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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
What do you think about the centurion in today’s Gospel Reading: is he worthy or not? What do the elders of the Jews, who the centurion sent to Jesus, say about him: that he is worthy or not? What does the centurion say about himself: that he is worthy or not? What does Jesus say about the centurion: that he is worthy or not? “Worthy or not?” the answer to that question seems to be a point of contention both in the Gospel Reading for this Second Sunday after Pentecost and among those who comment on it, and, as we consider that Reading, we realize that both the question “Worthy or not?” and the question’s answer apply not only to the centurion but they also apply to us.
After our observance of Pentecost two weeks ago and our observance of Trinity Sunday last week, today is the first of many consecutive “green Sundays”. Today we have switched from confessing the Nicene Creed to confessing the Apostolic Creed in the Divine Service. Also today our appointed Gospel Readings return to the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, for the first of many (more or less) consecutive Gospel Readings from that account. Today’s Gospel Reading returns to St. Luke’s account right after Jesus finished the so-called “Sermon on the Plain” and as St. Luke by divine inspiration begins a chapter telling of Jesus’s further revealing Himself as the compassionate Messiah—His revealing Himself as the compassionate Messiah by releasing people from disease, death, and demon possession. Today we hear of Jesus’s releasing a centurion’s servant from disease (the release from death and demon possession come in the following weeks).
The Gospel accounts of St. Matthew and St. John also apparently tell of this same miraculous healing of the centurion’s servant (Matthew 8:5-13; John 4:46-53), but our three‑year cycle of readings appoints only St. Luke’s account to be read in church, and it pairs St. Luke’s account with an Old Testament Reading emphasizing God’s answering the prayers of foreigners (1 Kings 8:22-24, 27-29, 41-43). The accounts of St. Matthew and St. Luke both make clear that the centurion was a foreigner, a non-Jew, but St. Luke’s account is more complete. St. Luke’s account tells of those the centurion sent with messages to Jesus, and St. Luke’s account three times mentions of the matter of worthiness. St. Luke’s account even uses three different words in referring to whether the centurion was “Worthy or not”, though that fact is somewhat obscured by the English Standard Version read moments ago. (The ESV translates two different Greek words with the same English word “worthy”, and the ESV translates a third Greek word, related to one of the others, with the English word “presume”.)
Some Bible commentators go to great lengths imagining ways to make sense of what otherwise might appear to be contradictory statements about the centurion’s “worthiness”, even as they speculate as to what kind of worthiness is in view or as to what would have made the centurion worthy or not. As St. Luke’s account certainly says, the centurion authoritatively sends elders of the Jews to Jesus, asking Jesus to come and to heal His servant, and those authoritatively sent elders of the Jews plead earnestly with Jesus, saying that the centurion is worthy to have Jesus do this for him, for he loves their nation and built their synagogue. But then, after Jesus is going with them and is not far from the house, the centurion sends friends, telling Jesus that the centurion is not worthy to have Jesus come under his roof, that the centurion is so unworthy that he did not even presume to come to Jesus in the first place. So, which is it: is the centurion worthy or not?
We might leave to some Bible commentators their imagining that the elders of the Jews spoke beyond their authority or their imagining that the centurion had greater pangs of conscience once Jesus actually was fulfilling his request; we do better to ask about ourselves, whether we are worthy or not. If we are of a certain age, I suppose we can hardly talk about “worthiness” without thinking of the “Saturday Night Live” sketch “Wayne’s World” or the big-screen movies by the same name that followed. On “Wayne’s World”, every time a big rock star came on the show, Wayne Campbell, played by Mike Meyers, and Garth Algar, played by Dana Carvey, bowed down and declared “We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy!”. Wayne and Garth’s “unworthiness” in the presence of celebrity may have been used to comic effect, but our unworthiness in the presence of an all‑holy God is anything but funny. By nature, on account of original and actual sins, you and I are worthy of nothing but death now and for eternity. We deserve eternal separation from God and eternal torment in hell, and there is nothing we on our own can do about it. Not even the most influential emissaries, pleading on the basis of the best good works, would be enough.
