I guess it’s true other years, but I’ve noticed it more this year, how utterly black and white the candidates are portrayed. Now this is universal, whether you support Trump or Clinton or you’re still holding out for Sanders, one candidate is portrayed as the knight in shining armor, America’s only hope for salvation, while the other candidate is portrayed as the absolute worst thing that has ever happened to this country, ever. Total absolutes, no room for discussion. Maybe it’s my millennial inclination to be skeptical of anyone who claims absolute certainty, but regardless of your candidate of choice, this sharp declaration of hero and villain feels untrustworthy to me. The world always feels more grey than that.
I actually came across a funny internet meme that captured this idea pretty well to me. The meme had the phrase “How you see your candidate” and a picture of Obi Wan Kenobi, you know, the sage elder from Star Wars. The one who took Luke Skywalker under his wing. Then the phrase, “How you see their candidate,” and a picture of Darth Vader, the great villain, holding out his arm and looking foreboding. And then, underneath both images, the phrase, “What both of them are really like,” and a picture of Jar Jar Binks, that super annoying alien character from Star Wars Episode 1, making a thumbs up sign with his tongue hanging out. The point of course being that for all we might glorify or vilify one side or the other, both are really just goobers.
Much of the polarization of this election has been blamed on mainstream media. And I’m not saying that media coverage is not to blame, but I wonder if mainstream media is not itself the cause of the polarization, but itself also a result of something else. I wonder if this desire for the simplicity of clear cut answers, the urge to be able to place everything in a category of right or wrong, black or white, hero or villain, is in fact part of our human nature.
I got to thinking about this desire to assign things into good or bad categories as I was reading commentaries for our Gospel reading this morning. All the commentaries I read talked about how centurions would have been classified as “bad guys” in the Gospels. A centurion was a high-ranking officer in the Roman army. He would have been in charge of a regiment of around a hundred men, thus the title centurion. And as my best friend pointed out when we were discussing the text earlier this week, one did not rise to power in the Romany army by being a fluffy bunny. And since the story takes place in Capernaum, this particular centurion was probably under the service of King Herod, which would have made him sort of doubly villainous, because instead of being under the command of faraway Rome, this guy would have been enforcing the brutal policies of the ruler right in their own neighborhood. Nothing about this guy by title says “someone Jesus should care about.” He is a villain, through and through.
But wait! protest the commentaries. This guy wasn’t like a normal centurion. This guy was a good centurion. First off, he valued his slave highly and wanted him to be well. This clearly shows a respect for the humanity of his slave, seeing the slave not as expendable but as a person in his own right. Then, instead of approaching Jesus directly, he honored Jesus’ position as a religious leader by sending emissaries to intervene on his behalf. First the Jewish elders, who showered the centurion with praise. He loves our people, he built the synagogue, he is worthy of having his request granted. And then, when Jesus went to the centurion’s home, the centurion sent friends out in yet another great show of humility, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof… But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed.” The commentaries reveled in how the centurion respected Jesus’ authority, relating the centurion’s command of his troops to Jesus’ own power over illness, and in how by keeping Jesus from entering his house, the centurion respected that by entering the home of a gentile, Jesus could be made ritually unclean, and so not wanting Jesus to come to him was a sign of respect for Jesus’ religious traditions. And look, the commentaries proclaimed, Jesus acknowledged the centurion’s worthiness, by telling the crowd, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” This centurion is clearly a Gentile to be honored, a model of humility, respect, care, and compassion that us gentiles should follow. Despite the title centurion, he should be placed in the “good guy” category.
Well, I took the commentaries glowing description of the centurion to the Wednesday Bible chat groups, and I have to tell you, they were not buying it. Did the centurion really value his slave’s life? Or were slaves just expensive and he didn’t want to have to pay for a new one? Was the whole “you can heal this guy from a distance thing” a show of respect for Jesus’ authority or a test of Jesus’ power? And him not wanting Jesus to come into his home. Was he really looking out for Jesus’ ritual cleanliness, something Jesus himself seemed to show absolutely no regard for in any part of Luke’s Gospel. Or was his motive a little closer to home? As a centurion under the command of the feared, and not particularly mentally stable, King Herod, was the centurion maybe more afraid of having word spread that he had allowed Jesus to come into his home? What sort of retribution Herod might want to inflict on someone who welcomed a wanted political rabble-rouser into his home? And then of course there’s the general violence and cruelty that would have come with being an officer in the Roman army. Remember, this guy did not become a centurion by rescuing kittens. The general consensus on Wednesday was, show of humility or not, the group was not ready to place the centurion in the hero category.
And at first I wanted to push back on them about this. But wait, I kept saying, look how he cares about his slave! But does he really, someone would ask. He is keeping the guy as a slave. Well, look what good things he did for the community, he built the synagogue. Did he build it? Or did the now dying slave build it? I tell people I’m building a new kitchen, but you don’t see me holding a hammer. Well, thinking to myself, here’s the closing argument, they won’t have a case for this one; look at what Jesus said about him. Jesus said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” Jesus thought he was a good guy. They still weren’t having it. Why did Jesus say he had great faith? Nothing in this story says great faith to me. What does Jesus even mean by faith? Oh no, I thought. I have taught them too well, they have learned to read deeper into the text and have started to question my sage wisdom.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized, they were probably right. Because weren’t the commentaries and I doing to the centurion the exact same thing that the internet meme was doing with the presidential candidates. Weren’t the commentaries and I painting the centurion as this one in a million Obi Wan Kenobi hero of a man who was totally and completely worthy of Jesus’ healing presence, when really he was probably just Jar Jar Binks. The more I thought about, the more I realized the whole thing was probably more complicated than that. The centurion very possibly was worried about the health of his slave AND was worried about the potential financial loss. He may very well have been humble, and cocky enough to brag about his humility. He possibly respected Jesus’ religious obligation to not enter the home of a gentile and would rather not be too closely associated with someone who so aggravated Herod. The truth is all of those things, all at once, could, and very likely were true. Because the centurion was not a one sided character, he was a person. Just like you and I. And just like you and I, he was complicated. Think about it, if we’re honest with ourselves even our most generous deeds have a hint of self-service in them, and our most cruel actions a tinge of misunderstanding. I won’t say none; but precious few actions are all good or all evil, almost everything is shades of grey.
The centurion’s motives may have been convoluted, but Jesus response to him was clear. The centurion came to Jesus with this whole twisted mess of whatever, and Jesus said, “not even in Israel have I found such faith.” Because that’s what Jesus does. That’s who Jesus is. That is the relationship that Jesus has with humanity. Faith is not about motives or actions or efforts. Faith is a gift from Jesus to us, no matter what mess of complexity we might bring to the table. And that, I think, is the real healing in this story. The slave’s healing in verse ten is almost an afterthought, the real climax of the story is Jesus declaring the completeness of the centurion’s faith in verse nine.
We don’t know what happened to this centurion after his encounter with Jesus. We don’t know if he left the Roman empire and became a disciple, or if he packed up his now healed slave and went back to the work of barberry and warfare. And really, I don’t think it matters. Because what this story promises us is that Jesus comes to us again and again, even as we might try and hold him at well-meaning arm’s distance, because Jesus authority is more powerful than presence, and declares in us faith. And if you follow the development of the disciples throughout Luke and Acts, as you heard Paul describe in his letter to the Galatians this morning, being set apart by God over and over and over again, being called through his grace, having God revealed to us, changes us. We always, no matter how hard we try, we always come to God imperfectly. And God, who is perfect, always meets us with faith. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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