“…Such Great Faith”

A sermon based upon Matthew 8: 5-13

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, BA, MDiv, DMin.

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership, 

Second Sunday in Lent, March 8, 2020

What does it take to have ‘great faith’?    

Recently, I read an article about the current owner of In-N-Out Burgers, a popular west-coast Hamburger Chain based in California.  It was confessional article based on an interview with the granddaughter of the founders of In-N-Out.  She currently owns the 3 Billion Dollar Hamburger chain. 

In that article, Lynsi Snyder tells of her own personal struggles, especially with drugs and alcohol after her dad’s untimely death when she was a teenager.  She also had three failed marriages due to abuse.  But in the midst of all her desperation, Lynsi came to ‘a life-change realization’.  She told reporters: “I finally found that the deep need in my heart can only be filled by Jesus and my identity in Him.”  Snyder decided to ‘surrender her life to Jesus Christ and dedicate her time, energy, and talents to glorify him.’ The article went on to express just how much this Christian CEO is beloved by her employees.  Her business, like her life, is now fully dedicated to the ‘glory of God’  https://www.christianpost.com/news/in-n-out-billionaire-lynsi-snyder-on-spiritual-warfare-desire-to-be-plugged-in-to-gods-plan.html.

We love to hear stories like this, don’t we?  Stories of human struggle, failure, and then, finally comes great redemption.   You see a lot of these kinds of stories in the movies, even without ever mentioning God.   Such dramatic turn-around, success or redemption stories give us hope because sometimes we all find ourselves struggling.  We all hope for at least, some kind of redemption.  We hope things will get better and turn out good in the end. 

What is important to understand about Lynsi Synder’s story is her redemption didn’t come in complete isolation.  Her Grandparents, who started the Hamburger Chain, had been Christian from the beginning.  An uncle had been in charge of putting Scripture verses on Drink cups, French Fries holders, and Hamburger wrappers.  Lynsi’s story is wonderful to hear, but she already had everything going for her; she was rich, her family were dedicated Christians.  All she needed to do was get her act together and everything came together for her own good. 

Let me be clear.  I’m glad for Lynsi’s rediscovered faith.  It was ‘great’, especially for her, but it’s still not as ‘great’ a faith as what we see in today’s biblical text.  Lynsi’s faith came out of somewhere, but this Roman’s Centurion’s Faith came out of nowhere.  Lynsi had everything to gain by getting her life together.  The Roman Centurion took a very great risk of losing his position as a Roman commander, and was making a great leap into to the unknown when he expressed faith.  This act of faith was not even for himself, but it was for someone else.  He had great faith because he wanted to bring hope and healing to a Jew.

This story was especially important to Matthew.  Matthew was writing to show how his own Jewish people needed to dare to take a ‘leap of faith’ so they would open themselves to God’s hope and healing for their own nation.  Matthew has told this story to invite others, including us, to develop this same kind of ‘great faith’ to trust in the healing and hope that Jesus brings.

A PERSON OF AUTHORITY

When look more closely, this is a rather remarkable story Matthew uses to introduce the healing miracles of Jesus, especially for his fellow Jews.  Instead of starting his gospel with a story of faith among Jews, Matthew begins with a story of the faith of a Roman.   This is actually the very strange case of a Roman who believes in Jesus, not for his own sake, or on his own behalf, but on behalf of his Jewish slave and his servant.  Perhaps he has some selfish motives.  Maybe he just needs a servant.  We’ll answer that question later.   But the point Matthew makes is that it’s the Jewish servant who needed the healing, but it’s the great faith of the Roman that opened this work of hope and healing.  Can you see how remarkable this is?

This choice of beginning with the faith of a Roman Centurion is shocking because about the time the book of Matthew was written, the Romans had just completely destroyed Jerusalem, forcing Jews to disperse over the 4 corners of the earth.  There was no more Jewish temple.  There was no more nation.  There was practically no more Jewish religion.   The Roman soldiers were the enemies, and they were the destroyers.  Can you imagine Jesus making an Arab a hero after 9/11?  That’s what this story must have felt like.   But it’s right here, in this story, Jesus is declaring a Roman intruder to be the hero.  He is a person who has faith far greater than anyone in “Israel’ (8:10).  Did you catch that?   It’s certainly the kind of story that would certainly get attention, especially if you were a Jew who had just had your homeland destroyed and you thought that everything was gone with it.

