Matthew 8.5-13
A couple of years ago, I was in my truck, driving to the office, when Stanley Hauerwas called me. Over the years the cantankerous theologian has become more than a mentor. He had been ill and had undergone surgery in England, and I had left him a message inquiring about his health and spirit. That morning on the way to church, he called me back. Before I could say hello, his Texas drawl growled through the phone: “Jason, I can’t piss, and it’s just so damn painful.”
As I pulled into the church lot, Stanley thanked me for having called him “long distance.” Then, through grunts and four-letter words, he narrated his post-op hellscape. I listened.
But Stanley’s not one for bedside manner Christianity. As he says, “Active listening is just so passive.”
So I said, “I’ll pray for you, Stanley.”
“You damn well better do it now,” he said. “And Jason? If you’re not going to pray for God to heal me, then just hang up the damn phone. Just say the damn words.”
In the early fourth century, the Roman Emperor Diocletian spearheaded the final and most intense period of persecution against Christians, ordering a series of edicts aimed at the growing Christian population. The Great Persecution entailed the destruction of churches, scriptures, and icons. It stripped Christians of their rights as Roman citizens, including their right to own property. And until it ended in 315 AD with the Edict of Milan, the Great Persecution included torture, imprisonment, and execution.
In the face of such brutality many believers recanted their faith and renounced the LORD Jesus Christ; consequently, once the Great Persecution had ended, the question arose in the church about what to do with preachers who had failed to hold fast to the faith. The crisis was acute in North Africa where a schismatic sect was led by a bishop named Donatus Magnus who argued— straightforwardly, logically— that the holiness of the Body of Christ depended upon the holiness of its members and that the holiness of the Body’s believers relied upon the holiness of its leaders. Thus the Donatists asserted that sermons preached and sacraments celebrated by “surrenderers” were not efficacious. Laity whom those clergy had served were bereft of the gospel’s benefits. The gospel on the lips of an unfaithful preacher is not the word of God. If the priest failed, then the absolution failed. If the pastor shirked martyrdom, then the baptism didn’t count.
Saint Augustine, a bishop in the North African city of Hippo, regarded the Donatist Controversy as a theological emergency that threatened to undo nothing less than the Christian kerygma itself. God is the active agent of our salvation, Augustine argued. The LORD saves sinners entirely apart from human merit, including the demerits of its preachers. The word of God is not a mortal word. Just so, the creatures to which the word attaches— water, wine, and bread— are not mortal goods. “We believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins,” the creed confesses, exactly because baptism is not our act. Sermons and sacraments are not magic conjured by holy men. They are the means by which God elects to reveal himself.
Ex opere operato, Augustine summarized his argument, “by the word worked.”
That is, in and of itself, the Word of God possesses the power of God to effect what it says.
A few years ago, Betsy Clevenger shared with me how a stranger wandered into the church’s mission center one afternoon while she was there sorting food. He’d walked for over two hours to arrive at what he thought was a church. He wanted— he needed, he said— to confess his sins.
Betsy says she was reticent at first, “I’m not a pastor. There’s no preacher or priest here. Maybe if you call and schedule…”
The stranger was undeterred, “I need to confess.”
So Betsy relented and said, “Alright, I’ll listen to you.”
And then this stranger spilled out into her ear his secret burdens and his most troublesome sins. After he was finished, Betsy says, he peered up at her expectantly.
“Does this mean I’m forgiven? Does God forgive me?”
Betsy replied, “Well, I’m not sure. Who am I to say whether or not God forgives you? I can’t speak for God.”
When Betsy told me how she had answered the stranger— we were standing on the church steps after worship one Sunday— I responded in my typical sensitive, pastoral manner, “Betsy! No!”
“I should’ve told him he’s forgiven? But I’m not someone who can speak such a promise. If you knew some of the unflattering aspects of me…”
“I already know the unflattering parts of you,” I said a little too loudly, “But you’re baptized, Betsy. As much as it is mine, it’s your vocation to speak promises only God can promise. Those promises just are the power of God.”
In the Gospel of Mark, as Jesus passes along the Sea of Galilee, he sees Simon and Andrew casting their fishing nets into the water. Without introduction, Mary’s boy utters a word to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” And Mark reports, “Immediately they left their nets and followed him.”
They did not consider it. They did not discuss it. They did not solicit more information. “Immediately,” they dropped the implements of their livelihood. They followed as they were summoned.
The word worked what it said. Mere syllables on the lips of Jesus bequeathed upon them a new identity.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus arrives at Bethany only after his friend Lazarus has been dead four days in the tomb. Jesus weeps for his friend and prays to his Father and then shouts into the grave, “Lazarus, come out!” And—there’s that word again, “Immediately, the man who had died came out.”
Jesus only speaks.
And death listens.
The word works what it says.
