Perspective: What We Need to Believe

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

What We Need to Believe

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.  Amen.

Ephesians 3:20-21 (NRSV)

Believing what I can't see

Has never come naturally to me

And I've got questions

But I am certain of a love

Strong enough to hold me when I'm doubting

You'll never let go of my hand

From "Can Anybody Hear Me?" by Meredith Andrews

One day, while Jesus was traveling throughout the region, teaching the crowds, healing the sick, and calling people to be His disciples, He was teaching a crowd that had gathered in someone's house.  That day, a group of friends who had heard that Jesus was in their town went to the house, carrying on a stretcher a friend of theirs who was paralyzed, hoping that the mysterious traveling teacher and healer might be able to help him.  When they arrived and saw the crowd that had gathered at the house, they realized that they would not be able to get their friend anywhere near Jesus.  One of the friends looked at the roof of the house and had an idea.

The group friends of climbed to the roof of the house with their friend, tore a hole in the roof, and lowered the man on the stretcher through the ceiling right in front of Jesus.  Jesus was clearly impressed with the faith of the group who would go to such extreme measures to help their friend.  He said to the paralyzed man, "Friend, your sins are forgiven."

In the room with Jesus was a group of scholars and other religious leaders from throughout the region who had come to town to size up this up and coming prophet.  When they heard Jesus say that the man's sins were forgiven, they said among themselves, "Who is this who insults God?  Only God can forgive sins!"

Jesus said to them, "Why do you fill your minds with these questions?  Which is easier - to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'?"  He then turned back to the man on the stretcher and said, "I say to you, get up, take your cot, and go home."

At that moment, the once-paralyzed man did exactly what Jesus told him to do, to the amazement of everyone present.¹

Biblical scholar William Barclay points out that there are some very interesting dynamics at work in this story.  First, it is important to note that, in Jesus' day, it was commonly believed that suffering was caused by sin.  For example, in one account of Jesus' ministry, we read that Jesus and his disciples once happened upon a man who was born blind, prompting the disciples to ask, "Rabbi, who sinned so that he was born blind, this man or his parents?"²  According to the conventional wisdom of the day, the paralyzed man was in his current state because of his own wrongdoings.³  Jesus knew that such an understanding of the world was wrong, but it was ingrained into people's minds nonetheless.

Something I use very often as a computer programmer is an if-then statement.  An if-then statement is a logical construct that states that, if certain conditions are met, then certain actions may occur.  At work in this story are a number of if-then constructs that Jesus had to navigate in a particular way.

According to Barclay, because of the way Jesus' audience had been programmed to think, certain conditions had to be met so that they could believe what they needed to believe at that moment.  The paralyzed man lived under the assumption that his condition was punishment for his sins.  He first needed to hear from Jesus that his sins were forgiven so that he could believe that healing was possible for him.  In one version of the story, Jesus also told the man to take heart when He told him that he was forgiven.⁴  For the scribes and Pharisees in the room, the converse was true: they first needed to see the man healed of his paralysis so that they could believe that his sins were indeed forgiven as Jesus said.⁵

Basically, Jesus gave people present exactly what they needed so that they could believe what they needed to believe.

Later on, after the mountaintop experience to end all mountaintop experiences, Jesus and three of His disciples hiked down a mountain to find the other disciples in the middle of a kerfuffle.  A desperate father was hoping that the disciples might be able to heal his son, who was tormented by epilepsy-like symptoms attributed to a demon.  Unfortunately, they could do nothing to help.  Frustrated, Jesus yelled at His disciples, "You faithless generation, how much longer must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you?"  Jesus then proceeded to deal with the problem himself.

The boy had another seizure, and the father told Jesus how much his son had suffered because of his symptoms.  Sometimes the seizures even put his life in jeopardy, causing him to fall into fire or water.  He then said to Jesus, "If you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us."

Jesus replied, "All things can be done for the one who believes."

