Sermon 24th June 2007

Today's sermon by our Vicar, Cameron Barker, is based on the reading from Luke 8:4-18

A man walked into a doctor's surgery. 'What do you have?', the receptionist asked him. 'Shingles', he replied. 'Take a seat,' she told him. A nurse called the man into her room. 'What do you have?', she asked. 'Shingles', he said. She took his blood pressure, weighed him, and took his medical history. Then she told him, 'Take your clothes off and wait here'. A few minutes later, a doctor came in and asked him, 'What do you have?' 'Shingles' he said. The doctor looked him up and down, and asked: 'Where?' 'On the lorry outside', he replied – 'where do you want me to unload them?'

That's not meant to be a modern parable. It is meant to draw attention to the warning Jesus gave to his listeners here, twice-over: 'Listen, then, if you have ears!' / Those who have ears to ear, let them hear'. We're not always very good at listening. We are especially not good at listening if we think we know what we're about to hear – as that story demonstrates so well. But when it comes to hearing what Jesus has to say, our ears need to be open to what he really has to say! If they are open, then we might just find ourselves being surprised by what he does say. It could well be different to what we expect him to say!

Chapter 8 marks a real turning point in Luke's gospel. So far it's pretty much been all action – and fairly amazing action at that. Trevor summarised it for us in Jesus' own words last week: 'the blind have been given their sight; the lame walk; those with leprosy have been healed; the deaf hear; the dead have been raised to life; and the good news has been preached to the poor'. And, not surprisingly, Jesus has attracted quite a large following! People were flooding to him from nearby towns and villages now, probably hoping for more of the same. But Jesus was far from 'just' a healer. These things that he did were meant to point people to the message that he came with. These miracles were the visible signs of the good news of God's love for all people. But now it was time for Jesus to focus on the message itself.

So, from this point on in Luke Jesus began to teach and preach in a whole new way. The story that we've heard today is the first major parable that Jesus told – and it's all about listening! Actually – as we'll hear if we are listening – it's a story about listening and responding. So, if you have ears to hear, then listen! It's well worth listening, because this is the only parable that Jesus ever explained, in any of the gospels. Jesus may have taught the crowds in parables, mainly, but he didn't explain what they meant – not even to his disciples. As Jesus told them again here, his closest followers shouldn't have needed any further explanation, though. They already knew what God was doing, and why. The crowds didn't know – and Jesus did want them to know – but he wanted them to work it out for themselves.

We know that was so, because his disciples asked Jesus here why he taught in parables – and he told them. On the face of it, Jesus' reply, in verse 10, appears to be confusing. Jesus was quoting the OT prophet Isaiah when he said that he taught in parables so that the crowds would 'look, but not see, and listen, but not understand'. What Jesus was actually describing was a sad fact of reality rather than his own intention. In themselves the parables weren't hard to understand. They were simply stories taken from everyday life – like this one that we're looking at today. What they had was either a twist along the way, or a shocking ending that made the point Jesus wanted. However, anyone who tried to could make the connections from the story to their own life. If they didn't want to, though, they could walk away unchanged – which was just what did happen to Jesus all too often.

It doesn't take much looking back in Luke to see what sort of reactions Jesus had already been met with. There were the people, like the Pharisees, who wanted nothing at all to do with him. There were people who'd got all excited about what Jesus had done and said. But as things began to get tough, they had melted away. There were others who had been equally excited by Jesus at first, and had joined the crowds following him. But they had found too much other 'stuff' getting in the way: home, business, life, family, or whatever. On the other hand, there were those – like the disciples, and the women Luke began this chapter with – who had given it all up to stay with Jesus, no matter what.

Hopefully those categories of people sound familiar. They should do because those are precisely the responses that Jesus had just talked about in his parable! I know that it's usually called the parable of the sower – including by the heading in the church Bible! But, actually, the sower is the least important feature in this story! The sower is Jesus, of course. But in this instance, he's not the focus of attention. The main focus is not even on the seed that Jesus sowed – which, as he explained, is the word of God. The point he was making was about the soil where the seed landed – in other words, the response that it met from his hearers.

