Proper 4
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VI, Cycle C
Object:
COMMENTARY ON THE LESSONS
Lesson 1: 1 Kings 18:20-21 (22-29) 30-39 (C)
I would be reluctant to preach on this passage because I once heard Peter Marshall's sermon on The Contest On Mount Carmel. When a movie was proposed on the life of Peter Marshall (A Man Called Peter), movie actor Richard Todd was asked to play the lead. He was making a movie in a foreign country at the time, and sent word that he was not interested in playing the role of a Presbyterian minister. So, the producer sent him a copy of Marshall's sermon on this text and asked that he at least listen to it. Todd did, and promptly said he would love to play the role. It's still around on a record. If you ever get a chance to hear it, do so. It's a superb example of Scottish preaching.
In verse 21 Elijah chides the listeners with this challenge: "How long will you go limping along with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him, but if Ba'al, follow him." What a powerful word to preach today. It practically writes itself. I will risk spoiling Marshall's sermon by telling his closing line. In his powerful Scottish burr, he confronted his hearers this way: "How long will you go limping along with two different opinions? If the Lord be God, then follow him, but if Ba'al be God, then follow him and go to Hell."
Lesson 1: 1 Kings 8:41-43 (RC)
The writer encourages monotheism by asking that even foreigners be heard when they pray.
Lesson 1: 1 Kings 8:22-23, 27-30, 41-43 (E)
Solomon is overwhelmed by his sense of the presence of God, having had the Ark of the Covenant moved to the house which he has built. A cloud is said to have settled over the gathering of the elders, which may refer to a sense of awe and inadequacy as the people contemplated their awareness of divine presence.
To consider a sermon on this passage, we might refer to the promise that so long as the kingly succession from David remained faithful, God would continue that succession. So, too, one might contend that so long as we walk in the way of the Lord, we too will know God's empowerment. The trouble with that, of course, is that most of us don't walk in the way of the Lord most of the time, yet God continues to be faithful to us, even when we're not faithful to Him. Solomon did, however, intimate some understanding of that when he prayed, "O hear in heaven your dwelling place; heed and forgive" (v. 30). Here again we encounter the ancient world view of God dwelling in heaven.
I would probably choose verse 27b for a sermon: "Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built." Here we come to the fact that God is greater than the measure of our minds. It behooves us, therefore, not to be too sure we have all the answers in the faith. The reason I could never be a fundamentalist is because I frankly acknowledge that there are so many answers I don't have.
Lesson 2: Galatians 1:1-12 (C); Galatians 1:1-2, 6-10 (RC); Galatians 1:1-10 (E)
We can accept this from Paul because he is, after all -- well, Paul. However, I wouldn't advise anyone else today making quite such a claim. It would be unforgivably self-righteous coming from any of us. What we could do is warn people against any other "gospel" by which I would mean any of the unloving philosophies which abound today. As I write, we are just learning details about the tragic massacre in Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Twelve high school students and a teacher were executed by two juniors in the school who, after a lengthy immersion of their psyches in Naziism and other hateful ideas gained from the internet, donned their black raincoats and committed their crimes before taking their own lives. That may be an extreme example, but surely Paul's Gospel with his exquisite dissertation on love, and his encouragement that we be kind and honest and faithful are so exalted that almost any outlook on life pales by comparison. One may have a right to argue with my gospel or your gospel, but not with Paul's Gospel. My emphasis here would be to commend the Christian faith over all the competing doctrines of the time as depicted in music (Marilyn Manson), the internet (Neo-Nazi web sites), movies (pick one), and the depredations of the megalomaniacs of the world (Bosnia, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Sudan, and on and on).
Gospel: Luke 7:1-10 (C, RC, E)
This passage has two definite preaching themes. First, we see that the centurion realized that his earthly authority with all his wealth, influence, and power would not impress Jesus and enable him to get his way. It was, rather, by his modest willingness to come to Jesus with respect and vulnerable subjection that he won Jesus' admiration and compliance.
Second, the slave was healed. This raises the issue of healing. It also raises the issue of intercession. It would appear that the slave did not, himself, ask Jesus for healing. What does this say about the idea of interceding with God for someone in need of healing?
