A Marvelous Faith
A Sermon on the 4th Sunday After Pentecost
My brothers and sisters, following the Great Feast of Pentecost we have spent the past three Sundays celebrating the saints of our Holy Church: first we kept the feast of All Saints who have shown forth throughout all the world, then afterward we honored our spiritual forefathers on the Sunday of All Saints of Russia, and finally last week we celebrated the beloved saints of our own American land. And today, the Holy Church continues this pattern of offering us a living example of the humility and faith and love that all of us as Christians are striving to make our own, through the grace of the All-Holy Spirit. Yet today, this example comes to us from a most unexpected source: not from the ranks of the clergy or the monastics, nor from those of the martyrs or the ascetics, but from the ranks of the armies of pagan Rome — even as those very armies were occupying and oppressing God’s own chosen nation.
Truly, as the Scriptures tell us: “the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7). We should all meditate deeply on the Lord’s words as He marveled at this pagan Roman soldier in today’s Gospel: “Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel” (Matt. 8:10). Often we might be tempted to regard our outward status as Orthodox Christians — or even as monks or as priests — as evidence of some sort of spiritual superiority over those who seem to be less religious than us. But, my brothers and sisters, such an attitude is nothing but Phariseeism; if even a shadow of such a thought darkens our heart, then truly we stand in danger of everlasting condemnation, according to the word of Christ which we have just heard: “the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 8:12).
On the contrary, we must always remember that every single pagan unbeliever we meet is potentially just like the centurion in today’s Gospel passage: needing only a single encounter with Christ for their faith to be awakened — a faith perhaps far stronger and more profound than that to which we ourselves have as yet attained. For truly this centurion’s faith was incredible, causing the Savior Himself to marvel at it. Even the disciples continued to be frequently overcome by doubt, though they had witnessed the divine power of the Lord Jesus Christ made manifest countless times already. Yet this centurion, who had never even met Christ before, immediately had a boundless and implacable faith that no miracle could possibly be beyond His power, and no sickness could possibly be beyond His cure — without even any need for His physical presence.
How was such firm and profound faith possible for a commander of the armies of pagan Rome? How did he attain to that which remained far out of the reach for even the most pious and devout among the children of Israel? The Scriptures tell us nothing of what brought this man to the shores of the Sea of Galilee that day two thousand years ago. They tell us nothing of the paths taken by his pagan heart before he fell down at the feet of the Savior and begged for his servant’s life. And truly, we do not need to know that about which the Scriptures have kept silent, for these few brief verses already tell us absolutely everything that we need to know. They tell us how God had begun to mysteriously prepare the centurion for the day when he would finally meet and place his faith in the Lord.
What was it about the centurion’s heart that made it possible for such “great faith” (Matt. 8:10) to dwell in him? Above all else, it was his obedience, his humility, and his love. It was precisely obedience that taught the centurion that he could have total faith in the power of the Son of God: “I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it” (Matt. 8:9). Yet unlike so many others, his authority did not puff the centurion up with pride: note how careful he was to say that he was a man “under authority,” rather than possessing authority. He knew and acknowledged that he was merely a steward of his office, and that others rendered obedience unto him not for his own sake, but for the sake of Caesar whom he served. And his astonishing humility ran even deeper: this commander of the glorious armies of Rome did not consider it beneath him to beg one of his own subjects — and a penniless preacher at that — to grant him his request. And what was this request? He was not begging anything for himself, nor even for his own wife or children or friends. No, he was begging for the life of his servant. Truly, there can be no explanation for a pagan Roman behaving in such a manner other than the sincerity and the profundity of his love.
Ultimately, it was his love that brought the centurion to Christ. It was his humility that enabled him to fall down before Him with a pure heart. And it was his obedience that taught him how to put his absolute faith in the mercy and the power of the Son of God.
And he did all of this as a pagan. How much more, then, ought we — who have been given the grace of the All-Holy Spirit, to “be filled with all the fulness of God” (Eph. 3:19) — strive with all our might to live our lives with just such greatness of faith, founded on just such obedience and humility and love. May God grant us all to imitate the example of this centurion with our whole hearts, to walk — with patience and with hope — the path to faith taught to us in today’s Gospel passage, so that we might one day be accounted worthy to be numbered among those who will “sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 8:11). Amen.