"Get over yourself,” I told Betsy outside on the church steps, “The gospel is the power of God. Neither your limitations nor your sins can stymy the Holy Spirit. If you just say the words, the Word will do its work.”
She looked at me skeptically.
“It’s not magic,” I insisted, “But neither is it wishful thinking. It’s that we’ve got a God who is eager to reveal and to heal. It’s not a mechanism. It’s the Spirit’s generosity.”
“I just don’t know that…”
I cut Betsy off.
“You taught math,” I said to her, “You can promise a person that all their sins are forgiven. And, as surely as 1+1 = 2, in the saying of it, it is so.”
“You make it sound like I’m capable of miracles,” she laughed.
“Sort of— yes. Absolutely.”
Augustine won the ancient argument. The church now remembers Donatus as not just a strict sanctificationist but a heretic. Even still, we miss the scandal of the gospel if we fail to grasp the soundness of Donatus’ judgment. If the word of God is not “living and active” then the character and fidelity of the church’s witnesses absolutely makes all the difference. If the tomb is not empty, then of course your pulpit should be filled by a proclaimer whose character cannot impeach the preaching. If Easter is untrue, this pulpit should certainly be filled by a preacher with fewer sins than me. A believer who recanted his faith and renounced Christ is a poor herald indeed if the LORD Jesus is not alive to speak for himself.
Donatus was right! The medium is the message. You cannot let a charlatan speak for the Son of God unless Mary’s boy and Pilate’s victim is not dead. In which case, I am not the medium at all. Nor are you.
As the Book of Psalm anticipates the gospel mystery:
"They cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He sent out his word and his word healed them, his word delivered them from their destruction.”
Here in the Gospel of Matthew, no sooner has Jesus concluded his Sermon on the Mount than an anxious centurion besets upon him as he enters Capernaum, “Lord, my child is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.”
The only person more unclean in all of Israel than this centurion is a leper.
Rome brought peace to the world the way a graveyard brings quiet.
The centurion may be a father, but he is also a man with blood on his boots. He is not just a Dad. He is an enemy. On officer for the despised colonial-imperial occupying power, the centurion is the leader of one hundred (a century) foot soldiers. He has pledged allegiance to an emperor he believes to be divine. But— like a masked, badge-less ICE agent kneeling before a migrant child— the centurion kneels before this penniless rabbi and appeals to Christ’s cosmic authority.
He calls him “LORD.”
“LORD, my child is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.”
Like the leper Jesus heals in the preceding scene, the centurion does not even petition Jesus. He simply states the fact of his situation, “My child is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.” In other words, merely telling the LORD about our lives is enough to set his saving work in motion.
We forget— God loves being our God.
Part of the problem we perceive in the alleged “problem of miracles” is our deficient memory. We forget that God loves being our God.
As Frederick Dale Bruner comments on this passage:
“The LORD we worship is almost inordinately ready to meet our needs.”
This willingness extends even wider than those who are counted as God’s people. Though the centurion, a Gentile, is barred from entering the LORD’s house— that is, the Temple in Jerusalem— the LORD Jesus eagerly offers to come to his home.
Immediately, Jesus responds to him, “I will come and heal him.”
Jesus does not speak truth to power. Jesus does not indict his enemy. Jesus does not shout his mother’s song about the mighty being made low. Jesus ignores the Caesar insignia on this man’s chest, and Jesus meets him with mercy. Jesus responds to this storm trooper's duress with a flagrant willingness to offend scruples, to cross boundaries, and to heal. Blessed are those who are not offended by a love this wide, Jesus had preached in his first sermon at Nazareth— before his listeners attempted to kill him.
“LORD, my child is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.
The centurion says.
“Sure! I’ll come to your house and heal him.”
God says.
But the centurion waves Jesus off with words the church later weaves into the communion liturgy, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof.” Whether the centurion confesses his own unrighteousness or seeks to keep the peace by not trespassing Jewish law the passage is not clear. Or rather, the scripture is deliberately vague. In either case, the centurion knows the Great Physician does not need to make house calls. The Great Physician does not need to take your temperature or hand you a prescription. The Great Physician has no need for latex gloves, a thermometer, or a stethoscope. Why would he need them? He does not need to make a house call anymore than he needs you to pay for an office visit.
The Great Physician does not need to make house calls.
His word alone is sufficient. “LORD, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof,” he replies, “but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.” By the Holy Spirit, this centurion intuits not only Christ’s authority and goodness but also the power of his word. As the church father John Chrysostom preached on this passage, “The first four words of verse eight are the key to the story: alla monon eipe logo.”
But only say the word.
Just say, “Let there be” and it will be.
The healing of the centurion’s child is the first long-distance miracle in the Gospels.
“Pray for God to heal me. Just say the damn words,” Stanley implored me, “Pray for a damn miracle.”