The man then cried out, "I believe; help my unbelief!"⁶

What the desperate father said to Jesus is probably one of my favorite statements in the Bible.  The man proclaimed his belief and then, in his very next breath, confessed his inability to believe.  It is both a contradictory statement and, at the same time, a very human thing to say.  Perhaps this man had tried countless times to find help for his son and was disappointed over and over again.  Perhaps the disciples' failure to help his son was just one more confirmation of what he already feared to be true, that his son could not be helped.  It is as if he said to Jesus, "I want to believe with all my heart, but I just don't know if I can!"  The man was not disappointed again, for Jesus was able to heal his son.

Perhaps there are things that we desperately need to believe but, for various reasons, find ourselves unable to believe.  Maybe what we've been taught about the way the world works keeps us from believing, as in the case of the paralyzed man, or maybe disappointments from the past keep us from believing, as in the case of the desperate father.  Perhaps there is something we need to believe, but perhaps there is also something we need so that we can believe what we need to believe.  Sometimes old assumptions must be dismantled so that new possibilities may be realized.  I believe that Jesus is sensitive to this reality, as evidenced by His gracious words to the paralyzed man.

I leave you, the reader, with two questions:

• What do you need to believe right now?
• What do you need so that you can believe?

I urge you to look within yourself and offer all these things to God.  May we believe what we need to believe, and may God help our unbelief.


Notes:

1. Luke 5:17-26 (CEB)
2. John 9:1-2 (CEB)
3. William Barclay.  The Gospel of Luke, Revised Edition.  1975, Westminster Press.  p. 62
4. Matthew 9:2 (NRSV)
5. Barclay, p. 62
6. Mark 9:14-29 (NRSV)

Le paralytique descendu du toit was painted by James Tissot in the late 1800s.

Perspective: Do We See?

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Do We See?

When the Pharisee who had invited Jesus saw what was happening, he said to himself, If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him.  He would know that she is a sinner.

Jesus turned to the woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman?"

Luke 7:39,44a (CEB)

Do you know who I am?

Do I know who you are?

See we one another clearly?

Do we know who we are?

From "Turn the World Around" by Harry Belafonte

Many memorable stories about Jesus involve some sort of disruption.  When Jesus returned to His hometown and delivered a very offensive sermon, the congregation disrupted the service when they dragged Him out of the synagogue and tried to throw Him off a cliff.¹  Not long after that, while Jesus was preaching in the synagogue in another town, a demon-possessed man made a scene, and Jesus stopped preaching so that He could send the demon packing.²  Then one day, while Jesus was teaching in someone's house, some people tore a hole in the roof and lowered their paralyzed friend into the room so that Jesus could heal him.³  Later on, Jesus disrupted a funeral procession by bringing the deceased back to life.⁴

And once, when Jesus was invited to a meal at the home of a wealthy Pharisee, someone who wouldn't have been on the guest list crashed the party and made a spectacle of herself.⁵

One day, a man named Simon invited Jesus to enjoy a meal with him at his house.  At this point, Jesus had already made a name for Himself because of His teachings and His miraculous healings, and Simon likely wanted to spend some time with Him and maybe even pick His brain regarding various issues.  Realize that this meal was not some intimate gathering among acquaintances.  High-society types like Simon would have served dinner in his house's courtyard, and famous teachers like Jesus would have attracted people from the city who hoped to glean some wisdom from the dinner conversation.  This meal was a very public event.⁶

Among the people gathered at Simon's house that evening was a woman from the city who was identified as "a sinner."  Eugene Peterson, in his translation of the Bible, The Message, identifies the woman as "the town harlot."⁷  This woman made her way to where Jesus was reclining at the table and stood behind Him, crying.  She then began to wash His feet with her tears and dry them with her hair.  Afterward, she began kissing His feet and anointing them with the jar of perfume she brought with her.

As this awkward spectacle was taking place, a chagrined Simon thought to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him.  He would know that she is a sinner."  Simon was part of a sect within Judaism known as the Pharisees.  The word Pharisee is derived from a word meaning "set apart" or "separated."  The Pharisees set themselves apart by dedicating their lives to the strict adherence to the rules of their religion.  They set the bar extremely high, and they looked down upon people who weren't as religious as they were.  They separated themselves from the people they considered unclean, people like the prostitute who was washing Jesus' feet.⁸

Sensing what Simon was thinking at the moment, Jesus told him a parable.  A creditor had two debtors, one who owed him fifty days' wages and another who owed him ten times as much.  Neither could pay off his debt, so the creditor forgave both of them.  Jesus then asked Simon, "Which of them will love him more?"

