The Authority of Love

Homily for Sunday, May 29, 2016     Graves Chapel

The rhythm of the church year has taken us from Lent into Easter and now into the season after Pentecost.  The Lord has been crucified, has resurrected, and has ascended to the life of the greater kingdom.  In our walk of faith, we journey with Him.

In the last chapter of the gospel of Matthew, in the gospel’s last verses, the risen Lord appears in Galilee to the astonished disciples. He says to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”  From that position of authority, the Lord tells the disciples, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

In today’s lesson from Luke, the centurion also speaks of authority. What is authority? When Jesus says he has been given “all authority on heaven and on earth,” how do we Christians understand these words?  Since this is the resurrected Lord speaking, do we recognize that he speaks out of his union with God and the spirit, as member of the Trinity? Now that his span of time living as a human being on earth, among humans, has ended, Jesus reveals himself to his disciples as the face of the eternal God. His parting words to his disciples are words of comfort: “Remember, I am with you always.”

That statement must have bewildered the disciples, as it often bewilders us, the present-day disciples of the Lord.  How do we overcome our sense of distance from the Lord, in spite of his promise to be with us always?  We learn to recognize the voice of the Holy Spirit, which speaks to us most intimately with words of comfort and guidance. Many, many generations of Christians have encountered the Spirit dwelling in that part of us which we call our soul, that part of us which seems to occupy a space very near our hearts.

In his parting words to the disciples, Jesus clearly connects these two ideas: the authority of God and the way God shares his authority with us through the Spirit that dwells in our soul, in our very heart. God’s authority is one that seeks what is best for his people.

In today’s lesson from Luke, we return to the years of the ministry of Jesus on earth, to the story of the Lord’s encounter with the Roman centurion, truly a man of authority.  This is the only story we are told, in all of the gospels, in which Jesus is said to be amazed by someone’s faith. In fact, he turns to those around him, presumably his disciples, and says, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”  By this point in his ministry, Jesus has encountered throngs of people and healed many of them. Some elders who have heard of Jesus, friends of this centurion, tell him that Jesus can heal his “highly valued slave” who is gravely ill.  The centurion sends these Jewish elders to Jesus, and they tell the Lord what a good man the centurion is, what a good friend he has been to the Jews, how he had built their synagogue for them. Accordingly, Jesus follows them to the centurion’s house. Before he can even arrive, the centurion sends another message by a friend.  This friend relays these words of the centurion: “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; therefore, I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word and let my servant be healed. For I am also a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say ‘Go,’ to one, and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes.”

Please consider with me why Jesus is said to be amazed, why the faith of this centurion astonishes him. First, we should understand that centurion was the only term for a professional officer in the Roman army. This centurion commanded at least one hundred soldiers, but he may also have had other “centuries” (or groups of a hundred soldiers) in his command. He was most likely the highest ranking official in Capernaum, where this story takes place.

If you are Jesus--a poor Galilean, a carpenter, an itinerant preacher—how would you react to having a high-ranking Roman official send you a message that begins with the words, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof.” If you are Jesus, you have traveled throughout Palestine and many people have come to believe in you and follow you, but many more have not. How do you explain the immediate faith of a Roman official, who has only heard about you through some of your followers? What does the centurion’s expression of deep humility—“Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof”—tell you about this man?

Jesus listens to the entire message from the centurion before he expresses his amazement. What the centurion says about the relationship of authority to obedience may be the key to understanding his humility. Before he mentions the power he possesses to give orders to other men, the centurion says, “For I also am a man set under authority.” In this simple statement, the centurion acknowledges that any power he exerts is derived from his service to the emperor—he is set under authority.  Somehow, simply from hearing stories about the miraculous healings Jesus has performed, the centurion has recognized two significant things: first, that Jesus has been given the authority to perform miracles, and second, that his authority must be derived from a divine source—surpassing even the power of the emperor. Why else would a centurion say that he, a high-ranking Roman official, is not worthy to have Jesus come under his roof?  No wonder Jesus is amazed—and is pleased to reward the centurion’s faith by healing his servant, as he requested, from a distance.

But, as someone under authority himself, the centurion also fully realizes that for authority to be effective, then the humble and willing obedience of those under authority is also required.  Cruel, unwise, or capricious authority will never succeed in the long run. Might it be that the centurion, as a wise and caring leader, understood that helping the people of Capernaum build their temple would also allow him to maintain good relationships with them?  Remember, when the elders first tell Jesus about the centurion, they say, “He is worthy of having you do this for him, for he loves our people.”  Well-exercised authority desires what is best for those it serves.

Authority. When we hear that word, the first synonym that probably comes to mind is power, not service.  Interestingly, the word authority clearly has its derivation from author, and we think of an author as one who writes or one who creates. God our creator, the one whose supreme authority the centurion recognizes in Jesus, is also, at times, an author.

In Exodus 24:12, God says to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain, and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandments, which I have written for their instruction.” Later, after Moses has stayed a long time on Mt. Sinai, we are told in Exodus 31:18, “When God finished speaking with Moses, he gave him the two tablets of the covenant, written with the finger of God.” I believe most of us remember what happened to those tablets as well as to the people for whom the laws were composed by God. The tablets were broken in anger, and over the long history of God’s people, including us Christians, God’s laws have been broken repeatedly. Such can be the reaction of human nature to any kind of authority!

Later, the prophets tell us, God chose new ways to express his authority. When the covenant written in stone did not have the desired effect, God spoke these words through Jeremiah: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their Lord, and they shall be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:33) God understands that his authorship of the laws, his authority, must live within the people, written on their very hearts, to be effective. Their willing obedience to His laws must come from their trust in his love for them. In Proverbs 7, we hear the words of a loving father—God—to his children: “My child, keep my words and store up my commandments with you. Keep my commandments and live. Write them on the tablet of your heart.”

In our evolving understanding of God, and through the mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, we now encounter a God who expresses his authority primarily through love and compassion. Jesus echoes the prophetic message of writing God’s words on our hearts when he says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your soul. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

In Jesus, the centurion recognized someone who possessed the authority of God. And how was that authority demonstrated in a way that convinced even a Roman official? Having heard stories of the miraculous healings wrought by Jesus, the centurion believed Jesus could heal his servant. By the power of love, straight from the heart of God, the servant WAS healed.

Like the centurion, may we, who also hear stories of the miraculous love of Jesus Christ, believe in our hearts that Jesus loves us and is always with us, as he promised his disciples.  May we have faith in the divine authority, an authority always tempered by mercy, and serve the Lord in glad obedience.  AMEN.