The two themes could be joined to suggest a sermon which first commends interceding on behalf of loved ones and friends (intercessory prayer), and secondly, urges that such intercession be done in a spirit of obedience to God's will.
SERMON SUGGESTIONS
Title: "If The Lord Be God"
Text: 1 Kings 18:20-21; Galatians 1:7-10
Theme: Reinhold Niebuhr once observed that "It doesn't take much of a man to be a Christian, but it takes all of him." He was referring to the fact that we can't get far being lukewarm Christians. Remember that ominous word in Revelation 3:16: "So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth." Jesus lays claim on the whole of a person's existence. It's too easy to go to church, sing the hymns, mouth the prayers, turn the commandments of the faith into mere platitudes, then go back to "the real world" and do whatever we think it takes to be successful. Remember when you learned to swim? You may have started in shallow water, but you never knew for sure that you could really swim until you got in the deep end. It's that way with the Christian faith. We only truly know that we are disciples of Jesus when we confront some monumental temptation and make the ultimate commitment to the teachings of Jesus despite what at present seems a great sacrifice.
In our text, Elijah finally convinced God to demonstrate His mighty power at the altar as evidence that He, and only He, possesses ultimate power. Likewise, though we are easily tempted by what might be called "ba'als" after the ancient terminology, by which I mean success, money, all the rest, we eventually will discover that none of these has the power to accomplish life's true destiny. Only God can do that.
Now, we need a little note of realism here. We do, after all, need to achieve some degree of success in some arena of life. We can't have it both ways, insisting that God has prepared each of us for a mission in life, be it medicine, construction, machinery, law, or something else; that we are to exercise this gift to the utmost, and then turn around and condemn ourselves for striving in the market place. I sure as the world paid a price in my early days of ministry, attending meetings, working on sermons, teaching, making calls, doing all the things many of you are doing while meanwhile, my little girl was growing up, my wife was learning that she could get along with the old man gone most of the time and I was neglecting any leisure time skills. I'll never know for sure, I fear, whether it was the right thing to do or not. I only know I believed I could not fulfill my sense of mission, and accomplish the work assigned to me by my Bishop and my congregations, unless I went all out. Now, in my age, I look back and am still not sure. I only know that I did what I thought was right, I paid a price, and I must live with that. My point: everyone more or less faces these dilemmas, no matter how faithful to Jesus and his teachings we may be. We all have work to do with all its temptations, its deceptions, its rationalizations, its ambivalence, and its disappointments. We do have to provide a home, leave security for remaining loved ones, give present love to children and spouse, be a friend to our friends. Preaching can make all of this sound easy when the truth is it's hard even to know what constitutes being true to our faith, much less doing that. The preacher who can somehow catch a sense of this harsh reality of life will make the most sense. All anyone can do is try to understand what is right, trust God for the strength and wisdom, then tackle life all out and do the best he can. My dad once gave me this advice when, as a young fellow, I was faced with the probability of a shattering failure: "Son, do the best you can and let the chips fall where they may." It has always made sense. Take God into your heart, know what is right, then face life head on, and the result will be a wonderful reward -- from God.
Title: "Like The Wideness Of The Sea"
Text: 1 Kings 8:27b
Theme: My sermon title is a take-off on the old hymn: "There's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea. There's a kindness in God's justice, which is more than liberty." That hymn also includes the words: "For the love of God is broader than the measure of our mind." How can we ever adequately understand the nature of God? The answer to that is that we can't. We can, however, experience it. I like Dr. Weatherhead's analogy of the ocean and a teacup. He observes that we can carry a teacup down to the water's edge, dip out a bit of it and take it to a laboratory. There we can taste it, test it, discover much about its composition. But it gives no hint of the plunging depths of the ocean, nor of its thunderous power, nor what awesome forces work within those depths.
That's an analogy to Jesus. Jesus is, if you will, the ocean in a teacup. By knowing him, we discover the nature of God, and that the essence of that nature is love. But there is infinitely more to God than our little minds can ever know. So, we need never fear to ask God for anything.
1. We know that God is love.
2. Pray knowing that anything can happen. "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of," wrote Lord Tennyson.
3. God always answers. If the answer is "No!" it's because God has a better idea for us. More often the answer is "Yes! but we'll do it my way."