When I worked in Germany during the 1990s, most Germans respected Americans. German Youth especially loved America.  Maybe it wasn’t for all the right reasons, but they loved us.  They loved the music.  They loved the bigness and newness of America.  Although I’m sure that there were some who still resented America because of all the bombs we dropped in the war, most Germans understood, that by losing that war to us, there also came a great time of healing and hope for the German culture after so many years of Nazi darkness.

Perhaps what Matthew wants to show his fellow Jews is that even through that terrible Roman war and occupation and all the destruction of that time, hope and healing was still being offered to them through Jesus as the Christ. Just as a Roman’s faith brought healing to this humble Jewish servant, Matthew is offering Jesus as God’s Messiah who can help his own Jewish people to regain faith in life and hope in God.  As God worked in the heart of this one Roman Centurion to bring healing to his Jewish servant,  Matthew wanted them to understand how God can still release hope into their lives, if they would also come to trust in God’s healing power, just as this Centurion did.

I DON’T DESERVE TO HAVE YOU…

This is where we come in.   This story of Great Faith is not only meant for hurting Jews who needed to have faith in Jesus then, but it also provides a lasting example of the kind of faith it might take to release God’s hope and healing into our own world, and into our own lives, even in the worst of situations.  In this Roman Centurion we see a faith that is great because this Centurion, in such a high position of privilege and power, lowers and humbles himself to take a dramatic ‘leap of faith’ to show just how much he is willing to trust in the healing only God can bring.   He is willing to take a great, big, trusting leap, will we?  But what kind of ‘leap’ was it?

Have you ever heard of this term “leap of faith”?  It’s not a term found in the Bible, but it came from the great Danish Pastor from the 18^th Century, named Soren Kierkegaard.  He used this term to express what it takes to believe in God, especially in a world where we might be convinced otherwise.   That Danish pastor said that in order to have faith in God, especially in a scientific, technological world that prefers to have all the ‘facts’, that believing and trusting in God is often like taking a ‘leap’ into the dark, a leap without proof, and a leap into a hope that we all need, whether we have any certainty or evidence.  Kierkegaard reminded modern people, that this is what faith has always meant---both in the ancient world, and in the modern world too.  In order to have a faith that brings hope and healing, we must trust in what we don’t always have proof of, but we must decide to take the ‘leap’ anyway.  

Kierkegaard used the story of God’s request for Abraham to sacrifice his only Son, Isaac, as the example of what great faith means.  Most of you are familiar with this Old Testament Story, aren’t you?   It’s the kind of story we sometimes don’t like to admit is in our Bible.   In Genesis 22, we read how in a moment of testing Abraham’s faith, God demanded for Abraham to take his only Son and to sacrifice him like an animal.  It’s a story that still shocks our senses and modern sensitivities.  But in that time, religions sometimes required this kind of thing.  Don’t you remember hearing about how Hawaiians used to throw a beautiful maiden into a volcano in hopes of appeasing the gods and stopping future eruptions?  It happened.   But what sounds so strange about this story is that it’s in our Bible, and that it’s a holy, loving God who is making this requirement.  What was God thinking?   Was God trying to prove that Abraham’s faith and Abraham’s God was just as demanding as other religions were?  That actually might have been part of it, but not all.   But the whole thing sounds outright outrageous especially to us.   What we need to remember, is that it was wasn’t at all outrageous then.  How do we get behind this and move beyond to some positive purpose?

Well, keep reading, for one thing.  Before Abraham actually slays his Son, an angel of the Lord stops him.  We often say in Christian language that what God didn’t allow Abraham to do, God did when he sacrificed his only Son, Jesus.   But I don’t think this kind of dedication and devotion to God, which demands such cruel sacrifices of violence convinces many people today.  People today wonder why any kind of God who says he is merciful and compassionate would ever demand anything like this?

