith does not guarantee us immunity from anguish and tragedy; his cross is the blessed assurance that God loves us, is with us always, and has delivered us from the bonds of sin and death. Should blessings come upon us in abundance, our attitude should be one of thanksgiving and wonder plus an, "I don’t deserve such goodness, Lord. Why have I been so blessed? How should I serve you with these gifts?"

Few of us make the medieval error of supposing that our good works gain God’s good will and our salvation and assurance of eternal life, but our modern heresy is that we believe that our faith and works earn us only the good and the best things that this life can bestow upon us. In the movie, The Man in the Glass Booth, the captured Nazi officer who admitted to all sorts of atrocities in the German concentration camp in World War II, when asked about the difference between Christians and Jews, declared, "A Christian is just a new Jew who thought he had bought himself an A#l insurance policy." Put that up against the admission of the Roman centurion, "Lord, I am not worthy even to have you come under my roof ... Speak the word and my servant will be healed."

It is this strange combination of our sense of unworthiness and faith that still catches Jesus’ attention and triggers his response again, "I have found faith in my people today, just as I did long ago." And all we can say, if his words apply to us, is "Thanks be to God for his wonderful gifts to us in Christ." Amen.