Introduction

I’m reading a lot of books by a Scottish minister and theologian called John Drane.  Drane is most famous for his Biblical handbooks – he was a professor of the Bible.  But he has written, in more recent years, about mission and spirituality in our confusing culture.  This week I read about his experiences in Dunblane in Scotland on the evening of the murders there of the school children and their teacher by a crazed gunman.  Drane just lives down the road from Dunblane and, as a minister, he went to help.  The Cathedral was open all day and he prayed with hundreds of people who were in shock.

That night he needed space and as the crowds went home from the Cathedral he walked quietly around the streets.  He ended up at the school gates which had become something of a shrine.  There he met a group of lads, who pulled out candles and lit them for the children and their teacher.  One of them said “I suppose someone should say something” and then they saw Drane, recognised him as a minister and asked him to “say something” as he “would know what to say”.  Of course he hadn’t a clue but led them in some prayers.  Gradually the lads started to cry, one took a knife out, showed it to Drane, said I don’t think I’ll need this again and laid it down with the flowers, another took a metal bike chain out (which had presumably been intended as a weapon) and laid that down too.  The lads wouldn’t have used the word “repent” but that is what they are doing.  They didn’t feel comfortable coming into the sacred space of the Cathedral but they made their own sacred space on the street.  Faith was found outside where it should have been found.  This has caused Drane to think more deeply about mission and contemporary spirituality.

Over the years since I’ve been in Manchester I’ve seen similar things going on two particular occasions.  When Diana, Princess of Wales died, the LGF quickly organised a vigil in Sackville park and asked me to lead it.  Hundreds of people streamed into the park to listen, pray, reflect, light candles and remember.  It wasn’t “churchy” but there was a form of faith there.  Again after the attacks on September 11th we held another vigil in Sackville park and 100s of people came again to reflect, remember and pray.

Faith is often found outside the gates of the places where it should be found – the churches and cathedrals of our cities.

Our Reading

Yet this shouldn’t really surprise us.  Today’s reading is about a similar phenomenam as faith is found in the person who really should have been a foreigner and stranger to the Jewish faith.

A centurion was a soldier in charge of a hundred men.  He was, therefore, part of the occupying Roman army.  He was a man of responsibility and used to having his orders obeyed.  He was trained to be ruthless and to follow the spiritual traditions of Rome which included worshipping many gods and, at times, of seeing the Emperor as divine.  

This centurion, however, was a “God-fearing gentile” and the elders of the local synagogue spoke up for him to Jesus.   He clearly believed in one God and to be awarded the title “God fearing” had presumably stopped taking part in the pagan worship of Rome.  He would have attended the Synagogue and probably learnt some Hebrew to follow the services – he may have read the Bible in Greek as there was a common Greek version of the Old Testament around at the time.  He was, therefore, a learned man.  The spirituality of his culture didn’t satisfy him, he was looking for something more and for reasons we can only guess at had been attracted to the Jewish faith.  The elders of the Synagogue clearly were impressed by him – no doubt he supported the Synagogue practically and in a time of occupation it does no harm to have a few Roman officers coming along to worship.  

This centurion doesn’t want to trouble Jesus anymore than he has to – as a man used to giving and receiving orders  - he knows that Jesus’ word will be law.  He asked Jesus to heal his “servant” knowing that Jesus would do so.  

So far we haven’t got much that is remarkable – other than a God-fearing gentile asking Jesus to intervene in his household.  The radical part starts when we start to think about this “servant”.  Two words are used in Matthew and Luke’s gospels when they wrote up this passage.  Luke uses doulos meaning slave, Matthew uses pais which can mean “boy” or “son”.  It’s the Greek word where we get paediatrics or paediatrician from.  It’s often used to mean a same sex lover; in the Greek and Roman world one way in which homosexuality was tolerated was in relationships between older men and  younger youths (what we’d now call teenagers).   

Not only is the Centurion a gentile trying to live as Jew, he seems to be in a relationship which the Jewish Law would have seen as wrong.  Of course in our age we’d see this type of relationship as wrong but the ancient world had different ideas about childhood and marriage – one stopped being a child when one reached sexual maturity.  The Blessed Virgin Mary would probably have been only 12 or 13 when Gabriel appeared to her as Jewish women married shortly after puberty in those days.  

Acceptance

The faith of the Centurion is key to this passage.  The outsider, the one who really didn’t know as much about the Law as the Jewish people did, has faith.  Jesus doesn’t even need to come to his house – his word that the boy would be healed would suffice.  Jesus doesn’t reject the Centurion (as would be natural given his occupation, his way of life, his representation of all that the Jewish people rejected in Roman culture despite his status as a “God-fearer”) but turns to the crowd and tells them that this centurion has more faith than any of them.

Jesus goes on to make a rather sharp point.  He says that many will come “from east and west” to the Kingdom of God but the “subjects of the Kingdom” will be expelled.

Many interpreters over the years have felt that Jesus was referring to the Jews who rejected Jesus being expelled from the Kingdom and replaced by gentiles.  But I think it’s not really about this; it’s about those who think they are “up and in” being replaced by the “down and out” by the “stranger at the gate”.  Just as in Jesus’ story of the Last Judgement also in St Matthew’s Gospel that those who thought they were good Christians but ignored the plight of the needy were cast out and those who helped the needy but didn’t really consider themselves good Christians are accepted.  Jesus is again pointing to the radical inclusion of the Gospel where all are welcome, where all are gathered in to the New Realm of God.

And So

Many people in our culture see themselves as “spiritual” but don’t see themselves as religious.  They realise something is lacking in a world which:

    * looks to science and sees the mess that industrialisation and many scientific advances have made
    * looks to reason and logic for the answers but where they are left with more questions,
    * distrusts medicine which for all it’s marvels often treats us as dead bodies which happen to be alive and where our emotions and feelings are often ignored – or medicated –
    * where the Churches seem to be arguing about things that no one else cares about

 These people are, like the Centurion in our Gospel reading today, looking for authentic spirituality.  

Jesus' words are both encouraging in their radical inclusivity but also profoundly disturbing for those of us who are in a church – even a church as quirky as this one.  As Jesus always seems to help people find faith and meaning who are on the edge, who are searching and who may not find our structures, ways of worshipping or thinking conducive to their spiritual search.  

Our task is to get out on the edge, to look at what God is doing in our world – with the Centurion’s, the outsiders, the people beyond the gate, and get alongside God so that we can help those who are searching for authentic spirituality find it, and their freedom and liberation in Christ.  Amen.    
 
 Amen.