Saturday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time
When I was in high school we were given a classwork assignment to reflect on a passage of Scripture. I had gone to Mass nearly every Sunday of my life but I suddenly drew a blank. I had no idea what to make the subject of my reflection. I’m not even sure I knew what was or wasn’t in the Bible. I probably had a dozen Saints run through my head that are after the Biblical period. Additionally, I had no idea where to find anything. So I popped open the Bible, chose Luke (because why not), and searched the section headings until something caught my eye. Like many teenage boys, my search needed to go no further than centurion (I figured I wouldn’t find Gandalf, ninja, or pirate no matter how hard I searched). Anyway, I found myself reflecting on Luke’s version of today’s Gospel from Matthew, the Healing of the Centurion’s Servant. Almost 14 years later and I still finding this story rich.
The richness I want to delve into today surrounds the identity of Christ as revealed in this story. Matthew’s gospel conveys that Christ is Lord. It is so easy to forget that Jesus is more than a wise man or nice guy. He has legitimate, rightful authority as the Son of God and the son of David. The Centurion recognizes Christ’s authority so clearly and asks Christ to heal his servant from a distance for He trusts Jesus’ authority. Do we?
However, Christ’s Lordship is not something He ‘Lords’ over the people. Instead, He has scandalously used His Lordship to become incarnate and walk among us. It is fitting that today’s healings express a similar kind of solidarity. Christ, the Lord of lords, heals a centurion’s servant. He heals Peter’s mother-in-law, and cared for those who were brought to Him in the evening (likely brought by daytime laborers). These healings revolve around servants, workers, and those who fade to the margins: the centurion’s servant, Peter’s mother-in-law who serves them when she is healed, and those who came in the evening, after the day-labor was finished. This is the Christ that comes so low and so humbly that he makes himself present in solidarity with the least of these.
Finally, the quote from Isaiah makes the whole passage even more scandalous. The quote goes back to Isaiah 53 when the Lord is promising the messiah as suffering servant. Here is a rabbi from Nazareth that has this authority to heal and cast out demons and yet spends his time with servants. He heals the least of these because he is being revealed as the suffering servant, the stumbling block.
This is our same Christ today. He is the Lord and stands in authority, the practitioner of scandalous humility and solidarity, and the fulfillment of Isaiah's suffering servant of prophecy.
-Spencer Hargadon