The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (8:5-13)

Our Lord Jesus Christ encounters a gentile man in today’s gospel. Gentiles are those who are not Jews. This particular gentile was a Roman centurion, a high ranking soldier. He comes to the Lord and in a sign of extraordinary faith, he starts to make a request saying, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, in terrible distress.” This should make us pause because this man is not a Jew. He doesn’t believe in the Jewish prophets. He doesn’t obey the law of God. He doesn’t adhere to the Mosaic law. Yet here he is demonstrating a measure of faith that Our Lord rarely saw from His own people.

When I hear this story, I am stunned by the Lord’s willingness to drop everything to accept the request of this unbeliever and come to his house to heal his paralyzed servant. It is a window into the heart of Christ. He didn’t see a Roman standing before Him. He didn’t see someone who was other. He saw in this man, the image of God. He likewise saw in his servant, this image of God. And rather than make His love conditional, He is willing to pour out His love in the form of healing prayers. If Our Lord Jesus loved these strangers so much, then how much more must the Lord love His people, His children? We should meditate upon this whenever we are struggling or doubting that the Lord loves us. We will be blown away by His great love.

And we find that Our Lord Himself was blown away by the faith of this man and it stands as a sharp contrast to the lack of faith of the Jews, especially the scribes and Pharisees that typically heard and ignored the Lord although they should have understood and followed Him faithfully. The centurion had demonstrated his faith by asking Jesus to help his servant, but what he said next really showed his faith to be great. The Lord offers to come and heal the man who is sick and the centurion says something that shows us a window into his heart. “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof…” He speaks from a place of great humility. What is humility? It is the recognition of who we really are. He doesn’t feel that he is owed anything. He doesn’t feel that he should receive special privileges even though he is a high ranking soldier and many people follow his orders. He says, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof.” I want to note that this is similar language to one of the pre-communion prayers of St. John Chrysostom who wrote, “O Lord my God, I know that I am not worthy nor sufficiently pleasing that Thou should come under the roof of the house of my soul for it is entirely desolate and fallen in ruin…”

This shows us that St. John understood that each time we come to receive the holy body and the precious blood of Jesus Christ at the eucharist, then we are in fact receiving Christ Himself to dwell in our souls and bodies. This is not to be taken casually. We do this with a certain amount of fear and trembling and with a generous amount of humility. Who is worthy to receive the body and blood of Christ? No one who has ever lived. Yet, He accepts us when we are struggling to live in communion with Him through daily repentance and faith. Such a life will be marked by obedience to Christ through His teachings and those of the Church, since it is His body on earth.

Yet the centurion goes even further in astounding the Lord Jesus. He says that he is not worthy to receive Christ into His home and then he says “But only say a word and my servant will be healed.” In the course of just a few words, he has shown himself to understand more about the life of faith and about the Lord then most of the so-called experts and religious people around Christ. He nearly left everyone speechless. Listen to the response of Our Lord: “Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer

darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.”

As Christians, the people of God, we rejoice that the Lord accepted the outsider’s faith with openness and enthusiasm, after all, we were those outsiders once upon a time. We were adopted through our baptism into Christ. We were made members of the household of God. But as the people of God, with all of the benefits and rights of the children of God, we should also tremble. We have been given much and Our Lord tells us that to those who are given much, much will be required. On this point St. John of Kronstadt writes,

“What answer shall we give to our immortal King, Christ our God, Who shall come again in the glory of His Father to judge both the quick and the dead, to declare the secret thoughts of all hearts, and receive from us our answer for every word and deed. O, woe, woe, woe to us who bear the name of Christ, but have none of the spirit of Christ in us; who bear the name of Christ, but do not follow the teaching of the Gospel! Woe to us who ‘neglect so great salvation’! Woe to us who love the present fleeting, deceptive life, and neglect the inheritance of the life that follows after the death of our corruptible body beyond this carnal veil!” + St. John of Kronstadt

So what does God require? He requires that we love. That we first love Him. And as we often remind one another, this love is demonstrated through our obedience to Christ, “If you love me, obey my commandments.” This is a prerequisite to having a relationship with God!

Next, we are required to love others. So we love God and we love our neighbors. This love for our neighbors is one of the proofs that the love of God has transformed us and filled us with love. That we are related to Christ not only in name, but in reality, to the very depths of our being. In short, what is required of us is to have faith that exceeds the faith of the centurion. It is truly a tall order for us, but all things are possible with the help of God…The Father, Son and Holy Spirit, AMEN.

Source: Sermons