It may sound obvious, but this still needs saying: the seed in the story is always good seed. All the seed needs is the right kind of soil to land in for it to produce an impressive crop – 100 times what was sown. So it's good seed, that will grow in the right conditions. It's also worth saying now that Jesus was simply describing how the process was carried out in his day. Even to a townie like me it sounds like not the best way of sowing seeds. But in 1st-Century Palestine that is how they did it. They sowed the seed basically by throwing it up in the air for the wind to carry it widely. And of course there was some waste. The seed didn't land in the best place all the time. But the yield from when it did land in good soil more than made up for that wastage.

This is a simple, farming tale that could have left Jesus' hearers – then and now – asking, 'So what?' But for anyone prepared to dig a little deeper (to continue the agricultural metaphor), there's so much more here. Of course there's more for any church that wants to be mission-shaped to hear. If we are wanting to sow the good seed of God's word in the soil of Herne Hill, we need to think about how it's likely to be received. So, what do these responses that Jesus talked about in the parable look like here and now?

For example, what are the things that make people here hard, like the seed that fell on the path in the story? What are the factors that make people unwilling even to hear the message about Jesus? Is there anything that we can do to soften that soil, so that the seed can grow? There may well be, and we need to hear those things, and do them. But let's not forget that there's an enemy who wants to come and steal the seed before it can grow. A key part of our being mission-shaped, then, needs to be how we pray against the devil's works in this area – though perhaps we will need to think more about how best we should do that.

Then, how about that rocky ground? What about the soil that's too shallow to sustain on-going growth of the seed? Again how can we help people to keep on following Jesus even when things get difficult for them? There are times when life does get tough, for all of us. We know it does: it's a basic fact of life. But how can we best offer support, practical help and encouragement when people go through such times? I think that we don't make too bad a job of that here, in fact. But I was delighted that the St Saviour's Action Group gave this area some thought at its meeting last week. And St Paul's Action Group has already done so, and set up a pastoral support group as a result. But is there more that we could and should be doing in this area? This parable invites us to ask that question – and to act on the answer.

Next, what about the thorns? What are the things that preoccupy people here in Herne Hill. What takes up so much that it precludes people from being able to follow Jesus? Are they concerns like career paths, education, mortgage payments, a shortage of time or energy to take anything else on? How can we address such issues, and help people to put them into that eternal perspective in which they ultimately must be seen? How can we prepare such ground to receive the good seed of God's word? If we have ears, then these are the answers that we need to hear – and act on – if we are to be shaped for mission in Herne Hill.

Of course the parable invites us to recognise that we may not succeed in our efforts to change the ground we sow in. That's not to stop us from trying, though, or to make us think it's pointless. We are to persevere, not least because of the yield from the good ground. Don't forget that Jesus said such ground produces 100x what was sown. And, of course, there's abundant evidence of that truth all around you this morning! You don't have to look very far to see people who are doing what it takes, who are persevering, who are proving to be good soil, and producing a great crop.

Is that you, though? That's actually the question that this parable demands that we each ask ourselves. Yes it may have things to say about how we are mission-shaped as a church. But, as I've said often before, we are the church! So we need to be the ones in whom the good seed has taken root, and is producing that abundant, Godly crop. The sting in the tail of this parable isn't what it has to say about our mission strategy. It's what it has to say about what kind of soil we are! If you have ears to hear, then listen to that question, and answer it. As Jesus said, you don't light a lamp and hide it under the bed! You put it where people can see the light! To put it a different way, how do you answer the question Trevor asked last week. If you were on trial for being a Christian, is there enough evidence to convict you?

