The Third Sunday after Epiphany – Healing Community

Romans 12:16-end       St Matthew 8:1-13

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Epiphany season is a meditation on Christmas, on what it means that God has come to us in the flesh in Jesus Christ.

We have come to know Jesus as a king for all peoples, when Jewish shepherds and Gentile kings came to worship him as an infant.  We saw Him as a boy in the Temple revealing himself as the Wisdom of God.  And last week and today He is revealed as the Power of God in his miracles – last week changing water into wine and today in acts of healing.

God has come to heal us, and as His image and likeness, He sends us to heal others.

This healing Jesus is bringing is profound – it is not just about sick bodies being made whole – though it is about that too.  But when we look at the circumstances of these healing miracles we see there are other layers – and these other layers may even be more important than bodily sicknesses.

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In the Gospel there are two healing miracles.  In the first:

Behold, a leper came to [Jesus] and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.”

We know the Leper is a Jewish man because Jesus tells him after the healing to follow the next steps in the Law of Moses.  The Jewish man’s leprosy (a term for a variety of skin diseases) also meant that he was estranged from his community.  There are strict laws in the Old Testament for those with skin diseases – this man would have had to stay outside the community until he could be pronounced clean by a priest.

But Jesus is not afraid to touch the man, which under the law of Moses would have made Jesus unclean.  But with Jesus purity flows from him to the unclean man, not uncleanness from the leper to him.

The sickness of leprosy was not just individual but always had a social implication.  Isolation is not something that God intends for us – community life is to be normative as a part of being human.  To Adam in the garden, God says, It is not good for the man to be alone.  Of the Ten Commandments God gave Moses – 6 are about our relations with others, showing us God’s intention that community life flourish.  Heaven is described in Revelation as a garden, but it is within a city…  Something in us is brought out in friendship with others – our excesses are curbed, and other people draw out of us our gifts and hidden beauty, and our hearts grow.  And those hearts are meant for connection with God and His creation.

So when we think of Jesus’ healing the lepers – we are also thinking about how he is restoring community to bring about instantiations of the Kingdom of God on earth.   Think of the fairy tales you’ve read, after a time of trial, often, at the end, all come together in a celebration of restored community.  We recognize intuitively and with satisfaction that this is truly how the stories should end.  God’s taking flesh to dwell among us restores humanity with God but also restores humanity with humanity.

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The second healing miracle also has this dimension but at an even deeper level:

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.” And he said to him, “I will come and heal him.” 

It is not at all obvious to us, when we read this at first, how unusual the encounter is.  We must remember that the Romans were an occupying force in Israel.  They enforced their rule with brutality – they were not loved by the Jewish people.  And yet this Roman soldier, out of care for his servant suffering at home, seeks out this Jewish teacher, and humbles himself before him, calling him Lord.

Jesus offers immediately to come to the home of a Gentile (a non-Jew) and to heal him.  The customs of the time forbid this as it could make Jesus ritually impure.  Gentiles might be idolators or may have done things in their homes that would, if contacted, have made Jews ritually impure.  But again, impurity will not flow to Jesus, but purity will flow from Him to others.  But in this case, it was not just any Gentile, but one whom many in Israel saw as the “enemy” of Israel.

The Roman centurion seems to know about Jewish custom – I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.

The centurion says he understands authority – and Jesus surely can just speak a word and it will be done.  And Jesus commends his great faith.

We can imagine that the miracle of the healing of the man is almost secondary to the message that the disciples and others gathered around are hearing.  The bitterness and deep suspicion in their hearts towards every Roman, is being affected, melted, as they see Jesus responding so generously towards their mortal enemy.

The demonizing of “the other”, for race, or ethnicity, on national or political grounds, so ‘natural’ for fallen humanity to do, is broken through.  The community of our common humanity is being reasserted and affirmed by Jesus.

“Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness.

To have been there that day, the people gathered would have had their world view shattered and expanded greatly.  Although the temptation would always be there, they would never be able to look upon a Roman again in the same way.  Nor would they be able to see the Kingdom of God as based on Jewish ethnicity alone, but on those who are faithful.

Today’s Gospel reading is in fact the very first passage after the Sermon on the Mount.  Our Gospel started with – When Jesus came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him.  These two miracles are Jesus demonstrating his teaching by his own actions:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.  For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.  For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?...   You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. [Matt 5:43-48]

And so St Paul, who was a most zealous Jew in his time, raised, as he says, “according to the strictest party of our religion I have lived as a Pharisee” [Acts 26:5], whose conversion we celebrate today, was called by God to be an apostle to the Gentiles.  He takes up this teaching in today’s Epistle, from Romans, an epistle that like no other, identifies the relation between Jesus and Jews and Gentiles.  Paul says:

Live in harmony with one another. Repay no one evil for evil…

If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

The restoration of community life is at the heart of the Law of Moses and is expanded in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Or one might say, the misinterpretations of the Law of Moses to restrict God’s grace or create a fence around the Jewish nation, are taken away by Jesus and seen and taught especially by St Paul.  Jesus healing miracles today are a part of that greater picture.  And it is probably where we find our greatest challenge individually.

When someone has denigrated his or her soul through dwelling on hatred, or denigrated in some other way…how will we step across the great divide?

We are tempted to be divided on issues of politics or on contemporary ethical issues or on race or national identity.  What could be more the realm of evil, and contrary to the kingdom of God, than if we fragment into factions hating one another.

Everywhere we have strong disagreements – it is human fallen nature to hold on to them and make them worse – how do we move beyond them?  If your enemy is hungry feed him, if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.  Heal him if he is sick.  And in so doing we change both the heart of our “enemy” and our own heart.

Let’s think this morning on those whom we have vilified by our words or by our thoughts.  What can we do to stretch across the divide.  What kindness can be shown, to acknowledge, to them and also to ourselves, their humanity?  Step out in love, Jesus shows us, and at times with great risk… and may something of God’s Kingdom be manifested in our midst.  Have you ever experienced this – where you stepped out where it was not expected, and there was a breakthrough in relations between you and the other person?

God came into the world in the flesh in Jesus Christ.  He showed us by his life and miracles that this ideal of the full restoration of human community is not pie in the sky, but possible, and how to do it with the hearts that we have.

Jesus stepped into the breach between God and man, and between Jew and Gentile, between friend and foe, to heal and to offer Himself on the Cross before it was asked for and before it was received.  Into the angry mobs and into the cruel hands of lawless man he placed himself in the great chasm, stretching out his arms to reveal divine mercy.

Let us now once again portray Jesus crucified in the Liturgy, and once again partake of His loving kindness, His mercy, His body and blood given for us.  And then following Jesus, put ourselves into the gaps we see with others – by loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us.  And may His kingdom be revealed in our midst – an epiphany of God in our flesh.

Amen +