One of the continuing delights of life is the joy of the unexpected. Highly scheduled as we are, and rigorously regimented, occasionally we are extraordinarily pleased with interruption and variation. When out-of-town friends turn up unannounced, rather than having scheduled themselves weeks in advance, we experience a certain excitement. How pleasant to have a business deal grow into undreamed proportions. What joy in having a surprise verdict from judge and jury. What a thrill to see surgery and medication do far more than expected.
Thankfully, life has innumerable surprises. Our text centers on Jesus' surprise at finding faith in an unlikely person. He expected his fellow Israelites to be responsive to his word. They shared with him a common heritage and faith, a regularized way of seeing and thinking.
But a Roman Centurion was something else! Who would expect to find a sincere faith in him? He was a man of authority and power. Not only was he an outsider, he represented the hated enemy. A man of talent and intelligence, the Centurion of Capernaum, believed nevertheless. And Jesus could not contain his delight at this unexpected discovery of faith in an unlikely person. "I tell you," he said, "nowhere, even in Israel, have I found faith like this."
Like Jesus, one unlikely place we find faith is in people of authority and power -- unlikely because we assume power and faith are mutually exclusive. The more powerful you are the less you need faith -- or so we sometimes say.
Notice on the one hand this view holds religion to be mainly a crutch for the weak and cowardly. It serves as a kind of divine apron string behind which we can safely view the ordeals of the world. It sees faith as a sop for the superstitious, a hiding place for the timid.
One problem with this view is the fallacious presumption man needs no outside help, that he can, if he will, stand on his own two feet without psychological crutches and canes. But where do you find a man like that, one who lives without support of any kind? In the '60s it was popular to write of man come-of-age, the secular man, a sort of deified playboy, sophisticated, cool, worldly-wise, self-contained, self-sufficient, reserved, independent, a connoisseur of wines and women, a distinguished man among men who had his head together, who was never fooled or taken. This '60s man come-of-age never sinned, though he might have made errors in judgment because he didn't have all the facts. Consequently, he claimed no guilt, was oblivious to remorse and regret, and viewed the world as the survival of the fittest. Most assuredly, he was fit, and he was surviving.
Or was he really? Carrying some of these attitudes into the use of power wreaked havoc to careers and reputations, and assaulted with cool contempt the institutions and principles which give this nation some of its uniqueness. Tough, cool, calculating, our man-at-the-top, embodying for many the ideal man-come-of-age, believed power was the whole name of the game. Power. Period. Nothing more. Get before you are gotten, strike before you are stricken, push before you are pushed, destroy before you are destroyed. It's one thing to make mistakes; it's quite another to sin against the foundations of a democracy. The so-called modern secular man doesn't need a crutch, doesn't need anything to hold him up. But irony of ironies, every Achilles has a vulnerable heel.
Or consider another manifestation of the power and authority mentality -- money. Not long ago, I had the pleasure of hearing a well-known independent press correspondent. He gave interesting insights into the world situation. Money is the name of the game, he said. All international disputes are reducible to money.
But is that really true? Of course money is important. Of course economic matters play a huge role in world peace. Undoubtedly wars are fought over money, and its power. But to reduce everything to money-making is distortion and oversimplification. He said as much when he went on to relate a most interesting incident in the Mid-East. Syria, at that time considerably anti-American and pro-Russian, finally came to the point where they wanted to negotiate with Israel. Who did Syria want to arbitrate the discussions? Russia? No, America! Why? Because, he said, they knew America would be fair and compassionate.
Well, then, so power and money are not the whole name of the game in international relations. Fairness and compassion enter in. Brutality is counterbalanced with gentleness and consideration for the other point of view. He went on to say Americans are respected around the world because they help the weak, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick. Power isn't the whole name of the game. Rather, it is the conviction that human life is sacred, even human life that is weak or faltering, in need of someone to lean on.
Note another aspect of power and authority. The Centurion who came to Jesus, not only was willing to confess his need of help, he also recognized the derivative sources of power. In other words, he knew ultimately power and authority came from outside himself. He recognized himself as a channel, a distributor of power.