So, what crop have you produced for God's kingdom in the past week? Has your soil become hard, or shallow, or thorny for any reason? If so, I'd suggest you do something about that today (like asking for prayer afterwards). Or do you just need God's help to persevere, to keep on growing and producing the crop that He wants from you? Either way, this is a story that demands a response. You can choose to walk away from it unchanged, of course. But not if you have ears and are listening, to be honest. It's like all the parables that Jesus told: the truth is shouting out at you, if you want to hear it. Do you want to hear it, though? What kind of soil are you? Lets pray ...

Sermon from 17th June 2007

Today one of our Lay Readers, Trevor Tayleur, delivers a sermon based on the reading from Luke 7:18-34

Is Jesus the One?

Forthright, blunt-peaking, fearless. Whatever you made of his message, he definitely broke the mould, and his style was certainly abrasive. His ability to command an audience was never in doubt, either. He had won the admiration and the support of many. Now, unfortunately, he was in prison. But he hadn’t been forgotten.

Who was this person? John the Baptist. His plain speaking had been too much for King Herod. John was no respecter of persons, and not even the King had escaped from censure. But the King had refused to hear the message, and had thrown John into prison. But John wasn’t going to allow being in prison to side-track him from his mission, because when he heard about what Jesus had been doing, he had sent messengers to Jesus asking him, "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?"

In previous sermon series we’ve looked at how the people of Israel had for centuries been waiting for the Messiah, the one who was to free them from oppression. So John was now asking Jesus, “Are you the long-awaited promised Messiah, or are we going to have to look a bit further afield?”

Jesus’ reply would have left John in no doubt, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor." Yes, Jesus was the One. Perhaps not in the way people were expecting, but he was definitely the One. So where did that leave John the Baptist? Languishing in prison, out of sight and out of mind? Well, no. Jesus was very keen to establish John’s credentials. John was going to be executed in the not too distant future, but Jesus wasn’t going to let the memory of him die. Jesus spent some time setting the record straight, because John was so crucial to people’s understanding of God’s purpose. So let’s have a look at what Jesus said about John.

Jesus turned to the crowd and asked some questions. The first was, “What did you go out into the desert to see?” John didn’t preach in a smart auditorium in the middle of the capital city; no, he was stuck out in the middle of nowhere in very inhospitable surroundings. Yet we’re told that all of Jerusalem and the surrounding areas flocked out to see him. Why? What was it that made people go that far to see a preacher? “A reed swayed by the wind?” asked Jesus. No. John the Baptist could hardly be called a consensus politician. He didn’t bend his message to suit his hearers; he didn’t adapt his message to what focus groups might have told him. John was no reed, easily swayed. He didn’t pull any punches; he was a straight talker who feared no one.

“If not (a reed swayed by the wind),” Jesus continued, “What did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes?” Did they expect to see a smart dresser? No, of course not. John wore clothing made of camel’s hair and ate wild locusts and honey. “No,” said Jesus, “those who wear expensive clothes and indulge in luxury are in palaces.”

Jesus asked a final question, “But what did you go out to see?” The answer: “A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.” This time the answer was right. Yes, people flocked out all that distance to hear a prophet proclaim God’s word. There hadn’t been a prophet in Israel for 400 years and that’s a long time to be off the air. And John, for all his blunt speaking, had struck a chord in many hearts. He had spoken of another world drawing near. He had declared that God was about to visit his people; he had spoken about how the end of the age was upon them. And you can see how his whole approach fitted his message. If that was his message, it was no good allowing the norms of the society of the day and the opinions of others to mould it. That’s not how a prophetic message comes. John the Baptist practised what he preached; his lifestyle backed up his message.

And is that true of us? Someone once asked, “If you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” If we’re indistinguishable from the world around us, we can’t expect people to believe a message of another world and the end of an age. If we’re totally bound up in this world’s standards, patterns, ambitions and lifestyles, no one will believe us. No, John was different. He was a prophet; he lived like a prophet, and he spoke like a prophet. We claim to be followers of Jesus; do we live like followers of Jesus and do we speak like followers of Jesus?