4. We can face life in the sure knowledge that God is in charge, however disturbing the seeming evidence to the contrary. And there is every reason to believe that at the heart of creation are love and justice. That is, just love and loving justice.
Title: "Does It help To Pray For Someone Else?"
Text: Luke 7:1-10
Theme: This question puzzles many people. In our story, we see a centurion who was a fairly important government official, approaching Jesus to ask for healing for one of his slaves. If we can set aside our distress at the idea of slavery, and the fact that Jesus did not chide the man for having slaves (we can deal with that successfully, I think, at another time), we can make several assumptions here. By the standards of the time, the centurion must have been a good man. He was genuinely concerned for the slave. It must have required a lot of character to show the deference he did for this man who to him must have seemed to be an itinerant preacher, not to mention a Jew. Furthermore, the fact that he asked for healing without qualifying his request ("Jesus, I don't know whether you can do this or not") suggests that he was convinced that Jesus really could do this. We must also assume the centurion believed in God since the entire request hinged on that. And, of course, the success of this story rests on the fact that the slave was healed.
1. The centurion was a good person. Just because he was a member of the occupation army doesn't mean he was bad. A young G.I. was recovering from a head wound suffered in the Normandy campaign. His story was this: he suffered the wound in a gun battle with a German platoon. He lay semi-conscious in the middle of a field as a German mortar barrage began exploding around him. Death was a virtual certainty for anyone in such an exposed position. But then, a German army medic crawled out under fire and dragged him to the safety of a slit trench, then lay on top of him, shielding him from further injury. When the barrage lifted, the Germans left him to be retrieved by American medics and thus removed to the safety of a hospital where he eventually recovered. Were he to comment today, he would tell us that many of our "enemies" were really good, decent people, doing what they thought was right at the time. It's well to withhold judgment of others until we know them. Jesus was able to look into a person's heart and see the real person. He loved this man even though he was technically an enemy.
2. Jesus was moved by the Centurion's self-effacement. It wasn't that the man was mealy-mouthed, unwholesomely obsequious. The man was simply and genuinely modest. He was able to be thoughtful and undemanding of Jesus. This obviously impressed Jesus greatly. So with us. The way to pray, for others as well as ourselves, is to implore God's action, but to do so with a perfect willingness to accept God's judgment in the situation. We don't always get our immediate request. After all, God already knows what is best for the person for whom we pray. It isn't that we inform God of something He didn't already know, or that we change God's mind as to what is best. Nor do we call someone to God's attention whom He might otherwise have overlooked. And we certainly don't alter the functioning of the material world. What we do accomplish is to surround the person prayed for with our love, with access to our strength, and somehow in that great mystery which bonds all who love each other together, we make possible a healing dynamic which can sometimes make the difference.
3. Jesus was impressed by the officer's faith. Surely, that underlying trust was the basis of the man's faith and enabled Jesus to answer the request. Time and again, we have seen where Jesus was able to heal and then inform the individual that it was his or her faith which made the person well. Faith is a gift which comes from God. It's hard to know exactly how this works. Perhaps not the same for everyone. For some, a sense of the reality of God may turn that person to the Bible, and then to Jesus. For another, raised in a church environment, it may begin with a superficial intellectual affirmation of childhood teachings which may deepen into faith. For still another, a life crisis may send one, perhaps in desperation, to the altar -- and to the Lord. For some, it does begin intellectually, as in the case of C. S. Lewis who in his autobiography Surprised By Joy attributed his faith to the struggles of an unhappy childhood and an early determination to disprove the teachings of the New Testament on purely intellectual grounds. In any event, however faith begins in an individual, it opens up access to the healing power of God.
ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS
Shortly after graduation from college, I began working with a man whom I liked. One day, he shared something which he said was very personal. His wife had become quite ill several years earlier. They both began attending a church. He said they attended worship each Sunday. They contributed liberally. And they prayed that his wife would get well. Instead, her illness became worse. Finally, she died. The man then left the church and informed one and all that the Christian faith is a farce; God had not answered his prayers.
