In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Any reader of the Bible needs to be aware that there is a risk that comes from its having been divided into chapters:  Sometimes, a passage that is meant to be understood as a connected narrative is unnaturally broken up by the chapter divisions.  This can lead to an understanding of the text that is not as full as it might be.  Today’s Gospel reading provides us with an example of this.  Immediately before it come the last verses of the Sermon on the Mount:  “And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine:  For he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.”

These verses explain, illuminate and set the stage for what follows.  It is because of his authority that great multitudes follow Jesus, and it is his authority that draws the leper to believe that Jesus can cleanse him and to ask him to do so.  But it is left to a Gentile – and a soldier of the despised and feared Roman occupiers – to fully understand and express what Jesus’ authority means.

Authority is not the same thing as power.  A thug with a gun certainly has power, but that is all he has:  He has no authority in the sense in which we’re using it, for he is under no authority, he acknowledges no law but that of his own will and desire.  Here is where a ruler differs from a tyrant:  A ruler (archon, to use St Paul’s terminology in this morning’s Epistle) is himself under the law, and to the extent that he is, he deserves obedience.  By stark contrast, a tyrant is essentially lawless, even though he may appeal to some higher law or destiny or the dialectic or the will of the people (which always means the people who agree with him – the rest are non-persons or enemies of the people).   

So what is authority, really?  Let’s briefly look at the word in its original language:  The Greek of Matthew’s account (and its parallel in Luke 7:1-10) uses the word exousia.  This word combines two other Greek words – ek, meaning “out of” or “derived from,” and ousia, meaning “being,” “substance,” “the way things really are,” or, if you will, “is-ness.”  Authority of this kind comes from within – yet at the same time from beyond – the person who has it.  It is inseparable from who he is:  If you accept him, you accept his authority and the Authority behind his authority.  Ultimately, one’s authority comes from being conformed to (and transformed by) capital-r Reality, who is God Almighty – He Who Is.

It is this sort of authority that the audience for the Sermon on the Mount, the leper who wanted to be cleansed, and the centurion who had a sick servant recognized in Jesus.  Authority teaches the ignorant who acknowledge their ignorance:  The people were taught by Jesus with an authority they found astonishing because, unlike their scribes, he did not simply teach them about the Law – he brought them into the mind of the Lawgiver.  The leper was moved to ask for his healing for he recognized in Jesus the presence of One who saw sin and sickness for the essentially anti-natural things they are and who, because he saw clearly, could grant the  leper the cleansing and healing he needed and desired.  The centurion saw further still and recognized that Jesus was under authority like himself, and so confidently besought his aid on behalf of another.  The sermon’s audience looked on Jesus as a teacher  The leper looked on him as a physician.  The centurion looked on him as a friend who could help him in his need.

Friendship, it can be said, is a personal affinity between people engaged in a common task that is founded on a common way of looking at reality, and it is to this that the centurion appeals when he tells Jesus, in effect, “While I am grateful for your willingness to come and heal my servant, I know that you need not do that:  All you need do is speak the word and it will be so.  I know this, for I also am a man in authority yet under another’s authority:  All I have to do is command, and it will be done:  I need not go myself, and what I command in the name of those who command me will be done.  So it is with you.” 

Jesus marvels at this insight, and uses it as an opportunity to teach those who are following down from the mountain:  “This is the kind of faith to which you all should aspire, and I have found none greater in Israel.  This Gentile has got it right, and if you would sit at table in the heavenly banquet, you will follow his example.  Your pedigree won’t save you; your having sat at the feet of God’s teachers won’t save you; your receiving of healing and cleansing by itself won’t save you; only your trust in God and your obedience to his word will do that.”  In the centurion’s simple declaration Jesus hears the echo of an earlier declaration:  “Behold, the handmaiden of the Lord; let it be done unto me as you have said.”  As that statement of complete trust opened the way for the entry into the world of its savior, so does the centurion’s enable the application of the savior’s healing power:  “And his servant was healed in that selfsame hour.”

All of this reveals to us something about authority that is often overlooked, which is this:  The purpose of the exercise of godly authority is to establish us in friendship with God.

And as for us, it is well that we are here to be taught, to be healed, to be cleansed, to be in and to receive the Lord’s real presence.  But for any learning, any healing, any cleansing, and any reception of the Presence to do us permanent good, it must in each of us meet with the same recognition the centurion had of who it is with whom we have to do, the recognition which is the basis of the genuine friendship with him that makes us into the saints he wills us to be.  When that begins to be made real in us, then we will be able to leave here, not just departing, but sent out, and miracles will happen.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Christ Church, Highlands, North Carolina

Saint Stephen’s Church, Franklin, North Carolina

February 1, 2009