Despite being a five hour drive away from him, he believed my words had the power to work what they say. As though if I could but speak, even death would listen.
Five hundred years after Augustine dealt with Donatus, Maximus the Confessor distilled the ancient church fathers into a culminating synthesis. Much like Augustine, Maximus defended Christian dogma during a time of fierce theological controversies, disputes which concerned the nature and work of Christ.
In synthesizing the church fathers, Maximus discovered that the scriptures provide an account of the mystery of Christ that in turn illumines the miracles of Christ.
So, for example, when the Logos descends into creation at the incarnation, Maximus teaches that the Word assumes not merely Mary’s flesh but penetrates all things. Christ can heal all of creation because Christ’s incarnation extends to every item of creation.
As the theologian Sergius Bulgakov writes, “It is totally incorrect to liken the world to a mechanism.” The world is not a machine. It is a living organism. It is a living organism exactly to the extent Christ inhabits all things.
The God who has an executioner dwells in all things.
In his two-volume work entitled Ambigua, Maximus the Confessor writes:
“All things exist and move and are preserved in Christ, the one Logos of God….Christ achieves the unity of the universe by fully uniting all things to himself…The Word of God, by becoming human, has made human nature, even creation itself, a vehicle of divine energy.”
Maximus arrives at this astonishing claim by trusting scripture to mean what it says. “In Christ,” Paul proclaims to the Colossians, “all things hold together.” “God the Father set forth the Son,” the Epistle to the Ephesians announces, “in order to unite all created things in him.” “That which is not assumed is not healed,” the church father Gregory of Nazianzus writes. And the scriptures make clear it is not only the sons and daughters of Eve who need salvation but all of creation. Therefore, as a consequence of the incarnation, all of creation becomes as Mary’s womb—filled with God, bearing his presence into the world.” This is what the apostle Paul means when he proclaims to the Athenians that in Christ “we live and move and have our being.”
Thus— pay attention now:
Jesus does not violate nature when he performs miracles.
Jesus does not violate nature when he performs miracles. Water into wine, loaves and fishes into a feast fit for the masses, cancer arrested—Jesus does not violate nature when he performs miracles because, as a consequence of the incarnation, Jesus already inhabits all of nature.
The infinite and the finite coincide not only in Christ’s flesh but in all flesh.
All things.
The word can work in the world what it says. Jesus can but say the word and heal a storm trooper’s child. You can “just say the damn words,” and the words will do what you say because there is no place in creation— no one in creation: no quark, no cell, no tumor— where he is is not. Because he dwells in all things, there is no such thing as a long-distance miracle.
The Great Physician does not need to make house calls!
Because every where he might go, he is already there.
Not only is the healing of the centurion’s child the first long-distance miracle in the Gospels, this is the first instance of the LORD commending the faith of a believer. And for those convinced Jesus is a mere teacher or simply a truth-telling prophet, see how Jesus does not reject faith placed in him. Jesus does not see faith in him as contradicting faith in God. But notice! What Christ specifically credits is the centurion’s nude faith in the power of the Word to work it says. “Truly, I tell you,” Jesus says (surely offending everyone else within earshot), “with no one else in Israel have I found such faith.”
Even more bewildering, Jesus not only extols his Roman adversary’s faith, Jesus makes that faith the operative power of the child’s healing.
“Only say the word!” the centurion pleads with Jesus.
But what Jesus says is that the word does not need to work what it says at all. He does not tell the father, “My word has made him whole.” Jesus does not even inquire about the status of the child’s faith. He does not ask, “Does your son believe in me like you do?” or “Has he confessed his unworthiness?” “Has he repented and submitted to baptism?” On the contrary, Christ replies that the centurion’s faith is the power which has healed his child.
“It is done for you as you have believed,” Jesus tells him.
“And the child,” Matthew reports, “was healed at that very moment.”
The child is healed through another person’s faith.
The child is healed through another person’s faith.
Where faith speaks, even death listens.
But how?
How can my faith work miracles? How can someone’s faith work miracles for another? How can faith do what is Christ’s alone to work? As Frederick Dale Bruner presses the problem, “Isn’t the fountain more important than the channel, the source than the means?”
Last week, when my oncologist judged my monthly blood work and body exam to have been sufficiently encouraging to justify cancelling my upcoming PET scan, he snapped off his latex gloves and, in his thick Serbian accent, he said “These drugs are a miracle.”
He looked surprised when I said, “Amen.”
In response, he raised his eyebrows at me, “What— your faith has made you well?”
““It is done for you according to your faith.” And at that very moment, the servant was healed.”
But how?
How can faith heal?
How can faith move mountains?
How can faith work what only the Word can work?
The answer to the question comes by way of another question. The decisive and distinctive teaching of the Protestant Reformation, the principle message that Martin Luther recovered from the apostle Paul, is that sinners are justified by faith alone apart from works.
