I am so thankful to be part of a congregation that asks things boldly, though aware that our privilege does not make us worthy of Jesus’ attention; and also a congregation that serves humbly, aware that as part of the body of Christ, our attention needs to go where Jesus’ example leads. So in my attempt to preach the good news that I find in this pair of healing stories, my goal was to help unpack some of the things that I hope we already know and see those things in their relationship to one another.
The first of these stories, healing the centurion’s servant, is perhaps the one with the more memorable quotes. This story often looms larger in the mind because of it, such that on Working Preacher’s narrative lectionary resources the entire commentary was about the healing of the centurion’s servant–nothing about the widow’s son. What phrases jumped out to us from that story of the centurion’s servant?
For any of our members with a Catholic background, perhaps you noticed that this story is the source for some of the communion liturgy: The Jewish elders tell Jesus this man is worthy to receive healing, but then, perhaps having heard what they said, the Centurion sends other friends to say, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof…but only speak the word, and my servant shall be healed.” Week after week, before receiving communion, today’s Catholic liturgy proclaims, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but speak the word and my soul shall be healed.” In original or adapted form, those are powerful words.
Indeed, when Jesus hears this, he is “amazed.” We might remember his words, “not even in Israel have I found such faith,” but the part that should really stand out is that Jesus was amazed. That doesn’t happen anywhere else. Jesus amazes other people: from the time the teachers were amazed at his wisdom and questions in the Temple to the miraculous ministry of his adult life, it’s always others amazed at God’s power at work in Jesus. This is the one time that Jesus is amazed.
And it might be worth noting that in this story, Jesus does not speak any word of blessing or healing. His one and only line was about this centurion’s faith; for the rest of the story, Jesus has simply been following along with whatever he’s been asked to do. And yet when the friends of the centurion return, the slave has been healed. So who did the healing? Did Jesus send an angel or some other spirit to go do the work on his behalf, as the centurion perhaps imagined he would do? Or did the centurion think that Jesus would send a disciple to perform the healing? It’s a gap that we’d have to fill with our best guess as we interpret, because Luke doesn’t tell us clearly.
But that whole story, with its memorable lines holding such a high place in the wider church, is followed for comparison by another story of incredible healing. In the second story, Jesus approaches a situation that seems to be too late for healing. Rather than having slaves, or Jewish elders, or other friends to engage with Jesus on her behalf, this woman has no male representative since she is a widow and her only son has died. Jesus inserts himself into the scene and initiates a turnabout: he tells a grieving mother “do not weep.” Rather than allowing himself to be kept at a distance, Jesus draws near to touch the bier the man is being carried on–despite any uncleanness that would confer. Jesus speaks words of power directly: “Young man, I say to you, rise!” And it is the crowd who is astounded or struck with fear; rather than returning home, they spread the word throughout Judea about Jesus.
I’d like us to notice some of the ways that these two stories might be a “good-to-greater” comparison–something that we might want to be familiar with as we read the Bible. Unlike our culture, which emphasizes contrast and opposites (this thing is good because that thing is trash), the Hebrew culture especially of our scriptures would often draw comparisons between good and greater: If God so wonderfully arraigns the flowers of the field which are here today and gone tomorrow, how much more will God care for your needs, as God’s beloved children? If God gives flowers such good treatment, aren’t we going to get even better? Good to greater or better.
In the first healing, the centurion’s slave is “near death;” in the story to follow Jesus “one-ups himself” by raising a man from the dead. In the first story, Jesus is willing to be directed and to follow along to perform a healing; in the latter, Jesus himself takes the initiative and acts without waiting to be invited. While Jesus’ words seem to make the slave’s healing in some way a result of the centurion’s faith, in the story that follows neither the widow nor the son demonstrates faith: the first story was about human faith in Jesus and the latter about Jesus’ faithfulness toward those in need. And while the first story is about someone that the Jewish elders proclaim is worthy to receive favors, the latter story is about someone that we might realize God deemed worthy to receive favor, drawing near to her in Jesus.
Remember: these are good-to-greater comparisons. It is good to donate lavishly for the building of a place of worship, to have faith in Jesus, and to ask for healing. That is good. But those things will never set someone higher than another because it is even better to realize how highly God values us apart from anything we’ve done, even better to recognize God’s astounding faithfulness to us, and even better to accept new life from Christ. Jesus is willing to do a good thing by healing the centurion’s slave. But Jesus demonstrates his own interest in doing something even better by raising this only son from the dead.
And that in itself has a major lesson for us. In our culture of opposites-only comparisons, people often feel very threatened by any recognition of another’s greater need or greater success. Every day we’re bombarded with messages asking us to prove that we’re worthy, that we’re good. Because, again, in this culture, the contrast is between good and trash. There’s a great deal of underlying insecurity when we are not grounded in the recognition of those unconditional even better affirmations of God that apply to all of God’s beloved human beings: We’re so often caught up in striving to be good enough…as if that would ever exceed the worth of God’s unconditional love.
But in a culture that only knows how to compare opposites, if someone else has a greater success, then the rest are called losers. If someone calls out a greater need, then the assumption is that they believe others deserve no attention. That might not be what is meant at all, but reactions coming from insecurity will assume that it is the comparison being drawn, and lash out defensively.
February is Black History Month. When I was in college, I remember peers complaining that this was “reverse racism” because it was special treatment for African-Americans. I can’t think of any other situation in which somebody was accused of being unfair because they asked for 1/12th of something that should have been rightly shared the whole time. Perhaps someday, when students are consistently assigned to read Black and Latinx and other authors as well as white ones, and consider all the perspectives and participants in our history whenever it is being taught, in every month and during every grade, we will happily do away with Black History Month, because it will no longer need special attention. But right now, I wish people had the maturity to hear that it is good to know our white historical figures and even better to also give some attention to black historical figures who have been neglected.