Simon, probably realizing that Jesus was stepping on his toes, so to speak, reluctantly answered, "I suppose the one who had the largest debt canceled."

Jesus affirmed Simon's answer and asked, "Do you see this woman?"  Jesus then pointed out that Simon had neglected the basic acts of hospitality for the day.  He had given Jesus no water for washing His feet, which was necessary in an age when people wore sandals and walked on dusty roads, and He did not greet Jesus with a kiss, which was the customary way to greet a rabbi.⁹  The "sinner," on the other hand, poured out all of her affection on Jesus, washing His feet with her tears, drying them with her hair, and anointing them with perfume and kisses.  It was obvious that she had more love to express than the Pharisee.

Consider again what Jesus asked Simon: "Do you see this woman?"  It was a rather ironic question.  First of all, considering what was going on, it was very unlikely that Simon would not have noticed the woman.  Secondly, it calls into question which of them could not see the woman clearly.  Moments earlier, the Pharisee was wondering whether or not Jesus had any idea what kind of woman was touching His feet.  The Pharisee thought that Jesus did not see the woman for who she really was, but Jesus revealed that the Pharisee was the one who did not see the woman for who she really was.¹⁰  Simon did not stop to think that maybe there was more to the woman than the way she put food on the table, nor did he consider what consequences might have brought the woman to where she was in life.

Perhaps this story is all about the way people see each other.

Pharisees like Simon often saw people in terms of their faults.  They saw the people Jesus befriended as tax-collectors, prostitutes, and sinners - as people to be avoided.  Jesus, on the other hand, saw them as children of God who needed love.

How do we see the people in our midst?

As their faults?

As the means to an end?

As an obstacle?

As a potential threat?

As part of the background?

As children loved by God?

It sounds inhuman to think of another person as merely an obstacle or a means to an end, but I've found that it is a lot easier than one might think.  Every now and then, while I'm on the way to work in the morning, I end up driving behind a front loader, a construction vehicle that moves significantly slower than the speed limit.  I'm typically not cognizant of the human being driving that front loader, as I am too busy being irritated that I cannot drive as fast as I want.  As you probably know, I spend a lot of time at coffee shops.  Rarely do I consider that the barista is someone who has hopes, dreams, and anxieties like myself, and not just someone who gives me coffee if I give her money.

In Insurrection, philosopher Peter Rollins writes,
While love cannot be directly seen, love in a very specific way enables us to see.  For in daily life we perceive others in much the same way as a cow gazes at cars.  We walk past thousands of people every week, not necessarily seeing any of them.¹¹
Rollins suggests that love is what enables us to truly see people, but I wonder if maybe learning to see people for who they are, as beloved children of God, is what enables us to love them.

This story also calls into question whether or not we see Jesus for who He is.  Scholar William Barclay suggests that Simon the Pharisee might have been a "collector of celebrities," in other words, someone who likes to hobnob with as many famous people as possible.¹²  Simon just saw Jesus as another great thinker and healer gracing his dinner table.  The woman, on the other hand, saw in Jesus compassion, forgiveness, and love.  She saw someone who accepted her when the rest of the world had given up on her.

I think this story also calls into question whether or not people are able to see Jesus in those who claim to follow Him.  Do people see in Christians the love and acceptance Jesus showed the woman at the dinner party?  Or do they see the judgment and contempt the Pharisee showed her?  I think that, in many ways, Christians have become the modern-day Pharisees.

How do we see the people in our midst, particularly those who are different from us?  How do we see Jesus?  How do people see those who claim to follow in His footsteps?  Remember that Jesus said the way we treat the sick, the needy, the lonely, the stranger, and the criminal is the way we treat Him.¹³  May God give us the eyes to see each other as God sees us, and may God give us the hearts to love the world as Christ loved us.


