So,
Sometimes what you think you are going to discover in a bible story is not the thing you find, in this case a man stepping right over the political, religious, economic, and cultural divides to help folks from whom he couldn’t be more different!
Last week I shared a little with you about our Bible & Brew bible study, a rather new group. As I said, it is a lot of fun, as almost 10 of us get together weekly to look at the bible stories in Luke’s gospel. But there are other bible studies, and some of them are just as much if not more fun.
For example, the Wednesday night bible study, which at times has had as many as 20 participants, is studying the life of Joseph, the guy with the multi colored cloak, and oh my, what a study!
I have got to tell you that it is a story of strange faith!
It is a crazy tale, about the second to youngest son of Jacob (who God renamed Israel) Joseph. In the book of Genesis, Joseph, son of Jacob’s beloved wife Rachel, tells his brothers he has had a dream of them all bowing down to him.
They are understandably delighted, and so decide to sell him off to some slave traders who carry him off and sell him to a man named Potiphar, all the way down in Egypt!
Joseph then manages to get thrown in jail after he is falsely accused of an attempted rape of his owner’s wife, and there, in jail, interprets the dreams of some fellow prisoners all while making sure the house of his slave owner and then his jailer prosper, because God is with Joseph.
You heard that, right! God is with Joseph! Strange faith!
The story is just wild. Les and Tammy, Jim and Sue, Mary Colburn and Derrick, Marilyn and Bob, and Sue and I and all the others who pop in from time to time all just look at each other and go, “really”?
Because it is all just crazy. How can a guy in that much trouble with everybody mad at him be blessed? Be under God’s care? Believe that God is with him? And yet, God is, and is moving events and people to line them up for some amazing stuff!
I have no intentions of saying more about Joseph because a fall sermon series is brewing, I can assure you, Joseph’s life is just crazy from start to finish, and no surprise, at the Wednesday night bible study, we have come to assume that what we are about to read on any given week will astound us.
In fact, all of us should assume that whenever we open the bible’s cover, we are going to find a story of strange faith. Because the faith we read about in the scriptures is not the ordinary, run-of-the-mill stuff we keep assuming we will find.
The faith we discover is vibrant, out-of-bounds stuff that leads God’s people on crazy adventures and amazing new relationships with a God who is not boring, not staid, not trapped in a monochromatic world, but rather one out there with his people in bold technicolor, just like Joseph’s coat.
And remember, this bible study bunch is the same group that studied the book of Judges and the woman who pounded a tent peg through a sleeping general’s head! True story!
So, when we hear of Jesus’ encounter with a Roman Centurion, instead of thinking, “oh my, this is going to be boring”, we brace ourselves for the story to go off the rails, for something to happen that is unexpected, unusual, amazing, unbelievable, or possibly, strange.
And the scripture comes through every time!
Because in this story we a man who is no ordinary Centurion, nor is he an ordinary person of faith.
This man is a soldier, either part of the contingent that protected Herod Antipas or the contingent that protected Pontius Pilate, or perhaps was a retired soldier. As such, it would be a surprise right off to find of that he is God fearing - that is a man who respects and to some degree follows the Jewish faith.
He is not a Jew, nor a proselyte (that is a person becoming Jewish) rather he is one who has discovered in the Jewish faith something that he admires and so chooses to help with in the local community.
Here is a soldier who though part of the occupation army, has Jewish friends who respect him and are thankful for his support for their community of faith. Jewish friends, who are willing to go find the traveling Rabbi and see if Jesus is willing to heal the Centurion’s servant.
This is also a man who has gentile friends who respect him, and who on his word also are willing to go and find Jesus and tell him of the Centurion’s respect and faith, with a story that straightens Jesus right up!
Tell me, in your life who on your long list of faith friends, or for that matter just plain old regular friends, would do the same for you? Step out on a mission to find help, get something fixed, or boldly speak about a need in the community that needs help now!
Please, go find the preacher, the healer, the man of God right now and tell him about my suffering servant.
You see, this is no ordinary Centurion!
He is in fact a man of amazing faith, strange as that seems, who because his servant is ill, goes out of his way not only to reach out to Jesus, but to put his own faith on the line!
And even Jesus is taken aback!
This man believes that Jesus can heal his servant! That Jesus has the power! That Jesus has the desire! And that his servant will be made well!
All while we of little faith sometimes struggle to even believe, no less ask Jesus to heal us, to heal those we love, to heal this virus, or to heal the racial injustices that continue to plague our country.
We struggle, but “forget” to ask, all while James 4:2 reminds us that, we “…do not have because (we) do not ask God”.
But not the Centurion, the man most would at first think as least likely to have real, powerful, amazing faith. But he does!
And his servant is healed. Strange faith. Not conventional faith. Not safe faith. Rather it is bold faith! Faith that believes that just connecting with Jesus can being the healing we so much desire.
And so, we who want our land healed, need to go find the master and ask.
Lord, heal those struggling with this virus!
Lord, heal our nation and help us root out the racial injustice we tolerate!
Lord, heal all those who are scared!
Lord, heal us!
In Jesus name. Amen.
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