____________
Keith Miller, a noted counselor and friend of Bruce Larson's, shared with him this theory of counseling. He compares it to a person standing on a river bank, wishing to cross, and seeing just one rock near the bank. He urges that the person go ahead and step on the rock in the hope that another rock will be visible, possibly just below the surface. Thus, the person may be able to step safely across the river. Larson asked what he would suggest, in this analogy, if the person stumbles or for any reason falls into the river. Miller explained that in that case they might find that the river was not nearly so deep as they feared, and in any event, it's better than standing on the bank and doing nothing. This surely applies not only in counseling but in facing up to all of one's difficult and risky undertakings.
____________
Dr. Ralph Sockman first told the story of his visit to the Middle East where he watched a man weaving a rug. As he watched the man's fingers nimbly threading the final threads through the loom, he marveled at the man's skill. But he said he was disappointed to see that the pattern was badly flawed. There were loose ends evident, and the pattern appeared incomplete and not very creative. But then he walked around to view the rug from the other side and it was beautiful. Sockman remarked that this is surely true of the greatest artist of them all, that His creation viewed from this side may, at times, seem badly flawed as well. But we shall one day see it from the other side. Then glorious beauty we cannot yet imagine will await our view.
____________
It was the 1972 Olympics. The weight lifting team from Israel were in their apartment, relaxing, preparing themselves for the competition which lay ahead, when suddenly, eight maniac terrorists armed with shotguns and machine guns burst into the front room. One of those weight lifters was Moshe Weinberg, a young man recently married, his young wife at home with a new baby. The thought may briefly have entered Weinberg's head that if he complied, he might eventually be set free. But he also realized that his friends might die. So he resisted. Some who escaped told how Weinberg fearlessly charged the terrorists. He was murdered on the spot, but the brief delay caused by his resistance enabled more than half of the men in the apartment to escape out the back way. Jesus once said that "greater love has no man than that he lay down his life for his friend." Moshe Weinberg did that. He deserves never to be forgotten by those of us who honor the true spirit of love whatever their religion.
____________
Psalm Of The Day
Psalm 96 -- "O sing to the Lord a new song."
Prayer Of The Day
Dear God of life, thou who hast created us to step forth into the heat of day, the mystery of the dark, the anxiety of the future, be with us we pray, as we go faithful to that calling, secure in the knowledge of your constant presence and sustaining strength. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Lesson 1: 1 Kings 18:20-21 (22-29) 30-39 (C)
I would be reluctant to preach on this passage because I once heard Peter Marshall's sermon on The Contest On Mount Carmel. When a movie was proposed on the life of Peter Marshall (A Man Called Peter), movie actor Richard Todd was asked to play the lead. He was making a movie in a foreign country at the time, and sent word that he was not interested in playing the role of a Presbyterian minister. So, the producer sent him a copy of Marshall's sermon on this text and asked that he at least listen to it. Todd did, and promptly said he would love to play the role. It's still around on a record. If you ever get a chance to hear it, do so. It's a superb example of Scottish preaching.
In verse 21 Elijah chides the listeners with this challenge: "How long will you go limping along with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him, but if Ba'al, follow him." What a powerful word to preach today. It practically writes itself. I will risk spoiling Marshall's sermon by telling his closing line. In his powerful Scottish burr, he confronted his hearers this way: "How long will you go limping along with two different opinions? If the Lord be God, then follow him, but if Ba'al be God, then follow him and go to Hell."
Lesson 1: 1 Kings 8:41-43 (RC)
The writer encourages monotheism by asking that even foreigners be heard when they pray.
Lesson 1: 1 Kings 8:22-23, 27-30, 41-43 (E)
Solomon is overwhelmed by his sense of the presence of God, having had the Ark of the Covenant moved to the house which he has built. A cloud is said to have settled over the gathering of the elders, which may refer to a sense of awe and inadequacy as the people contemplated their awareness of divine presence.
To consider a sermon on this passage, we might refer to the promise that so long as the kingly succession from David remained faithful, God would continue that succession. So, too, one might contend that so long as we walk in the way of the Lord, we too will know God's empowerment. The trouble with that, of course, is that most of us don't walk in the way of the Lord most of the time, yet God continues to be faithful to us, even when we're not faithful to Him. Solomon did, however, intimate some understanding of that when he prayed, "O hear in heaven your dwelling place; heed and forgive" (v. 30). Here again we encounter the ancient world view of God dwelling in heaven.