The people had flocked out to see a prophet; indeed, as Jesus said, he was more than a prophet. The prophets had always pointed ahead, in good times and bad. They spoke of the news of a great day when God’s Messiah would come. And John stood in that tradition, but he had a very special role as well. In verse 27 Jesus quoted from Malachi, the last of the OT prophets; “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.” There was going to be a messenger who would role out the red carpet ahead of God’s king, the Messiah. “And John is that person”, said Jesus. John was given the honour of being the forerunner of the Messiah. Predicted, as well as predicting. And Jesus didn’t stop there in his praise of John; he continued, “I tell you among those born of women, there is no-one greater than John.” John is the greatest.

What did Jesus mean here? I don’t believe that Jesus was saying that John was more powerful than anyone else. There are no miracles attributed to him, but there are plenty to the likes of Elijah, Elisha and Moses. I don’t think that Jesus was saying that John was any holier than all the other great figures of the OT. The Bible doesn’t speak in that way. Rather I think it’s all to do with his place in history – that he’s the end of the line. He’s the greatest in terms of his place in God’s purpose. All the prophets had pointing fingers, fingers that pointed towards the future. “There is one who is coming” was their message. And at the end of each finger you found another prophet, pointing you on. And then you found Malachi, and he had a very long finger, one that stretched out 400 years to John the Baptist. And if you follow John’s finger, you go slap bang into the Messiah himself. That was his position: that was his astonishing privilege, that he was the prophet who pointed you right up to the Messiah. And that is why he was the greatest, because he pointed directly to the One himself.

And then Jesus spoke of a paradox. “There is no-one greater than John,” he said in verse 28, but continued, “yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” It’s rather baffling to hear that there is one who is greater than the greatest. How did this come about?

If we neglect the OT, it may appear as if Jesus appeared out of the blue. But it wasn’t like that. The Messiah and his Kingdom had been promised for centuries; it had been God’s plan right from the beginning. At times the people despaired, but the prophets kept on pointing ahead; “The Messiah will come.” And John was the only prophet who was able to look at Jesus himself and say, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) That’s his place in history; the prophet who was able to point directly at the One. But Jesus still said that the person who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than John. Why?

It’s all to do with our relative places in God’s plan. John marked the end of an age and the start of new one, the end of an age of transition and the start of a new one of fulfilment. John could take us right up to the threshold of the Cross and the Resurrection and Ascension. But before Jesus died on the Cross, John had been brutally beheaded. John could point to the Kingdom of God, but those who come after him are in it. John could herald the Messiah, but those who come after him can know the Messiah personally. John was the greatest; he was the direct forerunner to the Messiah. But those who have become part of God’s Kingdom through their faith in Jesus are greater than him. Those who are in the Kingdom can point even more clearly and certainly to the King. We have the benefit of being able to look back.

John had to ask, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” We don’t need to ask that question. We know that Jesus is the One. It’s an astonishing reminder of the immense privilege we have as Christians. For John in Bible terms belongs to the OT; we have the privilege of being in the New.

John was the greatest of all the prophets. He pointed directly to Jesus, the long-expected Messiah. It was not only his words that pointed to Jesus; his lifestyle backed up his message. And yet, because he lived before Jesus’ death and resurrection, even the humblest member of the new movement that Jesus set up is greater than him. And for us as Christians that is a huge privilege. Are we worthy of it and the challenges it brings?

So, what sort of response did Jesus get? Well, there were two very different responses which we can see in verses 29 and 30. In verse 29 we read, “All the people, even the tax collectors, when they heard Jesus’ words, acknowledged that God’s way was right, because they had been baptised by John.” All the people here probably means all the ordinary people, because we see in the next verse that “the Pharisees and the experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptised by John”. Amongst the ordinary people Luke singled out the tax collectors; they were the outcasts of society, hated and ostracised because they exploited the people on behalf of their Roman masters. Yet even they had been baptised by John. This showed that they had been willing to repent, to turn away from their wrong-doing and to commit themselves to God’s purposes.