The Reformation slogan begs the very same question.
How does faith make us righteous?
As Robert Jenson writes, “Justification of the sinner is a mystery but it is not a paradox or a fiction.” Faith truly does fashion us into righteousness. When God declares those who hearken to the gospel in faith righteous, this is a judgment of fact not fiction.
But how can faith do such wonderful things?
Jenson answers:
“It is a theological maxim that God’s person and his attributes are the same reality. Therefore the forming of the soul by God’s righteousness is a ruling presence there of God himself. And since the gospel is the Word of God-in-Christ, God’s presence in the soul is specifically the presence of God-in-Christ. Thus Luther made it a principle of his theology: In ipsa fide Christus adest, “In such faith, Christ is present.” Faith makes us personally and actually righteous because faith is a transforming and ruling presence in us of the Righteous One himself.”
The incarnation extends to all of creation. The Son of God assumes not merely Mary’s flesh but all things. Including faith.
The centurion’s child is healed, yes.
But the fathomless mystery, the immeasurable miracle, is that the child’s father possesses Christ. The LORD standing before the centurion already simultaneously dwells within the centurion— by faith. In his simple faith, he has Christ. Faith can heal because the LORD Jesus Christ heals. Faith can move mountains because Jesus moves mountains. Faith can work what only the Word works because in faith the Word himself is present.
This is the miracle.
Not that Jesus heals from a distance.
But that faith makes Jesus present.
That through faith the Righteous One dwells within you.
That even if all you’ve got is a mustard seed’s worth of faith Christ is living like a squatter within you.
If it took every ounce of your faith just to show up here— even death will listen!
“What— your faith has made you well?” My doctor asked, his dubious expression lifting his eyebrows above his glasses, “Or maybe God has done it.”
“There’s no difference,” I said.
And once again he looked surprised.
Years ago, when Stanley asked me to “just say the damn words,” I did.
And we both believed that Christ heard us.
Not because of who I was. Not because of who he is.
But because Christ was already there.
In us.
And when Jesus speaks, even death listens.
It is not always so.
There are twenty names on our congregational prayer list, and now there is a war in Iran added to it. The cup does not always pass from us. It did not pass from him. Not every storm listens. Not every cancer clears. Not every prayer is answered—at least not in the way we dared to speak it.
It’s not magic. It’s not a transaction. There’s no formula, no spell.
But it is a miracle.
It’s a miracle because Christ is present.
In ipsa fide Christus adest.
Even in faith as small as the one that dragged you here today, Christ is. Even in a whisper, he’s there. Even in doubt, he's near. And where Christ is, the Word is, and where the Word is, there is power.
Power to call dead things out of tombs. Power to give life to what you thought was beyond reach. Power to make even your shaky, mustard-seed faith a means of mercy for someone else.
So, no—it’s not always that the cup passes.
But it is always the case that when you pray, you don’t pray alone.
When you believe, you don’t believe in vain.
When you dare to speak the word, the Word is already in you, eager, like the Son to the centurion, saying: “I will come. I will heal.”
This is the miracle.
Not that God answers every prayer just as we plead it.
But that when we pray, when we believe, when we say the damn words—
The Father and the Son and the Spirit listen.
And when God listens, even Death does too.
So come.
Come to the Table.
The loaf and the cup—they are not magic.
But don’t be fooled by the absence of spectacle.
They are miracle.
They are the miracle that the Word who made all things took flesh and hasn’t let it go.
They are the miracle that the Word who spoke galaxies into being now nestles himself in bread and wine, into the hands of sinners and saints, into lips that confess and lips that tremble.
They are the miracle that Christ, in all his mercy and might, dwells in you.
You!
Not because you are worthy, but because you are willing to come. Not because you are holy, but because you dare to speak, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word…” That word— that same word spoken by the centurion, the same word we speak every time we come to this meal—that word still works what it says.
It is no accident that the Church placed the centurion’s words into the liturgy of the Table.
This Table is Capernaum.
This is where the boundary between heaven and earth thins. This Table is the place where Jesus comes under the roof of our unworthiness. This Table is the place where faith speaks, and Christ responds, “I will come. I will heal.”
So come.
Take.
And eat.
Speak the Word.
Or simply hold it in trembling faith.
Because whether the Word dwells on your lips or burns in your heart—
the Word works what it says.
And what that Word has said—finally, fully, and forever—is, “It is finished.”
That is not resignation.
That is resurrection.
That is Christ, risen, ruling, and real. In this bread. In this cup. In you.
By faith.
So come.
Receive the miracle.
Not that your cancer is gone.
Not that your prayers get answered as you hope.
Not that you get out of life alive.
But that when you dare to say the Word, the Word is already in you.
Already listening.
Already healing.
Already risen.
Already speaking!
And when Jesus speaks—even death listens.
Share this post