St. Matthew's Sermons

The Epistle, Romans 13:1-7 - The Gospel, St. Matthew 8:1-13

The events of today’s gospel take place just after Jesus finished the famous discourse called The Sermon on the Mount. St. Matthew tells us that “the people were astonished at Jesus’ teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” (Matt. 7:28-29).

The gospel healings develop this theme. The two people who ask Jesus for healing express their faith in Jesus’ authority. The leper said, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” The centurion illustrated Jesus’ authority with a military analogy. He commanded soldiers and they had to obey. Similarly, Jesus had authority over disease. He could tell it to go away and it would go.

The epistle also talks about authority. St. Paul says, “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities.” This is connected to the authority of Jesus as Lord. As St. Paul explains, “There is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves” (Rom. 13:1-2).

Exercising the faith our lesson prescribe is often more challenging in real life than it sounds in principle. The leper said, “If you are willing, you can make me clean”—and Jesus was immediately willing. Sometimes we come to Jesus believing he is able to heal us or help us, but Jesus is not immediately willing. Similarly, what do we do with the command to obey the government when the government is really bad, or when we, personally, are the victims of governmental injustice?

These are not new challenges. The Acts of the Apostles record many miracles and healings in the mission of the early church. However, the later New Testament writings, especially the letters to the churches, call believers to patience and faith when the answer doesn’t come immediately. Jesus himself exhorted us to persistent prayer using the example of a widow who wore out the judge with her complaints until he finally gave in (Luke 18:1-8). He ended that parable with a rhetorical question. “When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?" (Lk. 18:8).

St. Paul healed people and performed exorcisms. Yet, in 2 Corinthians 12, a later stage in his ministry, we are told that he prayed three times to be healed of an affliction he called, “a thorn in the flesh.” God told him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." (2 Cor. 12:9). Jesus was able to heal him but was not willing at that moment in that circumstance.

If we persevere in following Jesus in the life of prayer, we will experience both the miracle of answered prayer and the challenge of prayer not yet answered. This tension reflects the nature of the Christian life in this world. The primary goal of God’s work in our lives is to recreate us in the image of Christ. We are being prepared for our ultimate destiny in the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is with us now through the Holy Spirit. Sometimes it is revealed to us now in miracles of healing and visibly answered prayer. But the kingdom is not yet fully here. Consequently, every healing in this world is temporary, and not everything is healed. This tension is the root of the foundational Christian prayer, “Come, Lord Jesus.” When Jesus comes everything will be healed.

This same tension exists around the desire for justice. It is hard to overstate how important justice is to the biblical narrative. The Ten Commandments are about justice. Biblical justice is rooted in two simple principles. First, God created us and God redeemed us. Thus, justice means giving God the worship and honor he is due as Creator and Redeemer. Second, since God made us in his image, justice means honoring other people as God’s image bearers. As Jesus said, “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren you did it to me” (Matt. 25:40).

Popular discussions about justice omit the primary biblical duty of justice to honor and worship God. This renders the second duty of justice impossible. We cannot honor the image of God if we do not honor God himself. This is the reason that from the beginning the church made one great exception to the command to obey the governing authority. The church met for the Eucharist on Sunday even when Caesar legally prohibited it. Caesar has a God-given vocation to punish wickedness and vice, but Caesar has no right to deny God the justice he is due.

Now, justice is a big and thorny topic in the church. It surfaced during the pandemic and the riots. It continues wherever people are treated unjustly. It raises questions. How much protest is justified? How much is required? How activist should the church be in protesting injustice?

The church has never been afraid to confront injustice in rulers. The great church father St. John Chrysostom, at the Sunday Eucharist, called out the emperor for unjust brutality in a war—while the emperor was sitting in the balcony. Not surprisingly, John Chrysostom spent some time in exile. The most profound prophetic confrontation I have witnessed was by Mother Theresa of Calcutta. During a trip to America she was invited to address a joint session of congress. She told that joint session that she wasn’t sure how long God would allow a nation to exist that killed its own children. A joint session of congress has never been that quiet since that moment.

The command to obey the government and the command to exercise a prophetic voice remain the church’s dual vocation. This tension is governed by the biblical truth that this world is not perfectible apart from the coming of Jesus and the completion of the New Creation. We are witnesses for God’s justice, but we must never mistake the world for the kingdom. We are called to remain blameless in the face of the world’s injustice while we wait for the world’s true Lord to render his righteous judgements.

Nonetheless, the desire for universal justice is the essence of the prayer, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” In the western world, the desire for the kingdom is often associated with personal fulfillment and comfort. However, in the Bible personal fulfillment and comfort is inextricably connected to communal justice. Only when Jesus judges the world in righteousness, only when every creature made in his image and redeemed by him is treated justly, will everyone be made whole. We must never allow our faith in Jesus to shrink into a desire for mere personal happiness. A desire for true justice in all the world is the main motive for the prayer, “Come Lord Jesus.”

The irony of calls for justice in the world is that they are frequently made by those who deny God the justice he is due. This makes true justice impossible. The human problem of injustice is rooted in our rebellion against God. It is because Cain would not give God his due that he ended up killing his brother (See Gen. 4:3-8).

This is why the Book of Common Prayer teaches us that it is our bounden duty “to worship God every Sunday in his church” (BCP 291). Our worship of God is not a Sunday only thing, but the way we order our time reflects the priority of our commitments. Worship is a matter of justice, not merely personal fulfillment.

After we fulfil the first duty of justice on the Lord’s Day, we leave the altar of God to be witnesses for God’s justice in the world. We administer justice by the way we treat each person we encounter each day, by the way we side with those who are being treated unjustly, and by our willingness to stand for uncomfortable truth, as we pray and wait for Jesus to come and bring complete justice and complete healing.