I’m struck in this passage by Jesus’ response to the centurion. It is a rare moment when Jesus something like “Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith” (8:10, NRSV). We often hear Jesus saying things like, “go, your faith has made you well”, but it appears here that one of, if not the most faithful people Jesus encounters in the entirety of the Gospels is this anonymous centurion. The picture I get is a bunch of students in a classroom longing for this kind of response from their instructor. Isn’t this what we all want to hear? It’s like Ralphy’s dream in the movie A Christmas Story, when his teacher lauds him with honor and praise and his classmates lift him up on their shoulders because of his “theme” that he wrote: “In no one in Israel have I found such faith”. And the crowd goes wild… This is the response we all want, perhaps more, if we’re honest, than “this is my beloved child in whom I am well pleased”. Jesus has just finished with three chapters of laying what it means to be faithful to the heart, not just the letter, of the law, a law which a Roman Centurion couldn’t care less about. And the first person he affirms for their faith is a Roman Centurion. Not just an outside, but the very expression of the enemy. So the question is “Why does he say it? What is it that the centurion said or did that warrants that response?”
He says it in response to the centurion’s faith in Jesus’ power and authority: “…but only speak the word and my servant will be healed” (8:8). He is certain that Jesus can do this, even from a distance, but why is he certain? Because he understands what power and authority are all about. He then likens Jesus’ power and authority to his power and authority as a centurion. It is here that Jesus gives him, what I would like to call, “The Great Affirmation”. The Great Affirmation comes in the likening of a Roman centurion’s power and authority to the Messiah’s power and authority. The centurion is not saying that they are equal, but he is saying that as one who has servants and slaves, he understands how real power and authority work. By Jesus affirming this, Jesus is essentially saying that there is something about the context of a roman centurion’s life that can help form their faith in God to the degree that “in no one in Israel [has Jesus] found such faith”. Jesus does not affirm his faith in spite of him being a Roman Centurion but because of it. It is his work as a Roman Centurion that is the very ting informing the faith that Jesus affirms. This has to send those belonging to the anti-Rome movement through the roof. Jesus is indeed, not breaking the law, but, breaking it wide open. This does not exclude or deny Israel, but forces Israel to expand its gaze. The Kingdom is no longer defined by its borders but by its center. The question isn’t are you inside the borders of the Kingdom. The question is, regardless of where you are, are you moving toward the Kingdom’s center, which is Christ? The walls have come down.
My question is, what does this mean for us, Jesus followers of today, the Church of the 21st century? Do we need to expand out gaze? About whom would it surprise us for Jesus to say, “no where in the Church today have I seen such faith?”
Journey Through Matthew 