The centurion apparently knew his own lack of worth on account of his sins, but he also knew and trusted Jesus’s worth as the compassionate Messiah. And, Jesus knew and marveled at the centurion’s faith—saying to the crowd that not even in Israel had He found such faith. The centurion’s faith was not some vague or abstract faith, but the centurion’s faith had as its object Jesus Christ. The centurion was confident that God in the flesh of the man Jesus would act on his behalf, and Jesus did heal the centurion’s servant as he had asked. The centurion seems to have known that Jesus as man was under the Father’s authority and as God had authority under Him, perhaps thinking of the armies of angels described in the Old Testament (2 Kings 6:17; Psalm 103:20; 68:17; 34:7; confer Matthew 26:53). Under the Father’s authority, Jesus died on the cross—for the centurion’s sins, for your and my sins, and for the sins of all people. With the authority under Him, Jesus rules all things for His Church.
Working through God’s Word, the Holy Spirit gathers that Church around the purely preached Gospel and the rightly administered Sacraments, for the purpose of creating faith and forgiving sins. In the Gospel Reading, there is a close connection between the Word and the miracle. St. Luke tells us how Jesus finished all His sayings in the hearing of the people and then entered Capernaum to heal the centurion’s servant. St. Luke tells us how the centurion heard about Jesus and then believed in Him—just as St. Paul in the Epistle Reading writes about preaching the Gospel (Galatians 1:1-12). And, in the Gospel Reading, St. Luke tells us how the centurion believed that Jesus only had to “say the word” to heal his servant. As St. Luke tells it, Jesus did not even say the word, and the servant was found well.
In this place, we hear God’s Word call us to repent of our sin and believe the Gospel. In this place, you and I confess our unworthiness on account of our sins, and, with the same faith as the centurion, you and I receive God’s gracious forgiveness of whatever our sin might be. We receive God’s gracious forgiveness through the Word in all its forms: proclaimed in preaching, poured on us in Baptism, spoken to us in Absolution, and put into our mouths in the Supper, with bread that is Christ’s body and wine that is Christ’s blood. The devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh want us to stay away from these good gifts because we are by nature unworthy, but we come precisely because we are by nature unworthy. In the case of the Lord’s Supper, for example, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther teaches us to confess in the Small Catechism that the person “is truly worthy and well prepared who has faith in these words, ‘given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.’” Made worthy by faith, we come under His roof in this place, where He is not contained but nevertheless chooses to dwell in His Word and Sacrament. In this place, He heals us and makes us well, physically and spiritually, even if we do not fully realize that until He returns. And, as we await that return, His Spirit brings forth from us the fruits of faith.
This week I was speaking with someone who was wondering why God does anything good for us at all, what He sees in us that makes Him want to have any regard for us. I mentioned that we find the psalmist expressing such thoughts (Psalm 8:4; 144:3), and, thinking of today’s Gospel Reading, I said that ultimately there is nothing in us that makes God regard us. That God created us and that God out of His mercy and grace redeemed us through Jesus’s death and resurrection attracts Him to us. And, God’s saving action towards us in turn motivates all that we do towards one another: living in the forgiveness of sins with one another and doing good works for one another—just as the believing centurion loved the Jewish nation and built a synagogue in Capernaum. Like repentance, such acts of love are the fruits of the faith received from God.
“Worthy or not?” When we receive that faith, we know that we are both unworthy on account of our sinful nature and worthy on account of our redeemed nature. No matter what God permits us to face, we know that He loves us and will always help us. Like the centurion, we understand what mercy is and know God intends it for us who are otherwise without worth. There was a Medieval Latin hymn about death dating back to the fifth century that was sung as a battle song and on days of supplication and prayer, and it was even translated into German several times by the fifteenth century but still focused on sorrow over sin and its eternal consequences. When The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther in the sixteenth century adapted the tune, re‑translated the Latin hymn into German, and added two stanzas, he added a plea for forgiveness and emphasized faith’s confidence in the grace of God through the blood of Christ. We close now by praying that hymn’s final appeal as we sang it in English as our Hymn of the Day (Lutheran Service Book, 755:3; confer The Lutheran Hymnal, 590:3, and compare Lutheran Worship, 265:3):
Holy and righteous God! / Holy and mighty God! / Holy and all merciful Savior!
Eternal Lord God!
Lord, preserve and keep us / In the peace that faith can give.
Have mercy, O Lord!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +