Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann
Luke 7:1-10
2nd Sunday after Pentecost June 18, 2017
You’ve all had the experience. Walking along a street or a park you are encountered by a dog—more precisely, a large adolescent dog with the body of an adult, but the personality and manners of a puppy. On the other end of the perpetually taut leash, the owner strains to keep the unbounded strength and energy in check. It’s not an easy job. I appreciate the owners who work at teaching a degree of obedience to their pet; but, I wonder about some of the methods. I’m not a particularly thin-skinned person. I am not offended easily or often, and never deeply (whatever that would mean). That being said, I can still remember a dog-encounter that did take me back a bit. As the youthful but impolite lab fought to greet me, its owner fought back harder, and with his complete attention focused on his young charge, crisply snapped a command, obviously gained through obedience training. With clipped authority, he said two words: “Leave it!” With that, and a heave of the leash, they passed on their way—another step in the dog’s training accomplished. It was, I suppose, a great success for dog and owner, but it struck me as odd that in the process, I had been reduced, presumably without malice, to an “it-to-be-ignored”—consigned to the status of a training exercise and categorized in the company of squirrels, fire hydrants, interesting French poodles, melting blobs of ice cream, and rotting possum carcasses. “Leave it!” Indeed. I was an “it” to be snubbed by a dog. I had been put in my place. But, being a theologian of the cross prepares one for such things.
A theologian of the cross understands the hard truth about himself and is fully aware of where exactly he stands. He does not think too highly of himself or try to preserve his own dignity or worth. He knows that he is nothing more than a broken, fallible, creature who is dependent on his Creator and Lord for absolutely everything—and he’s fine with that. Luther was a theologian of the cross. That’s why he could refer to himself as a maggot-sack and a real hard-boiled sinner. He knew the score. So, to be considered an “it-to-be-ignored” actually seems about right for a theologian of the cross. Most of you, I know, understand exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve also been trained to be theologians of the cross.
Being a theologian of the cross has it benefits, then; it helps you grow a thick skin for one thing. On the other hand, though, it also makes the story about the mysterious centurion who speaks, but never appears, become a story that is something of a problem. It’s a bit hard to take, isn’t it? Of course, it’s not the healing of the dying servant that is difficult—that’s no problem. In fact, it’s exactly what we expect Jesus to do. No, the hard part in this gospel narrative is all this talk about the worthiness of the nameless centurion. This anonymous centurion must have been quite a guy. He builds a synagogue for the people he helps rule. He worries mightily about a slave that he treats like he’s part of the family, like his own child. And, he even inspires a delegation of Jewish elders to heed his request and lobby Jesus on his behalf. Yet, despite all of credentials and remarkable resume, there is a part of us that still chafes at the notion that this man is actually worthy. It’s not an idea that we like at all. Worthy is a category designation that we resist. We know better. We know that no one is worthy. No one deserves preferential treatment. No one earns Jesus’ attention and favor. So, it bothers us that such a fuss is made over a man who is, well…just a man. Someone, it seems to us, needs to put this guy in his place. And someone does—the centurion puts himself in his place. It turns out that he also knows what we are sure of: he is not worthy. What a relief. It’s good to know that at least someone in this story knows the score.
The centurion’s own self-assessment does not solve our problem, though. After all, while the centurion may have had a humble attitude, this humility only serves to make everyone else in the story seem to consider him all the more deserving and worthy! Not even Jesus disputes the argument about the man’s worthiness for healing intervention on behalf of his servant. The problem of worthiness, then, is not so easily solved…and, could it be that our eagerness and even need for the centurion to be put in his place is prompted less by our yearning for the vindication of theological truth than it is for the vindication of our own sorry selves? You know it as well as I do: we are all inveterate defenders of self. It seems to be engrained, or at least certainly taught, as a part of our fallen human nature. From our earliest years, we have learned that one of the most effective ways of comparing favorably with others is not to allow those others to rise too high above the common herd of ordinary sinners. Those who set the bar too high make life difficult for the rest of us. They skew the curve. They need to be brought down a few pegs.
So, we are practiced in the art of putting people in their place—that is, the art of knocking people down, correcting over-estimates of self-worth, and exposing those who look good, as simply sinners like the rest of us. We ridicule the pious man as a moralist and kill-joy, and we deride the one who seeks to do right as a self-righteous legalist. And driven by our own perverse need for self-promotion, the pride in our own hearts too cheerfully delights when the righteous man does crash, and we rejoice to learn that the one once deemed worthy is worthless after all. Whether we are contesting the worth of another, or simply secure and comfortable in our own presumed worth, pride always, inevitably, asserts itself. The theologian of the cross is suppressed and banished from our hearts and we embrace instead the idol of self-importance and self-glorification. We want to count. Call it what you like, at the bottom, it is pride. And pride not only leaves no room for the cross, it is also the very antithesis of the one and only thing that does count.
What is the one thing that counts, and how do we solve this worthiness problem? To grasp this, we must remember that worth does not arise from within. The one who is worthy, Luther says, is the one who knows full well his own absolute failure, his own desperate need, and so clings only to the word of promise. The one who is worthy, is the one who knows and accepts his contingent and dependent place in the order of things and looks only, then, to the one source of hope and help. What this means is that the one who is worthy is the one who has faith in the Son of Man. It is faith and only faith that counts. It is faith that makes a person worthy. Thus, it is, that even as the centurion rightly insists that he is not worthy, and implores Jesus not to enter under his lowly roof, his own genuine worth is made clear. He has complete and abiding faith in Jesus. The fact that he is placing all of his hope for his dying servant only in Jesus is the essence of worthiness. The centurion knows his place: only God is God, and he is nothing but a broken and desperate creature. He is helpless in the face of death—Jesus is the Lord of life and death. That this Roman officer already sees Jesus in the authoritative place of God who alone rules over life and death is remarkable and elicits the praise of Jesus. Still, Jesus does not dispute the centurion’s humble self-estimate, and Jesus does not meet the Roman centurion He never makes it to his house. He honors the request and does not enter under the roof of the centurion. Without Jesus, the delegation returns home to find the slave already whole and healthy.
The centurion knows his place. Much more importantly, though, Jesus knows his place. He answers the prayer of the centurion. He meets the need of the officer whose beloved servant is dying. In his great mercy, Jesus honors the centurion, who is his own servant and treats the centurion like his own child. Jesus gives him grace. Jesus knows his place: it is with broken and desperate creatures, walking with them in their sorrow, suffering and heartache. Jesus knows his place: fulfilling his Father’s will, redeeming and restoring the groaning creation, pushing back death, silencing sorrow, slaying sin, crushing Satan. Jesus knows his place: with his people in their broken world, suffering and enduring Satan’s worst, for them. Jesus knows his place: nailed to the cross that his broken sinful people, that we, broken and sinful people, have made by our own pride, and our own willful rebellion against God. Jesus’ place is on the cross, because it is on the cross that he finally and fully destroyed death, ended sorrow, overcame sin, and smashed Satan.
Jesus knew his place, and the centurion knew his place. His words have become a prayer for those who also know the score: “I am not worthy that you should come under my roof.” The words have been pressed into a bit of remarkable liturgical usage. Which serves well to remind us of the church’s great freedom in expressions of worship. In many traditions, just before each communicant receives the host, the believer is taught to breathe the prayer: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof.” Uniting the Christian who is about to receive Christ’s greatest gifts with the humble but confident centurion is quite right. Both understand their great need, and both understand that they can make no claim on Christ based on their own performance or actions. The centurion and you, the Christian today, are alike in your need and humility, and alike in your confident faith. The outcome, though, is completely different.
You rightly join the centurion and pray the honest and self-effacing prayer, “Lord I am not worthy that you should come under my roof.” But, this time, Jesus will have none of it. He will not heed the request to stay away and heal from a distance. In spite of your request and your very real sin and failure, he does his appointed work. He presses forward anyway. He comes. Right under your roof, right into your mouth, right into your guts, right into the very midst of your life and your being, he comes. He will not be deterred. No sin will get in his way. No self-deprecating humility will get in his way. Though you do not deserve it, Jesus comes. Christian faith knows the score, and rightly knows its place alongside the centurion pleading unworthiness; but then Christian faith must watch in amazement and joy, and marvel and delight in the unexpected audacity and appalling disordering when Jesus inverts the right ordering of things, ignores what is deserved and expected, and actually enters and then stays under your roof. That is exactly what Jesus does. Jesus disregards the humble prayer for him to stay away. Instead, he comes under your roof. He comes and he puts you in your place—the place where he wants you to be. You are his. He dwells with you. That’s your place: with Jesus. Know your place and cherish it; you can, because, Jesus knows his place: on the cross, with his people…with you, his own child. Amen.