In a similar vein, the reactions to the slogan “Black Lives Matter” reveal a surprising amount of insecurity among those who feel the need to counter-assert “All Lives Matter” or “Blue Lives Matter.” If people felt the same insecurity about cancers, we’d have people defacing pink ribbon bumper stickers and making counter-ribbons to the pink ribbons for breast cancer: “All Cancers Matter!” Blue ribbons for prostate cancer! And so forth.
Do people really believe that if we affirm that Black lives matter, we’re somehow implying that other lives don’t? Or is that the insecurity speaking, from soaking up too much of a culture that only believes in zero-sum competition and comparisons between good and trash?
It’s good to live in a country that values the lives of police officers and would be even better to live in a country that values the lives of the most disadvantaged and historically oppressed people groups. (Beyond Black folks, Native Americans suffer similarly disproportionate unjustified violence from the police.) It’s good that our fourteenth amendment says that anyone in the U.S. should have “equal protection under the law” with no difference according to race, and it would be even better if that guarantee were made real in the actual enforcement of our laws by police and courts.
Yet as I considered the “even better” story of Jesus raising this widow’s son, there was one line that troubled me for a while: when he first approaches, Jesus tells this grieving mother, “do not weep.” If we suspend for a moment our knowledge of how the story ends, how can he say such a thing? How can you tell any mother not to weep for her dead child, much less this woman, a widow, having lost her only child?! I do not know how this woman reacted, but I can only imagine her surprise at Jesus’ audacity. Even if she recognized who he was, with a reputation at that time as a teacher and miracle worker, would she really have gotten her hopes up that this healer of the sick could bring her dead son back to life?
It reminds me of another true story, about two African-American men named Bryan Stevenson and Walter McMillian. Walter was a dead man: he had been convicted for the murder of a white woman and sentenced to death, although he was innocent. Under pressure from the community to find the murderer, police, and prosecutors arranged for another white man, a convicted felon, to testify with a fabricated story connecting Walter to the scene of the crime. That’s all it took to have him convicted by a jury, and Walter’s family resigned themselves to the reality that he was a dead man.
When Bryan, a Harvard grad, shows up seemingly from nowhere and decides by his own initiative to take up Walter’s case, he has the audacity to ask Walter’s family to do something seemingly illogical: Act like he has a chance of being released, and work to get his conviction overturned. Against all history of white folks having the power to lynch a black man once they had a mind to do it, against all repercussions of community backlash sure to come in the present, against all odds that the courts will not care one whit about Walter’s innocence in their interest to execute someone for the woman’s murder, Bryan asks the family to help him with Walter’s case.
Even if they really wanted to believe in someone with their skin color who was a Harvard-graduate lawyer, it would take quite a bit to convince them that this man had any chance of bringing Walter from death row back to a free life. But Walter was eventually released. And if you wanted to hear more of the work that Bryan Stevenson has been up to, you could look into the book or the film Just Mercy, or quickly google the Equal Justice Initiative that Bryan founded, and read about his ongoing work. That’s the low-hanging fruit, easily within reach this Black History Month.
It’s one thing to seek an education so that we can have a good life for ourselves or our families. It’s even better to devote top-notch education to the pursuit of justice so that those with the least power or resources to negotiate for themselves find themselves restored to life. Bryan chose that latter path as a follower of Jesus’ example. Jesus could have let his schedule fill up with invitations like that of the centurion, doing good for those who would be able to pay him back, but when allowed to pick his own priorities, was giving life to those on the lowest rungs of society instead.
If we consider the needs of a congregation, it is good to have some members who are able to provide significant financial support. It is so good to know that in any circumstance, we can call for God’s attention to our needs. We don’t have to refrain from asking because another might be in greater need. And it is very good to recognize–despite how our culture would condition some of us to receive privilege as normal–that we are not worthy to have Jesus enter under our roof, not by our own merit. We can let our faith show with that line of Catholic liturgy: “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.” May our faith in Jesus’ authority be astounding; that is indeed good.
And it is even better to live in a congregation that has heard Jesus’ call, and is continuing his work as the body of Christ; to be restoring life to those who have the least in this life or who are at risk of losing the little they have. It helps to have real relationships that stretch across the gaps our society creates between people: when one of our members’ mother lost her home (no insurance, no relief aid) in the pair of hurricanes that struck Honduras one right after the other, working alongside that family in their fundraising for buying a new one keeps us grounded in a relationship as a real need was met. That’s not as precious as a child restored to life, but I can certainly affirm that her new house is a much greater reason to celebrate than when my wife I purchased our new house–and I say that without denigrating in any way how good it has been to have this new home this past winter! As a congregation, we’ve learned to celebrate both good and even better; new life in such difficult circumstances (even before a natural disaster) is even better news.
It was good news for the centurion’s household that one servant among many was healed. But I wonder whether or not they ever heard of Jesus’ miracle in the next town over. If they did, were they jealous of this second story getting attention throughout Judea, or did they recognize it as even better news? Though the servant in their household was so close and this widow’s son was unknown to them, could they feel the even better news that the only one expected at that time to support his household was raised from the dead?
Luke doesn’t bother to tell us, because his story keeps moving on to convey the best news: Jesus is saving everyone. In our culture of insecurity, we might be offended if someone else’s salvation is better news than ours, but as Jesus would tell John’s disciples just a little later in this same chapter, “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”
The Kingdom of Heaven has come near.
Caleb Kragt is a minister 2/3 time and 1/3 stay-at-home Dad. He and his wife Allie have just moved into their first house with kids age 3 and 6. Caleb and Irvin Heishman are co-pastors for the West Charleston Church of the Brethren in Tipp City, Ohio.
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