He saw Jesus in a similar role. The Centurion commanded soldiers in the name of Caesar; Jesus commanded evil spirits in the name of God. Both saw themselves as channels of higher power and authority. As Jesus said, "I can do nothing on my own authority ... because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me" (John 5:30). At his trial Pilate derided Jesus saying, "You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?" Jesus answered him, "You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above ..." (John 19:10-11). Pilate believed his power came from Caesar. Jesus believed Caesar's power came from God, as did his own. All power is derivative, and finally it is derived from God.
Government cynics see America's power as derived from missiles, planes, guns, aircraft carriers, the Pentagon and institutions of government. Actually, America's strength is derived from the consent of the governed, and the consent of the governed is founded upon principles and ideals which have divine origins. Ultimately, America's power is derived from God. Consequently, its power will fade proportionally to its loss of faith in God and concern for Godly principles.
Cynics see legal power as derived from lawmakers, lawyers, and the judiciary. But all laws rest squarely on the will of the people, and the will of the people rests on principles, values and ideals which are divine in origin. Ultimately, man's law rests upon the law of God. Likewise medicine rests upon the power of healing which comes from God. All power is derivative power.
The temptation of man is to believe he has done it all by himself, that he is sufficient unto himself, that he has originated his own power. That is why Jesus was delighted to see a man of authority have such depth of understanding. He found faith in God in an unlikely person. Does he find it in us?
Jesus was also surprised to find faith in the Centurion because he was an outsider and an enemy. He expected his insider friends to have faith, but not his outsider enemy.
One of the persistent surprises in Biblical history is God's use of the outsider. Joseph was thrown out by his brothers and sold into slavery, but God brought him in again to change history. In Egypt, the Hebrews were outsiders and slaves, but God freed them up and gave them their own land. Moses was meek, and poor at making speeches, yet God used him as the leader. David was the youngest and unlikeliest of Jesse's sons, yet God made him king. Amos was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, yet his message became God's message. Cyrus, the non-Jew, the conquering Persian king, is called God's Messiah by Isaiah. Jesus himself was scorned as an outsider Northerner by the elitist Southern circle of pretenders to the throne. "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" (of the North) they asked sneeringly.
Drawing on the universalism of some of the great prophets, Jesus taught that God was not the exclusive possession of the chosen people. He knew what Isaiah meant when he said:
See, they come; some from far away, These from the north and those from the west and these from the land of Syene. (Isaiah 49:12)
He was acquainted with Malachi's prophecy: From furthest east to furthest west my name is great among the nations. (Malachi 1:11)
While Jesus may have begun his ministry with a rather exclusivistic view of God as Israel's sole possession, he soon expanded his vision to behold the amazing work of God throughout the world, even in the Romans, the enemies. What a breakthrough. Heretofore, with the exception of some of the prophets, God was seen as a national deity. The Jews were not alone in this belief. Most nations had their special god or gods. He was theirs exclusively, and devoted his divine powers to gaining victories and prosperity for them.
Very often America has had the too-easy assumption that God is on our side, that he always will give us victory and prosperity because we stand for righteousness, truth, and morality. Freedom is God's aim for man, and since America extols and celebrates freedom, God will always spare her, or so we sometimes think.
But consider the scandals, the fraud, the embezzlements, the sexual abuse and harassment charges laid at the feet of many of our national business leaders and politicians. Each day the newspapers report some new violation, some new breach of public trust, some new crime fueled by greed and the lust for power. Sometimes leaders in our so-called "enemy" nations and businesses demonstrate a higher morality than our own.
Consider another public leader, the Rev. Dr. Henry Pitney Van Dusen, 77, and his wife, Elizabeth, 80. Dr. Van Dusen, an ecumenical Presbyterian, headed Union Theological Seminary of New York, and brought it to its pinnacle of influence with such notables as Paul Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr on the faculty. In recent years Dr. Van Dusen lost his speech due to a stroke and Mrs. Van Dusen suffered severely from arthritis. Consequently, a few years ago, in their Princeton, New Jersey, home they wrote a suicide note, and then ended their lives with a massive dose of sleeping pills. The note alluded to their failing health, their inability to do what they wanted to do, and their faith in a life after death. The note ended with the prayer: "O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, grant us thy peace." It was not passive euthanasia. It wasn't a matter of pulling the plug.
