The faith of one centurion
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Matthew 8, 5-13
Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him, saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralysed, dreadfully tormented.”
And Jesus said to him; “I will come and heal him.”
The centurion answered and said; “Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, ‘Go’, and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
When Jesus heard it, He marvelled, and said to those who followed; “Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel! And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go your way; and as you have believed, so let it be done for you. ”And his servant was healed that same hour.
…Some centurion, the centurion as a military leader in the Roman army, who had 100 souls under his leadership, came to Christ and asked for his servant to be healed. A little unusual, because first of all, this centurion was not from God’s chosen people, Israel, and he had nothing to do with the Bible, he had nothing to do with the Old Testament, he had nothing to do with Christ. And on the other hand, he did not ask for deliverance or help for his son or for his daughter or for any of his close relatives or friends, but he asked for his servant, and therefore it was unusual and strange how this centurion, someone that is of a high status, learned, intelligent man with authority, came to Christ, about whom many things were being said, and talked about, by the people to seek help for his servant.
Here, the Lord shows his characteristic, to receive all people without exception. On the other hand, we know how to classify people to “our people” and “your people” or such and such, people from this or that church, to group and divide ourselves based on different criteria, but all this is wrong. You see how a man who was not of Christ’s people and faith came to Him, and Jesus immediately received him, without any objection, without questioning him or looking for excuse not to receive him, and immediately answered him in the affirmative that He would now come to heal his servant.
Furthermore, again another astonishing and unusual response of the centurion: “Lord you do not have to come, I know that everything is under your authority. And I am also a subordinate man, I have people under me and to all my servants, when I tell them something, they do it immediately, so you do not have to come, just speak a word and my servant will be healed.” Unfortunately, we do not have that kind of faith.
That is trust and faith, and here the opportunity is provided for the strength of God to be made manifest, His power, but above all His love. However, we are of little faith, closed concerning ourselves, and we do not have enough love, or rather we do not trust, but we doubt because we do not have closeness to God. That is why our prayers, our wishes are not fulfilled. I will say again, if God listens to this gentile in regards to his servant, how much more to us, His sons, Orthodox Christians, it is clearly obvious that we do not seek Him.
From this event we can draw one more conclusion, a little scary for us. It is addressed to the chosen Jewish people at that time, for whom He says that He did not find such a strong faith in His chosen people, who for many years, for centuries, had been prepared to believe in the true God, and, in the Son of God who would come for the salvation of the world. However, they rejected Him and therefore new nations came. That is why He tells them that new peoples (nations) will come from the East and the West and will worship Him, they will become true believers, His true followers, which also happened at that time. We, Macedonians, are one of those new nations.
However, there is another danger in today’s time, for us. We were born as Orthodox Christians and we rejoice in that, especially that the name Macedonia is written in the Holy Scriptures. It is so and we should be happy about it. However, for example, how many Macedonians are here in this city, and you see at the church, an empty spot can be found to be filled. This means absence from God. So that is why we should be careful how we live. To live in piety and above all to love God. Our god, our idol, should not be money, it should not be our career, it should not be fame, or power, or who knows what else of this world.
Know this and take heed, that due to our lack of interest and absence, others will come from East and West and become Orthodox Christians and they will take our place. Of course, the Church is open to everyone and there is a place for everyone, but let us be included. Thus, let us not be surprised that we will also lose churches, we will lose the community (although we have already lost a few) and we will lose everything that is ours, what our ancestors invested and created. We will lose it because of our irresponsibility, I will say because of our stupidity. We will lose it because of our lack of love, because of our disunity and simply because of our improper lifestyle and work practice.
It is inevitable that we should become aware, stand up straight and seek Christ God who is the only Saviour and criterion. Everyone else and everything else will leave us one day and we will be left alone (by our self). Therefore we should not place our hope on anything of this world. None of the people are eternal, and they often undergo change. We may have money now, tomorrow we may not, most of the time it happens because of some demonic work, we will lose it just as we earned it. We will lose health and strength, we may lose status, and everything else, and in the end we remain empty, miserable, disconsolate, depressed, etc.
Therefore, let us be smart, reasonable, like this centurion, let us seek the true God. To seek the true God, means to truly and correctly believe in Him, to fulfil God’s commandments, above all the commandment of love. Let us love one another, no one is without sin, we all make mistakes, and let us forgive each other. Let us all be together and that in way when we are together we are stronger. We all know, especially from our past here in Australia, when we have been together, we have been poorer in heart, more humble, materialistically poorer, but all united together in this manner we have achieved much. All these churches and community centres that we have today were made by people who did not have a lot of money, but they had a lot of faith, they had a lot of hope, they had love and community spirit among themselves. Unfortunately we are losing all that slowly, slowly due to our irresponsibility and bad management.
May the Lord Jesus Christ, through the prayers of all the saints, give us wisdom, open our hearts and minds so that we can love each other, draw closer to each other, love Christ-God as the only God, as our only hope and consolation, and may we straighten out our lives for here, and prepare for the kingdom of heaven which is actually the only reality.
May God bless you.
Fr. Gavril Galev
Abbot of the monastery “St. Clement of Ohrid”,
Kinglake, Melbourne, Australia
02 / 07 / 2023