Today, having such violent stories in our Bible prove to them just how demanding and dangerous religion is---Jesus or not.   So, people run to Science and hope that the gods of science will be kinder to them.  Good luck with that!   Science may not have all the answers you might think it does.  Have you had to submit yourself to the methods of healing in Science lately?  It might help, then again, it could hurt more, more than even dying itself.  Science is human knowledge, which can be a gift of God, but it can also be a curse too.  I hope you don’t really think that Science has all the answers.

Now, let’s get back to Abraham, and the Bible.   What so many people miss here, is that it was in midst of all this cruelty and violence that God wanted us to ‘stop it’ not join in with it.   Do you this this?   A message of hope was primarily being given, both through the faith of Abraham and through the message of Jesus too.  It was through Abraham’s own risk of faith, that God was able to say to the ancient world of human sacrifice: ‘No, Stop!’  You don’t have to a child to prove your love for me!  It was also through the death of God’s only Son that Jesus God made Jesus the ‘last’ and ‘final’ sacrifice for all sin, once for all.  God was working through humanity to stop the bloodshed, and the hate too, not asking us to celebrate it.  When we sing about the ‘blood of Jesus’ or talk about God’s ‘sacrifice’ for sin, God was trying to lift us up, take us to a higher and better place, not to call to us to celebrate violence and bloodshed.

When we only look at what was happening on the surface, it might all look ridiculous and ugly, but if we look closer and see what God was doing, and where God was trying to take humanity, we can understand that it was in a very bloody, violent, and hateful world, that God’s message of goodness, love and healing being proclaimed and preached. 

All this ‘blood’ language might still sound strange too us, and it should, because it is strange, and it’s tragic too.    It’s tragic that it took something so bad, so terrible as threat of the loss of an only son, or the actually cruel death of a good, innocent man on the cross, to get a sinful world to start to look into at our true selves, and to realize just how much we are broken up by human sin.  But every generation has to face itself, and this truth doesn’t it?   This is the call of the gospel, and it’s the beginning of the good news.  The good news always starts in us when we are willing and ready to face the bad in us, head on.  Abraham had to face the ‘bad’ in his world, just as Jesus’ love and forgiveness still confronts our own underhanded, selfish, and violent human ways.   Before we can ever get to the healing power and resources of God, we have to begin to ‘let go’ of what keeps us from receiving God’s power of healing and hope.

This is kind of ‘letting go’ is exactly what makes the faith of this Roman Centurion’s so great.  He was not only willing to ‘face’ who he was, (“I don’t deserve to have you come under my roof” 8:8), but he was also willing to ‘face’ who his servant was, and was willing to come to Jesus for help.   And what makes this so great, is that he wasn’t doing this for his own sake, but he was willing to risk and humiliate himself for this other person, who was a Jew, not a Roman, that really got the attention of Jesus.   This man who was ‘under authority’, who is ‘under the orders of others, was willing put himself under the authority of Jesus so that his servant might be healed.

The popular British theologian says we mustn’t miss that ‘authority’ is very important in this story.  When this Centurion comes to Jesus, he was submitting himself to another authority other than Rome.  And the other amazing thing is that Jesus had no official authority in that world.   Jesus wasn’t a certified Rabbi.   Jesus wasn’t a legitimate Pharisee or a Sadducee.  Jesus was only an itinerant preacher and wandering teacher of wisdom who had no other authority, other than the power of God’s hopeful, healing and caring love.  The Centurion was willing to ‘take a leap’ and ‘trust’ in exactly this kind of Jesus, a Savior and Messiah who had no other claim of authority other than the power of God’s healing and hopeful love.

Years ago, I remember reading about how Mr. Bost, the founder and owner of Bost Bread, was willing to spend most all the money he had, in hope of bringing healing to his wife, who was then dying with cancer.   When Mr. Bost was told that by doctors in America that they had done all they could do, he went to the doctors in Mexico and in Canada too.  Because he had the money, he had a lot of different options, which were not available to most people.  Why did he do it?  He did it out of love, and most of us, who have the resources he had, would have done the same, for those we love.

