Faith is Powerful

Sunday May 29 - Second Sunday after Pentecost  

Grace and peace in the name of Jesus Christ, he who has the power to heal, yet retains the ability to be amazed.  Amen.

I am finding that to be a very significant point of today’s gospel: Jesus can be amazed.  Jesus, who has the power to heal the sick and raise the dead, can still be amazed by us ordinary people.

We read in the Gospels many times how people are amazed by Jesus, we ourselves hold him in awe and wonder.  How strange to think that Jesus could be brought to awe by this Centurion’s faith.

What are we to make of this?

 

For me, a great deal of what speaks to me in today’s readings is based on themes and ideas that have been on my mind quite a bit of late.  I suppose that is how it works for most of us.  We find what we are looking for.

 

In his book Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and it’s all Small Stuff Richard Carlson tells a story that illustrates this point well.  Forgive me if my retelling is not as good: Someone is passing through a town and stops at the gas station to talk to the person working there.  “I may be transferring here for my job and I am wondering what the people are like around here.”  The attendant responds with a question, “Well, what are the people like where you are from?”  The man says, “There are a lot of greedy, selfish people around.  It really feels like everyone is just out for himself and nobody really cares about each other.”  The attendant nods and says, “I think that is what you will find people around here are like.”  The man gets back in his car and heads on his way.  Not long after, the same attendant is working and another man comes in and asks a similar question.  “I am looking for a place to live and was wondering about this town.  How do you feel about this place?”  The station attendant nods and says, “Well, let me ask you, what are people like where you come from?”  The man takes a moment to think and then he says, “There’s a lot of hard working people.  Sometimes there’s a little rough patch, when people know, they try and help one another out.  I guess I’d say we are all just a bunch of ordinary people doing the best we can.”  The attendant smiles and nods, “Yes, yes, I’d say that is what you will find here, too.”

We are all, in the end, ordinary people doing the best we know how.

 

But sometimes we amaze even God. 

The Centurion has heard of Jesus—we don’t know how, we know almost nothing of the man and little of his beloved slave.  We know only that he has heard of Jesus and that he believes in Jesus enough to believe in his healing power.  The Centurion never even meets Jesus and he changes his mind about having Jesus in his home, perhaps knowing that to enter the home would make Jesus ritually unclean.

 

The Centurion is an outsider.  How often do outsiders create a sense of distrust and fear within us?  How often is the outsider used as an example of whom we should avoid?  How often are we told that we should not be like the other?  Yet, here in the gospel, this outsider is a model for us to imitate.  And in 1 Kings, Solomon, known through the centuries for his wisdom, calls on God to answer the prayers of the foreigners.  The story of the Good Samaritan, the good outsider, comes to mind as well.

These, too, are children of God.  These, too, are among the beloved children of creation.  In the June 2016 Living Lutheran magazine, travel author, television host, and Lutheran, Rick Steves, shares his faith.  He states that his “favorite place to be a ‘temporary local’ is worshiping as a Christian in a mosque as Muslims worship and enjoying the fact that we are all ‘People of the Book’ loving the same God.”  Steves also states that “Interacting with different cultures has affected my faith by reminding me that this world is filled with billions of equally precious children of God.”  Agree or not, this is his Lutheran Christian experience.

7.4 Billion brothers and sisters.  7.4 Billion children of God.

We don’t all worship the same way.  Some don’t worship at all.  But don’t think that has stopped God from loving and using all the children of God. 

Even within the ELCA there is a new movement to help us remember we don’t all “do” Lutheran the same way.  Pastors and bloggers like my friends Tuhina Rasche and Jeremy and Joshua Serrano are working with the #decolonizeLutheranism movement.  Being Lutheran is not just about being German or Scandinavian, eating Jell-o, drinking coffee, and attending potlucks.

  

Faith is powerful.  So powerful sometimes it amazes even Jesus and God.

On his blog page, In the Meantime, David Lose writes a letter each week in relation to the gospel.  I can think of no better words to conclude this sermon than those written by Lose this week:

“I wonder how many other people who are not followers of Jesus God is using right now? I wonder how many people of other faiths we might be amazed about if we stopped to notice the good they are doing? I wonder how many people of different faith or no faith we might see differently – as God’s beloved children – if we kept this story in mind?

Here’s the thing: God loves everyone. God works through everyone. God has hopes and dreams for everyone. And we may be surprised who God chooses, who God works through, and who God commends.

I think that may be helpful to keep in mind, Dear Partner, when the political rhetoric of the day is so charged with fear of those who are different – from a different country, professing a different faith, living in a different neighborhood, looking different from us, having different needs or hopes. To God, there is no “other,” there are only beloved children. A colleague of mine was fond of saying that whenever we draw a line between who’s in and who’s out, we’ll find Jesus on the other side.

Few, I think would have expected Jesus to be startled by the faith of this Roman centurion. Yet he was, and that willingness to be surprised, even amazed, coupled with Jesus’ commitment to God’s purpose to heal and save all the world changed history. So what might happen if we were similarly willing to be surprised by whom God is using and similarly committed to sharing news of God’s love for all? Let’s invite our people to find out.”

And so that is how I will close today, filled with hope that we might be part of sharing the amazing power of God’s love for all people.

God loves you. 

Thanks be to God.

Amen.