In contrast to the penitent ordinary people, Jesus set the Pharisees and experts in the law. These were men who thought they knew the law of God very well. They were very good at reading the small print without ever coming to grips with the essential message. So they rejected the purpose of God for themselves. In their complacency and smug self-satisfaction they found nothing to repent of. They rejected God’s way; they refused John’s baptism and so would find themselves outside God’s kingdom.

Where do we stand? With the ordinary people and the outcasts who repented, or with the Pharisees and the experts in the law who closed their minds to Jesus because they thought they were good enough already.

If we were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict us?

Let’s pray: Thank you for the tremendous privilege that you have given us, that we can know for sure that you are the One God sent to the rescue the world. May we be worthy of that privilege. Help us to back up our words with actions, that our lives will match our beliefs so that in God’s strength we can bring Jesus to the heart of our community.

Sermon 10th June 2007

Jesus’ gift to a widow
Today's sermon is from our Associate Vicar, John Itumu, based on the reading from Luke 7:7-11


The situation that Luke describes was a serious one. This young man was the only son of his mother, a widow. She had been without a husband and now without a son. What did this mean? We know from an interesting conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees in Mark 7 – there was an expectation that children would use their resources to help their old parents.

There was an old Hebrew custom (Lev 27:28 & Nus 18:14) where a son could declare his goods Corban which meant dedicating his wealth to God. At death this would pass on to the temple, and thus possibly deprive his parents of the support they would need at old age. Once something was declared Corban, priests discouraged people from withdrawing any property.

However, according to Jesus, this is wrong and in contravention of the fifth commandment. The correct interpretation of honouring your father and mother as the fifth commandment demands includes providing for them at old age.

This widow’s future well being depends on her son. He is all she has got for support. It is clearly a catastrophic state to be in.
She is also probably past the age of child bearing with no hope to marry again. She is now without any means of support.

We are told in verse 12 that there was a large crowd from the town with her; carrying the young man’s body, mourning. Honouring a dead person was important business; a ‘good work’ that any believing Jew could not neglect. It might as well be that some simply joined the crowd because they were expected to.

Relatives would generally expect bystanders to join a funeral procession while mourning could go on for thirty days.
As a closely knit community, it might be that the whole neighbourhood was still in shock at the death of this young man – an only son.

Sometimes also, hired professional mourners would cry out aloud to attract attention to the procession. As Luke recalls the incident, there was a large crowd! And this is not the only crowd mentioned. We are also told that Jesus and his disciples went with a large crowd along with him to the town of Nain; therefore, two large crowds meet; one with Jesus and another with the woman. All put together it must have been an enormous crowd – so large that Luke and other people would remember this important funeral years later and write about it!

Do you remember that funeral in Nain? Of course, who would not!

It is all very good that there is a crowd of enthusiastic supporters. What would we do without close friends who look out for us?
It is a great thing to have people by your side when tragedy strikes.
Some communities in the world today still hire professional mourners. Others still have relatives of the deceased hosting large parties that last for days, depending on their status and wealth.

And all is usually (hopefully) done in the honour of the deceased. It is good to be surrounded by sympathisers. However, this widow must have clearly known what she must face when all the noise and euphoria of the funeral crowd is gone. There was no social security system, no community welfare. Without children, a widow was left to the charitable impulses of the community. Today they were crying with her; who would be there tomorrow? Because that is when reality of loss begins to set in.

Her visible means of support is gone. Her access to the larger community is gone. Her social status within the village is also gone. She would likely be reduced to a beggar, unless someone came to her aid. This was clearly the end.