But perhaps an even greater faith, is available to us—a faith which is not limited to what money can buy.  When turn to the God who loves us all, we can find hope and healing in God’s loving care.   Isn’t this what Mr. Bost finally had to do that too? In spite of all the money he had, his wife died.   He had to trust the life of his wife, and his own life too, into God’s loving hands.   Wasn’t this the same kind of trust that Lynsi Synder had to have too.  No matter what kind of money she had, she had to surrender it all to Jesus. 

I think this exactly what this story of the Roman Centurion is trying to teach.  Only a faith that gives itself fully and completely to Jesus, will give us the hope of healing we need.  Even though Jesus healed the Centurion’s servant, that servant ultimately died, just like the Centurion ultimately died, and just like everybody dies.   The ‘great faith’ Jesus encourages is the kind of faith that points to the greatest miracle of all.  The healing that comes when we trust the healing God’s love intends for us all, no matter whether we live, or we die. 

I HAVE NOT FOUND IN ISRAEL…SUCH GREAT FAITH

When Jesus saw the ‘great faith’ in this outsider, he made him an ‘insider’ to God’s love and blurred the lines we all tend to draw in our lives.  Here, Jesus reminds us that, in the end, we are all alike—both Jew and Gentile, both sinner and saint, both rich or poor.   We all need hope and we all need healing. We all want healing now, but we know we also need healing that goes beyond the ‘now’, because of the reality of life and of death that we all must face.

As I started this message,  I told you how a Lynsi Synder, a young girl who was the Billionaire heir of a Hamburger Chain, struggled with what happened to her father, and lost faith in God and struggled until she finally surrendered her own life to the healing power of Jesus Christ.   She was rich, very rich, but she still needed Jesus.   I could also tell you stories of how other people, both rich and poor, powerful or weak, have found healing and hope in Jesus Christ.   I’m a preacher, I’m supposed to tell you those kinds of stories, right?

But what if I told you how I need that hope of healing too?  What if I told you how I don’t preach this to you because I’m paid to do so, but I preach this to you because Jesus is how I find hope and healing too.   I gave my life to become a preacher, when I was very young, because of the hope of healing Jesus gave to me.   I was in a terrible car accident, nearly lost my life and became crippled for life, and I needed God’s help to get through it all.   But what makes my faith even greater, I think, and what makes God’s healing power even greater, is that what started out as a hope I had that God would bring healing to me, is now a calling that I have found because also feel the call of God’s love to offer hope and healing to you.  

Maybe that’s the greatest part of story about the faith of this Roman Centurion who wanted Jesus to heal his Jewish servant.   It wasn’t just that he needed his servant.  He could have easily claimed another Jew to served him.  He was a Roman.  He was a man of power.  He could have had any servant he wanted.  But what is happening here, the greatest miracle, the miracle of faith that caught Jesus’ attention, and caught Matthew’s attention too, is that this Roman had already stepped out of his ‘place’ and his ‘position’ in life to express his love for a lowly nobody, his own Jewish servant, whom now he is treating as another human being, just like himself.   What this Jews service had done was brought them together.  What this sickness had done, was to seal the bond of love between two people, who had come from very different worlds, but now this Centurion realizes how much more alike they are than different.  And he believes this not for his own sake, but he believes this for the sake of his servant.

It is the great faith of this Centurion is great, even before the Servant was healed.  Do you notice that?   His great faith reveals that we all in this together.  We live, we die, and we need healing and hope.   And if we will think about it long enough, and if we’ll go just a little deeper, you will also realize that we all need the hope and healing that God offers to us through Jesus Christ.   We need it, because the greatest faith in the world is always based on love; the love we have for others, and the hope we have in this God who loves---and reveals himself in the dying, sacrificing, and eternal love of Jesus Christ.    It is belief in this kind of God who loves likes this, that any faith can be called ‘great’.   Amen.