I would probably choose verse 27b for a sermon: "Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built." Here we come to the fact that God is greater than the measure of our minds. It behooves us, therefore, not to be too sure we have all the answers in the faith. The reason I could never be a fundamentalist is because I frankly acknowledge that there are so many answers I don't have.
Lesson 2: Galatians 1:1-12 (C); Galatians 1:1-2, 6-10 (RC); Galatians 1:1-10 (E)
We can accept this from Paul because he is, after all -- well, Paul. However, I wouldn't advise anyone else today making quite such a claim. It would be unforgivably self-righteous coming from any of us. What we could do is warn people against any other "gospel" by which I would mean any of the unloving philosophies which abound today. As I write, we are just learning details about the tragic massacre in Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Twelve high school students and a teacher were executed by two juniors in the school who, after a lengthy immersion of their psyches in Naziism and other hateful ideas gained from the internet, donned their black raincoats and committed their crimes before taking their own lives. That may be an extreme example, but surely Paul's Gospel with his exquisite dissertation on love, and his encouragement that we be kind and honest and faithful are so exalted that almost any outlook on life pales by comparison. One may have a right to argue with my gospel or your gospel, but not with Paul's Gospel. My emphasis here would be to commend the Christian faith over all the competing doctrines of the time as depicted in music (Marilyn Manson), the internet (Neo-Nazi web sites), movies (pick one), and the depredations of the megalomaniacs of the world (Bosnia, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Sudan, and on and on).
Gospel: Luke 7:1-10 (C, RC, E)
This passage has two definite preaching themes. First, we see that the centurion realized that his earthly authority with all his wealth, influence, and power would not impress Jesus and enable him to get his way. It was, rather, by his modest willingness to come to Jesus with respect and vulnerable subjection that he won Jesus' admiration and compliance.
Second, the slave was healed. This raises the issue of healing. It also raises the issue of intercession. It would appear that the slave did not, himself, ask Jesus for healing. What does this say about the idea of interceding with God for someone in need of healing?
The two themes could be joined to suggest a sermon which first commends interceding on behalf of loved ones and friends (intercessory prayer), and secondly, urges that such intercession be done in a spirit of obedience to God's will.
SERMON SUGGESTIONS
Title: "If The Lord Be God"
Text: 1 Kings 18:20-21; Galatians 1:7-10
Theme: Reinhold Niebuhr once observed that "It doesn't take much of a man to be a Christian, but it takes all of him." He was referring to the fact that we can't get far being lukewarm Christians. Remember that ominous word in Revelation 3:16: "So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth." Jesus lays claim on the whole of a person's existence. It's too easy to go to church, sing the hymns, mouth the prayers, turn the commandments of the faith into mere platitudes, then go back to "the real world" and do whatever we think it takes to be successful. Remember when you learned to swim? You may have started in shallow water, but you never knew for sure that you could really swim until you got in the deep end. It's that way with the Christian faith. We only truly know that we are disciples of Jesus when we confront some monumental temptation and make the ultimate commitment to the teachings of Jesus despite what at present seems a great sacrifice.
In our text, Elijah finally convinced God to demonstrate His mighty power at the altar as evidence that He, and only He, possesses ultimate power. Likewise, though we are easily tempted by what might be called "ba'als" after the ancient terminology, by which I mean success, money, all the rest, we eventually will discover that none of these has the power to accomplish life's true destiny. Only God can do that.