And then Jesus saw her. Verse 13 records that when the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her which can also mean he had pity, felt sympathy and he said, ‘Don’t cry, don’t weep’. Commentators say the site of this town is well known, lying off one of the roads leading from lake Galilee to the coast and on the side of a steep hill. Then as Jesus and his disciples and his large crowd approach the gate of the town, they meet with this equally large noisy funeral procession carrying a body on a wooden plank.

Jews were normally buried within hours owing to the high temperatures. Since graves had to be out of the town walls, a procession had to pass through the main gate. And this was the life transforming venue for this woman. She certainly had passed through the gate many times – probably all her life. Sometimes in funeral processions, other times not. But she probably never imagined that she would soon be in a funeral procession of her dead and only son – probably also after having escorted her husband through the same gate.

But on this day, Jesus had an appointment with her. And this made the difference. Jesus makes the difference! Just imagine the cacophony and the commotion and the noise and then Jesus spotting her, then walking towards her saying the words – don’t cry.

I have no idea what this widow must have thought! What does he mean don’t cry? Then you hear the commotion and noise suddenly drop as Jesus makes his way towards the corpse. What is he about to do? And then he touches it – breaking all rules of ritual purity. Touching a dead body defiles. All the boundaries of ritual purity have been crossed and blatantly broken! And all this for love and compassion; to give a gift to a widow.

And what a splendid gift! Jesus said, young man, I say to you, get up! The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. What a gift! What a wonderful disclosure of the character of the mission of Jesus! What a revelation of God’s redemptive and timely intervention! What wonderful compassion! What a great love! What restoration! What a magnificent piece of news for the socially marginalised!

For this is our God, friends. That is the God I commend to us all this morning. He reached out to us – hopeless sinners. And his amazing compassion led him to the cross. He had pity for us and his love, his great love held him on that Roman cross till he said, it is finished!

He is compassionate to the able, articulate, powerful who ask and have faith like the centurion. He is their God.
He is equally compassionate to the helpless, destitute, those without a voice. And he speaks to the dead hopeless situations too! He is the God of the universe. That is our God!

Jesus came to make a difference – when I met him, he transformed me, and I know I speak for many. But it could be that you are here today and still haven’t met him – I mean the man Jesus himself, not the Sunday morning/evening routine church experience.
I do not diminish the importance of ekklesia - meeting together like this on a Sunday – it is a biblical and Godly thing to do.
It aids process evangelism, the journey to faith that leads to, if one wants, to a personal encounter with Jesus Christ through repentance. The difference in our lives comes with this encounter!

I would encourage you to take a step of faith and try him. Things change. Jesus came to rescue us from ourselves… from eternal death and he offers his gift of eternal life. All we need to do is accept it, just like the woman accepted his son back.

And this has far reaching implications on how we live.I like the famous quote by GK Chesterton:
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.

Things totally changed when Jesus showed his compassion to the widow. The mood of the crowd changed from mourning to awe and praises. They immediately remembered their history. Not too far from Nain was located the Old Testament town of Zarepath (1 Kings 17) - where the great prophet Elijah had raised another widow’s son to life. No wonder they proclaim, a great prophet has appeared among us! The still hadn’t recognised Jesus as the one to come.
Don’t cry, do not weep – powerful words by Jesus.
Yet we know that he does not always intervene in our sickness, our suffering. Sometimes we are angry when God does not answer our prayers as we desire.

Other times we blame him for not intervening when our loved ones suffer or die. Other times he is just silent! I wish I could explain why! I don’t know. Only God knows.

Paul’s words to the 2 Corinthians 4 :7-10 encourage me. I hope they do the same for you.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

I really struggled with why God had allowed my Christian family of three to be reduced to two, especially when other families in the village had so many members. Why me, I asked. I now know truly with all my heart that He, God, is justified to ask – why not you?

Sermon 3rd June 2007

Today our Vicar, Cameron Barker, preaches, based on the reading from Luke 7:1-10

Have you heard the one about nuns running an orphanage in Saudi Arabia? Their car ran out of petrol just outside the nearest town. Unfortunately, they didn't have a jerry-can with them so they had to make do with a potty to carry petrol back to their car. They were spotted pouring the contents of the potty into the petrol tank by a passing sheik. You can easily picture the look on his face! He was so amazed that he stopped to comment. 'I do not share your religion', he said. 'But I certainly admire your faith!'

