The Centurion (The Rev'd. Dr. Richard Smith)

Today's gospel includes an unlikely cast of characters who somehow manage to find themselves working with Jesus to bring about a healing.
At the center of the story is the centurion, a commanding officer in the Roman army that Caesar used to keep the Jews under his thumb. Later, this very same Roman empire will order the execution of Jesus.
Jesus, a devout Jew, has a number of reasons to resist helping this centurion. From the perspective of many of Jesus' fellow Jews, this centurion represents everything that is wrong about the world. Even to enter his house could make a devout Jew unclean.
But this centurion is not your stereotypical Roman officer, which is where the story starts to get interesting.
For one thing, he loves the Jewish people, a people who were different than he was. He had true feelings of affection for these people against whom the rest of the world was prejudiced.
But there's more: He also he has feelings of compassion, not merely for his own children or family, but for one of his slaves, someone considered at the time as a piece of his personal property. In fact, the original Greek suggests that this slave was not merely “of value” to him as our translation says, but rather was very dear, precious, to him.
During our story-telling sessions a few weeks ago, we asked what is keeping you awake at night; this is what's keeping him awake--that this slave, very dear to him, is near death.
He wants Jesus, a known healer in the region, to cure his slave.
But he doesn't feel comfortable going directly to Jesus. He is, after all, part of the hated Roman army, and Jesus is, after all, a Jew. So he sends his Jewish friends to speak to Jesus on his behalf.
Though they hate the Romans occupying their land, these Jews are happy to put in a good word for their friend. “He loves our people,” they tell Jesus. “Even though he's not a Jew, he built our synagogue.”
You know how the story ends. These Jews and this centurion, an unlikely cast of characters, work with Jesus to bring healing to the slave.
I wonder if this story is holding up a mirror to us here at St. John's. Like the characters in today's Gospel, we, too, are an unlikely cast of characters, working with Jesus, to bring healing.
I saw this the other evening in the prayer vigil for immigration reform that
Lauren Dietrich-Chavez organized. There we were in a circle outside Senator Feinstein's office: Anglos and Latinos, from Leah Forbes to idealistic young college students to baby Elena Claire, many straight people and the rest of us as queer as three dollar bills--all of us catching up on the latest developments in the law now working its way through Congress, sharing each others stories, and reflecting on the scripture that says that though we are many, we form one body. We were in that moment an unlikely cast of characters working with Jesus to bring healing to the many families that have been torn apart by our nation's immigration system.
The same thing happens in a slightly different way every Saturday morning when Jean gets up way before the crack of dawn so she can get here by 5am to open the church and start setting up for the Julian Pantry.
Eventually an unlikely cast of volunteers begins to arrive from around the neighborhood, from Noe Valley and other parts of the City. They unload the truck delivering the food, they stock the tables, and they share a breakfast, a time for check-in, and a brief reflection. Then they open the doors to welcome the folks standing in line outside.
Between 2- and 3-hundred people come through our doors each week to receive the free fresh veggies and fruits and breads provided through the Julian Pantry.
And for all the challenges of making something like this work smoothly, and there are many, Jean and her crew keep at it week after week. An unlikely cast of characters, working with Jesus, to bring healing—this time in the form of food in these tough economic times--to people in our neighborhood and the City.
Maybe you've experienced some of this healing in your own life through this parish family. Suddenly, as you're making your way to sobriety, or mourning the loss of the person you love the most, or maybe just trying to make sense of your life, to figure out what is really important—suddenly you find yourself in the midst of this unlikely cast of characters who work with Jesus. And somewhere in the various sacraments and songs, the coffee and munchies after mass, the friendships and support of this community, you find yourself slowly beginning to heal, to get back into the groove. Maybe you've experienced a bit of this healing yourself.
In many ways we in this parish are like the unlikely cast of characters in today's Gospel as we gather week after week around this table: unlikely people— ourselves often in need of healing—who work with each other and with Jesus to bring that same healing in some small way to this broken world around us.