Now, we need a little note of realism here. We do, after all, need to achieve some degree of success in some arena of life. We can't have it both ways, insisting that God has prepared each of us for a mission in life, be it medicine, construction, machinery, law, or something else; that we are to exercise this gift to the utmost, and then turn around and condemn ourselves for striving in the market place. I sure as the world paid a price in my early days of ministry, attending meetings, working on sermons, teaching, making calls, doing all the things many of you are doing while meanwhile, my little girl was growing up, my wife was learning that she could get along with the old man gone most of the time and I was neglecting any leisure time skills. I'll never know for sure, I fear, whether it was the right thing to do or not. I only know I believed I could not fulfill my sense of mission, and accomplish the work assigned to me by my Bishop and my congregations, unless I went all out. Now, in my age, I look back and am still not sure. I only know that I did what I thought was right, I paid a price, and I must live with that. My point: everyone more or less faces these dilemmas, no matter how faithful to Jesus and his teachings we may be. We all have work to do with all its temptations, its deceptions, its rationalizations, its ambivalence, and its disappointments. We do have to provide a home, leave security for remaining loved ones, give present love to children and spouse, be a friend to our friends. Preaching can make all of this sound easy when the truth is it's hard even to know what constitutes being true to our faith, much less doing that. The preacher who can somehow catch a sense of this harsh reality of life will make the most sense. All anyone can do is try to understand what is right, trust God for the strength and wisdom, then tackle life all out and do the best he can. My dad once gave me this advice when, as a young fellow, I was faced with the probability of a shattering failure: "Son, do the best you can and let the chips fall where they may." It has always made sense. Take God into your heart, know what is right, then face life head on, and the result will be a wonderful reward -- from God.
Title: "Like The Wideness Of The Sea"
Text: 1 Kings 8:27b
Theme: My sermon title is a take-off on the old hymn: "There's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea. There's a kindness in God's justice, which is more than liberty." That hymn also includes the words: "For the love of God is broader than the measure of our mind." How can we ever adequately understand the nature of God? The answer to that is that we can't. We can, however, experience it. I like Dr. Weatherhead's analogy of the ocean and a teacup. He observes that we can carry a teacup down to the water's edge, dip out a bit of it and take it to a laboratory. There we can taste it, test it, discover much about its composition. But it gives no hint of the plunging depths of the ocean, nor of its thunderous power, nor what awesome forces work within those depths.
That's an analogy to Jesus. Jesus is, if you will, the ocean in a teacup. By knowing him, we discover the nature of God, and that the essence of that nature is love. But there is infinitely more to God than our little minds can ever know. So, we need never fear to ask God for anything.
1. We know that God is love.
2. Pray knowing that anything can happen. "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of," wrote Lord Tennyson.
3. God always answers. If the answer is "No!" it's because God has a better idea for us. More often the answer is "Yes! but we'll do it my way."
4. We can face life in the sure knowledge that God is in charge, however disturbing the seeming evidence to the contrary. And there is every reason to believe that at the heart of creation are love and justice. That is, just love and loving justice.
Title: "Does It help To Pray For Someone Else?"
Text: Luke 7:1-10
Theme: This question puzzles many people. In our story, we see a centurion who was a fairly important government official, approaching Jesus to ask for healing for one of his slaves. If we can set aside our distress at the idea of slavery, and the fact that Jesus did not chide the man for having slaves (we can deal with that successfully, I think, at another time), we can make several assumptions here. By the standards of the time, the centurion must have been a good man. He was genuinely concerned for the slave. It must have required a lot of character to show the deference he did for this man who to him must have seemed to be an itinerant preacher, not to mention a Jew. Furthermore, the fact that he asked for healing without qualifying his request ("Jesus, I don't know whether you can do this or not") suggests that he was convinced that Jesus really could do this. We must also assume the centurion believed in God since the entire request hinged on that. And, of course, the success of this story rests on the fact that the slave was healed.
1. The centurion was a good person. Just because he was a member of the occupation army doesn't mean he was bad. A young G.I. was recovering from a head wound suffered in the Normandy campaign. His story was this: he suffered the wound in a gun battle with a German platoon. He lay semi-conscious in the middle of a field as a German mortar barrage began exploding around him. Death was a virtual certainty for anyone in such an exposed position. But then, a German army medic crawled out under fire and dragged him to the safety of a slit trench, then lay on top of him, shielding him from further injury. When the barrage lifted, the Germans left him to be retrieved by American medics and thus removed to the safety of a hospital where he eventually recovered. Were he to comment today, he would tell us that many of our "enemies" were really good, decent people, doing what they thought was right at the time. It's well to withhold judgment of others until we know them. Jesus was able to look into a person's heart and see the real person. He loved this man even though he was technically an enemy.