By way of contrast, the classic definition of faith as given in the Bible is this: “To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see / Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see”. X2. Well, have you ever wondered what that looks like in practice? If so, wonder no more – because, metaphorically speaking, we have just seen it!

To be clear, I am talking about our Bible story rather than the one about the nuns! Today adults return to the gospel of Luke – with a bang! We began the year studying this book – which adults did right up to Easter. After a break to look at Peter's first letter, we are now coming back to Luke. We're going to stay with it right through to this summer. And there could be no better place to pick things up than with this story of the faith of the Roman officer / centurion.

Luke's main purpose in writing his book about Jesus was so that his readers could respond to the person at the centre of the story. As I said at the start of the year, Luke wanted everyone to respond to Jesus. He was a Gentile himself, a non-Jew – just like this officer / centurion. So Luke knew from his own experience that the good news about Jesus was for all people. Luke hadn't been disciple himself. But he had spent much time with the key figures of the early church. He even made personal appearances in the second book he wrote – Acts. Luke was one of Paul's constant travelling companions on his mission to spread the good news about Jesus far and wide. Through Paul, Luke had met many of the original disciples. He had been able to hear their stories about Jesus, as he sought after the truth of just who he was and what he had done.

Luke was convinced that Jesus was the Son of God, the saviour of the whole world. And he wanted to convince others of that truth too. That was why Luke wrote his first book: to give an accurate, scientific record – Luke was a doctor, remember – of what Jesus had said and done. Luke always planned to write a second book. So in Acts he then set out how what Jesus had said and done impacted the lives of people all over the known first-century world. But the story of changed lives began – as it continued – with the person of Jesus; just as it did with this Roman officer / centurion.

To put this event in context in Luke, we left the story back in February, with Jesus calling his first disciples to follow him. After bouncing around Luke a little in Lent, we're now picking it up a chapter or so later. Most of that chapter sets out Jesus' teaching, in Luke's version of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus ended his teaching with a challenge to his hearers to build their lives on what he'd said. And here, at the start of chapter 7, we have a great example of someone who did just that. The Roman officer / centurion was someone who had heard, or had heard about, what Jesus had said, believed it – and then simply acted on it.

Do you know, there are only two occasions in the gospels when Jesus expressed amazement at people's faith. This was one of them, obviously. The other was when Jesus was amazed at how little faith people in his home town had in him. So this is only time that Jesus was positively amazed by someone's faith. And note that it was at the faith of an outsider, a Gentile – a Roman soldier, even! The picture that most of us carry of occupying forces – even if we lack any experience of them ourselves – is usually negative. And with good reason! By definition victorious armies look down on the people they have conquered. The Romans in 1st-century Palestine were no exception, which is why they were so hated. But there are often exceptions to the rule – and this officer / centurion was clearly one of those.

In Luke – unlike in Matthew's version – it was a group of Jewish elders who approached Jesus on his behalf. It was the officer's / centurion's idea to approach Jesus for help. He had at least heard about what Jesus had done round Capernaum, if not seen it for himself. And he clearly had a personal interest in what was going on spiritually. He was a good man, from what the elders said – and sympathetic to their faith. The officer / centurion had even paid for the local synagogue to be built. So he deserved Jesus' help, the elders told him – and Jesus appeared to agree.

As we heard, Jesus went with them, to do what had been asked of him, presumably. And, in case you missed it, that meant to heal the officer's / centurion's servant. He was so ill that he was about to die – a detail which wouldn't have passed Dr. Luke by! But Jesus never made it as far as the officer's / centurion's house. Another group of messengers met him before he got there – with another message from the officer / centurion. It's very interesting that the Roman disagreed with what the elders had said on his behalf. He didn't even think that he was worthy to come to Jesus himself, these messengers said. He certainly didn't deserve to have enter Jesus his house. And Jesus didn't need to come in person anyway, they told him!