It was active euthanasia, entered into with a sound mind. While I do not know the intensity of pain, the emptiness and loneliness, the sense of worthlessness which the Van Dusens suffered, and while I would not be quick to pass judgment, I would raise some questions and observations.
It is fair to say that many Christians over the centuries have suffered worse than the Van Dusens. Some have undergone extreme torture for their faith. Others have endured unbelievable hardships. Still others have suffered loneliness, deprivation, poverty, despair, deep doubt. Nevertheless they endured. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German theologian arrested, imprisoned, and eventually executed by Hitler, said years ago: "God has reserved to himself the right to determine the end of life, because he alone knows the goal to which it is His will to lead it. Even if (a person's) earthly life has become a torment for him, he must commit it intact to God's hand, from which it came."[1]
The Van Dusens were insiders, leaders at the very heart of world Christianity. By contrast, consider another Christian, a woman alone, frail, weak, sickly: an outsider, unknown in important Christian circles. Yet she found her purpose and life-work in prayer from her wheelchair. Every day she prayed for the church, the ministers, those in need. She was so weak in body, she hardly could speak. Nevertheless, when God adds it all up, he may count the work of prayer during her feeblest years as the most significant work of all. Like Jesus, we find deep faith and unselfishness in unlikely people.
As Jesus observed long ago, "Many, I tell you, will come from east and west to feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven. But those who were born to the Kingdom will be driven out into the dark, the place of wailing and grinding of teeth" (Matthew 8:11-12). It is not a matter of being an insider, said Jesus, not a matter of ecclesiastical aristoc_esermonsracy or religious pedigree, but a matter of faith -- faith which is open and possible for all.
Notice further that Jesus was surprised with the Centurion's faith in his word. The Centurion may have had some opportunity to be exposed to the wisdom of Rome and Greece. Undoubtedly he was intelligent and capable. Yet he was teachable, ready to believe what Jesus had to say.
Very often today, the assumption is that the more intelligent you are and the more you know, the less faith you need. Faith often is regarded as the instrumentality of the credulous and feebleminded. But for those who are truly enlightened, those really in-the-know, faith is superfluous, or so the argument sometimes goes. Knowing this, Jesus was delighted to find faith in a man who might have regarded himself as intellectually sophisticated.
One of the sins of Jesus' contemporaries was the belief they had it all in the bag, that God had given them his complete revelation and knowledge of himself. But it was that very belief that closed them off to the new that was happening in their midst. "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sack cloth and ashes .... And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you" (Matthew 11:21-24).
The outsiders were more receptive to the truth than the insiders. Consequently Jesus prayed, "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea Father, for such was thy gracious will" (Matthew 11:25-26). A childlike openness is necessary to receive new truth. Very often our sophisticated intellectualisms prevent us from seeing the new truth trying to break in upon us. Regrettably, education sometimes causes us to be arrogant and blas‚, whereas, it should awaken humility and wonder.
As Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote:
Earth's crammed with heaven
And every bush a flame with God.
But only he who sees takes off his shoes.
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries
And daub their natural faces unaware ....As New Testament scholars Major, Manson and Wright have written, "The window lets in the light, but not to the blind. It reveals the wide-stretching landscape, but not if we close our eyes .... The whole universe is sacramental, but only if we are spiritually awake."[2] The Centurion, outsider that he was, had his eyes open. He was spiritually aware. Whereas the insiders, the religious types, were puffed up with intellectual pride, blinded with the cataracts of conceit.
Irony of ironies, surprise of surprises: the outsiders are in, the insiders are out; the wise are humbled, the humble are made wise; the powerful are made weak, the weak are made powerful; the righteous became sinners, the sinners became righteous; the first are last, and the last are first. Faith is found in unlikely people.
1. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. "Good Death?" Time, March 10, 1975, Vol. 105, p. 84.
2. Major, Manson, and Wright. The Mission And Message Of Jesus, (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., Inc., 1961), p. 692.