2. Jesus was moved by the Centurion's self-effacement. It wasn't that the man was mealy-mouthed, unwholesomely obsequious. The man was simply and genuinely modest. He was able to be thoughtful and undemanding of Jesus. This obviously impressed Jesus greatly. So with us. The way to pray, for others as well as ourselves, is to implore God's action, but to do so with a perfect willingness to accept God's judgment in the situation. We don't always get our immediate request. After all, God already knows what is best for the person for whom we pray. It isn't that we inform God of something He didn't already know, or that we change God's mind as to what is best. Nor do we call someone to God's attention whom He might otherwise have overlooked. And we certainly don't alter the functioning of the material world. What we do accomplish is to surround the person prayed for with our love, with access to our strength, and somehow in that great mystery which bonds all who love each other together, we make possible a healing dynamic which can sometimes make the difference.
3. Jesus was impressed by the officer's faith. Surely, that underlying trust was the basis of the man's faith and enabled Jesus to answer the request. Time and again, we have seen where Jesus was able to heal and then inform the individual that it was his or her faith which made the person well. Faith is a gift which comes from God. It's hard to know exactly how this works. Perhaps not the same for everyone. For some, a sense of the reality of God may turn that person to the Bible, and then to Jesus. For another, raised in a church environment, it may begin with a superficial intellectual affirmation of childhood teachings which may deepen into faith. For still another, a life crisis may send one, perhaps in desperation, to the altar -- and to the Lord. For some, it does begin intellectually, as in the case of C. S. Lewis who in his autobiography Surprised By Joy attributed his faith to the struggles of an unhappy childhood and an early determination to disprove the teachings of the New Testament on purely intellectual grounds. In any event, however faith begins in an individual, it opens up access to the healing power of God.
ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS
Shortly after graduation from college, I began working with a man whom I liked. One day, he shared something which he said was very personal. His wife had become quite ill several years earlier. They both began attending a church. He said they attended worship each Sunday. They contributed liberally. And they prayed that his wife would get well. Instead, her illness became worse. Finally, she died. The man then left the church and informed one and all that the Christian faith is a farce; God had not answered his prayers.
____________
Keith Miller, a noted counselor and friend of Bruce Larson's, shared with him this theory of counseling. He compares it to a person standing on a river bank, wishing to cross, and seeing just one rock near the bank. He urges that the person go ahead and step on the rock in the hope that another rock will be visible, possibly just below the surface. Thus, the person may be able to step safely across the river. Larson asked what he would suggest, in this analogy, if the person stumbles or for any reason falls into the river. Miller explained that in that case they might find that the river was not nearly so deep as they feared, and in any event, it's better than standing on the bank and doing nothing. This surely applies not only in counseling but in facing up to all of one's difficult and risky undertakings.
____________
Dr. Ralph Sockman first told the story of his visit to the Middle East where he watched a man weaving a rug. As he watched the man's fingers nimbly threading the final threads through the loom, he marveled at the man's skill. But he said he was disappointed to see that the pattern was badly flawed. There were loose ends evident, and the pattern appeared incomplete and not very creative. But then he walked around to view the rug from the other side and it was beautiful. Sockman remarked that this is surely true of the greatest artist of them all, that His creation viewed from this side may, at times, seem badly flawed as well. But we shall one day see it from the other side. Then glorious beauty we cannot yet imagine will await our view.
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It was the 1972 Olympics. The weight lifting team from Israel were in their apartment, relaxing, preparing themselves for the competition which lay ahead, when suddenly, eight maniac terrorists armed with shotguns and machine guns burst into the front room. One of those weight lifters was Moshe Weinberg, a young man recently married, his young wife at home with a new baby. The thought may briefly have entered Weinberg's head that if he complied, he might eventually be set free. But he also realized that his friends might die. So he resisted. Some who escaped told how Weinberg fearlessly charged the terrorists. He was murdered on the spot, but the brief delay caused by his resistance enabled more than half of the men in the apartment to escape out the back way. Jesus once said that "greater love has no man than that he lay down his life for his friend." Moshe Weinberg did that. He deserves never to be forgotten by those of us who honor the true spirit of love whatever their religion.
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Psalm Of The Day
Psalm 96 -- "O sing to the Lord a new song."
Prayer Of The Day
Dear God of life, thou who hast created us to step forth into the heat of day, the mystery of the dark, the anxiety of the future, be with us we pray, as we go faithful to that calling, secure in the knowledge of your constant presence and sustaining strength. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