This was the part that so amazed Jesus. The second message from the officer / centurion was that Jesus simply needed to give the order / say the word – and his servant would be healed! No wonder Jesus was amazed by his faith! How much, how great a faith does that show? To believe that Jesus is capable of healing someone that sick, with just a word – and one spoken when not even there at that? That is what the officer /centurion believed; and that is what he told his messengers to ask Jesus to do. And, as we heard that is what then happened – astounding as it may sound.

Now, to be fair, the Roman officer / centurion did live in a different world to the one we do. He was, in one sense, simply applying what he knew about how his world worked to the problem he had. He was a soldier, an officer and an owner of slaves. In his world, what he said went: his word was law. As his messengers pointed out to Jesus, people did what this officer told them to – just as he did what those above him told him. Or else! It is a pretty foreign notion to people like us in the 21st- century western world, perhaps; but that is how it was back then. So in one sense it was a simple step for that officer /centurion to take, to ask Jesus to give the order, and just expect it to be done.

Let's not miss the implication of what that soldier asked for – and believed, though. He was saying that Jesus had the same authority over sickness as he, the soldier, had over other people. He believed Jesus could order the sickness to go – and that it would! And he was right! By the way, neither Luke nor Matthew even record that Jesus gave the order. They simply say that the second group of messengers went back to the house, and found the servant well!

This story must make us re-examine our understanding of God's authority. That could be hard, given that none of us are used to that kind of authority structure. But maybe that says more about our culture than it does about what God is like. In the same way, this story may also challenge us about whether we truly believe what we say that Jesus is able to do. If we believe it, perhaps we'll act like it's true rather more often than we do. It might just need to have an impact on our prayer life too. Perhaps it should get us asking God much more directly to do things – even if we don't always get the answers that we want.

I'm conscious that the whole area of healing is a very raw one for many of us at the moment. At both churches we have just lost people much younger than we think is right. These are people we have prayed for, and not had the answers we've wanted. There is no simple or easy answer to the 'why' question, but we need to press on in faith and trust in God in these challenging times. That's something Jocelyn & I had personal experience of this week. After 3 years on the transplant list – and praying for the right thing throughout that time – Jocelyn was called in on Tuesday night. We had a big decision to face, about whether we'd put our faith and trust in God – no matter what the outcome.
Of course it didn't go ahead, or I wouldn't be here! But we had a challenging five hours in the hospital, waiting for the final decision, knowing the risks if it did happen, and if it did not. All we could do was to trust God, and to have faith that he'd see us through, no matter what. But I won't pretend that it was easy – because it was far from it. It's at times like this that the rubber hits the road in our faith, though. When we face difficult times – as we all have to do – who do we put our trust in? Who do we turn to? And do we believe that God is able to do what we're asking him to?

So we can't lose sight of the fact that Jesus was amazed by this man's faith either! In many ways this was as big a step for that Roman officer /centurion to take as it would be for any of us to do the same today. The important thing is that he took it. He asked Jesus to do this huge thing, in faith and trust – and his prayer was answered. So this story must encourage as well as challenge us. It doesn't matter who we are, how on the outside we feel. We can, &and must, come to Jesus, and put our faith and trust in him. We may just discover, as that officer /centurion did, that it is a truly life-changing experience.

Over the coming months we'll see and hear other stories of how Jesus changed peoples' lives, in a whole variety of ways. What we'll need to keep in front of us is that Luke wrote all these stories down to help his readers know who Jesus was and is. His aim was for them – us – to encounter Jesus, and to be changed by doing so. He wanted them to put their faith and trust in God at all times – not just in the hard times. And so let's pray that, encouraged by this story we'll do just that day by day as we meet this Jesus.