I
might've called this “A Tale of Two Healings, Part II,” after a sermon I gave a
few weeks ago. Luke asks the same thing
of us here as John did in the passage that sermon referenced: to compare two
instances of miraculous healing. In John’s
case, it was two back-to-back healings in his own gospel; here, it's a healing
of Jesus and one of the prophet Elisha’s, described in the passage from 2 Kings
that Lee read. Naaman was a powerful
man, head of all the armies of Aram, and he’d become more powerful because, 2
Kings says, God had given him victory over Israel, no doubt to punish them for some
infraction or another. The centurion, for
whom Luke provides no name, was far less powerful, commanding as he did at the most
a thousand men. But both were enemies of
the Israelites, and they're healed anyway: Naaman through Elijah’s successor Elisha,
and the centurion through Jesus.
And
a major reason Luke wants to compare the two is to make a case for Jesus standing
in the prophetic line. After all, a
major function of his gospel is to try and illustrate just who and what Jesus was, and nothing says
“prophet” like a healing, especially one that echoes one of the bone fide prophets from Israel’s past. But Luke’s point goes beyond that: if he
stands in the prophetic line, he is greater than Elisha, at least: while both healings
were at a distance, a thing almost unheard of to folks who understood such things, Elisha required Naaman to wash himself
seven times in the Jordan. Jesus
healed the centurion’s slave with just a word, and who else do we know does things with just their word?
But
like John's comparison, there are other things to learn from Luke’s, and they
revolve around the characteristics of the principles. They were both
used to command: whether a thousand or tens of thousands, both expected
their orders to be obeyed. But Naaman
bore a particularly nasty temper, and a peremptory way with those he considered
his inferiors. When he heads out to Israel’s
king to seek the prophet who could heal him, he took gifts: ten silver talents,
ten thousand gold shekels, and ten sets of clothing.
So when he handed the letter from his
King requesting he be healed to the Israelite King, he doubtless expected
to pay for it handsomely. But the
Israelite suspected a trap: “Who do I look like? God? How
am I supposed to heal him? He's trying to goad me into refusing so he
can attack.” And he tore his clothes in
chagrin.
But
when Elisha heard of all the dramatics, he sent a servant to the King saying
“what's the big deal? Have him come to
me, and I'll show him what it wants
to be a prophet.” So Naaman showed up at Elisha’s place, with
all his horses and chariots and money and garments, and a servant met him at
the gates and told him to go bathe seven times in the Jordan River, and he'd be
healed. And we can see there's a little
gamesmanship going on here: Elisha, who certainly knows just who Naaman is,
doesn't let him into the house, he doesn't meet him at the gates. He sends a
servant to do it. A servant!
And
it infuriates Naaman, head of all the armies of the King of Aram, manly in
bearing and mighty in battle, that he'd be treated so shabbily by some, by some
. . . Prophet person. “I thought for me he’d surely come out
and wave his had over me and invoke his God and I’d be cured. If I'd have wanted a bath, I could have taken
one in one of the rivers of Aram, which are much
better than this Jordan you prattle
on about.” And he turned and stalked
off, in a rage.
But
his servants came up to him—after he'd
cooled down, of course—and cajoled him to reconsider. “If he'd told you to do something hard, like
stand in one foot while whistling the Aramean national anthem backwards, or
reciting the 3rd chapter of the third Book of Ba’al from memory,
you'd do it, wouldn't you? Well then,
this is much easier. And we're already here and everything, so you might as
well . . .” And Naaman ended up doing what Elisha asked and Behold! His leprosy
was cured and he had the skin of a man half his age.
Now. Compare that to the centurion, whose request
for healing wasn't for himself, but
for a slave he valued, who was near death.
Now chattel slavery, that involved buying and selling of human beings like
in the pre-Civil war South, didn't exist in Palestine at the time, but
debt-slavery did, as did slavery as a form of punishment. Because the centurion was a soldier, likely
that the man was a prisoner of war, a common fate for someone taken in battle. And Luke's comment that the centurion valued
him highly referred to monetary value
was unlikely, given he couldn't be sold, and it's likely that the man was
valued for the work he did as a member of the centurion’s household. It's also possible the soldier thought of him
fondly as well.
But
however his value was counted, he was deathly ill, so when the centurion heard that
Jesus was nearby, he sent a delegation of Jewish elders to ask him to come and
heal the man. And this in itself was
unusual, for the centurion was an enemy,
being a very visible sign of an occupying force, but what the elders told Jesus
was downright amazing: “He is worthy of
having you do this for him,” they said, “for he loves our people, and it is he
who built our synagogue for us.” The
centurion was embedded in the Jewish community, and he loved them and respected
their faith enough that he built them a house in which to practice it. Compare that to Naaman, who came as an
outsider, loaded with gifts, prepared to pay for the prophet’s services.
And
Jesus is so impressed with the man’s love for Jews that he goes with the
elders, perhaps to see this rare specimen for himself. But the centurion sent some friends—the man
had friends in the community!—to say
“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.” And compare that to Naaman, who not only presumed to come to Elisha, but expected the prophet to come to him! And rather than trying to dictate how he was
healed, as did Naaman—come out to me and call on your God and wave your hands
over the spot—he was quietly sure that Jesus’ voice could heal him, and that at a distance: “Only speak the word,”
he said “and let my servant be healed.”
And
Jesus was amazed at all of this, at the man's humility—in one who commanded a
lot of men—but most of all at his faith.
For this kind of long-distance healing was unheard of in ancient times,
it always involved something like what Naaman had contemptuously called waving your
hands over the spot. But not only had the
centurion not been upset by the long-distance healing, but he’d requested it. And Jesus told the bystanders that not even
in Israel had he seen such faith, and by the time the centurion's friends
returned to him, his servant was healed.
Jesus
attributed it all to the centurion's faith,
and we can see what that is, at least on the face of it: his faith was an assurance
that Jesus could and, equally important, would
heal his servant. If he thought it
outside the realm of possibility that this Jesus would heal the man, would he
have bothered to send first the elders then his friends? His faith was in the goodness of Jesus, the
goodness of the God he represented.
Last
week, we spoke of being open to the self-emptying Trinitarian flow. And I think the centurion illustrated this
fundamental principle quite graphically: he was, open to Jesus’ kenotic love.
And not only was he open to it himself, he didn't block it, dam it
up. He let it flow through him: he loved the Jewish community, provided for it out of
his own funds, out of himself.
And
Jesus commends the man for it, not just for the openness to receiving—Naaman was open to that—but to the whole arrangement.
When he heard that the man loved the community—and they were not his own people—he went with the
elders. When he heard of the man’s
humility, that the healing was to be for a slave, and not for himself, that
sealed the deal. The centurion’s faith encompassed
all of that, it was greater than anything he’d found in Israel, which was
notoriously tribal and concerned only with themselves.
We
often think of faith as an individual thing, as a personal faith in Jesus
Christ as our Lord and Savior, as the saying goes. But this incident shows that it encompasses
how we treat others, and not just those within our own community. Congregations often get into the “take care
of ourselves first” trap, because, as the presumption goes, if you don’t take
care of your own community, how can you take care of anyone else?
But
I suggest that it's just the opposite: Jesus said that the centurion's faith
was greater than any he’d seen in Israel precisely because it wasn't about
himself, precisely because he loved and did for the Jewish community in which
he was embedded, a community of which he certainly was not a member. If he'd “taken
care of his own” first, would Jesus have commended him so strongly on his
faith? I’m not so sure. Amen.
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