Notes:

1. Luke 4:16-30
2. Luke 4:31-37
3. Luke 5:17-26
4. Luke 7:11-17
5. This perspective is based primarily on Luke 7:36-50 (CEB).
6. William Barclay.  The Parables of Jesus.  1999, Westminster John Knox Press.  p. 188
7. Luke 7:37 (The Message)
8. Wikipedia: Pharisees
9. Barclay, p. 190
10. JRD Kirk and Bryan Berghoef.  "Do You See? with Bryan Berghoef."  Homebrewed Christianity's LectioCast, 06/06/16.
11. Peter Rollins.  Insurrection: To Believe is Human, to Doubt, Divine.  2011, Howard Books.  p. 120
12. Barclay, p. 189
13. Matthew 25:31-46

The painting featured in this blog post was painted by Frans Francken the Younger in 1637.  The image was cropped from the original.

Introspection: Through My Glasses, Darkly (2016)

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Through My Glasses, Darkly (2016)

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.  Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

1 Corinthians 13:12 (NRSV)

---

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

And lean not on your own understanding;

In all your ways acknowledge Him,

And He shall direct your paths.

Proverbs 3:5-6 (NKJV)

You call me out upon the waters

The great unknown where feet may fail

And there I find You in the mystery

In oceans deep my faith will stand

From "Oceans" by Hillsong United

In September of 2010, I went with some of my friends from the Wesley Fellowship on a little excursion to Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina.  One thing that draws visitors to this site is a small waterfall called Sliding Rock.  The waterfall's gentle slope and the pool at the bottom make Sliding Rock a naturally-occurring water slide.  At first, I was not planning to join my friends in sliding down this rock, but, at the last minute, I changed my mind.  As it is often said, "You only live once."

As I stood in line for my turn to slide down the waterfall, I did not realize that I was forgetting something important.  To be honest, I was a bit distracted at the moment.  I had recently lost a lot of weight, so I was a little excited to be shirtless and not self-conscious.  I even made it a point to flex for a girl I liked at the time - not that I actually had anything to flex.  When my turn came, I sat down, gave myself a little push, and began speeding down the rock.  When I was about halfway down, I realized that I was still wearing my glasses.  When I hit the pool at the bottom, they were gone.

I did not even attempt to search for my glasses.  I seriously doubted I could find them, and I didn't want to be the jerk who held up the line because he failed to secure all loose objects.  Besides, I tend to wear the same pair of glasses for a really long time, so I wasn't too worried about losing them.  I had already been wearing my current pair for over six years, and they needed to be replaced anyway.  The lenses were chipped; the frame was bent; they set crookedly on my face; and sometimes they fell off my face when I looked down.  I had been planning to buy new glasses for nearly a year, but indecisiveness in selecting a frame had caused me to put it off.  Losing my glasses would force me to finally do what I had been needing to do anyway.

I shrugged off my loss as a minor setback.  I would simply wear an old pair of glasses until I could get a copy of my prescription and buy a new pair.  The problem with my plan was that I'm nearsighted and depend on my glasses to see clearly.  The only old glasses available were a pair I wore back in high school, and my eyes had changed so much that, when I wore them, things still appeared fuzzy at a short distance.  It was difficult to read from a distance, so I still needed to squint.  Straining my eyes gave me headaches, and the blurry vision made me feel as though I was constantly in a haze.  Perhaps the worst part of the experience was not being able to see people's faces from a distance.  My blurry vision put me in a bad mood.

Five days later, I finally bought some new glasses at the mall, and they made a world of difference for me.  I was able to see so much better than I had all week that it was almost overwhelming.  Everything I saw seemed so clear and beautiful.  I didn't realize how much I had taken my vision for granted.

It has been nearly six years since I bought those glasses, and I'm still wearing them as I write.  As I noted earlier, I tend to wear the same pair of glasses for a very long time.  Considering their current condition, I'm starting to think that I might need a new pair.

---

I originally shared this story less than one week after it happened.  It was a story I really wanted to share, and I felt that there was a spiritual lesson to be learned from it.  To me, the haziness of my vision that week symbolized the haziness of the path ahead of me in life at the time.  The excursion to Sliding Rock with the Wesley Fellowship would become a bittersweet memory for me.  I think that, even then, I knew deep down that my time with the group would soon be coming to an end.  I knew that I had outgrown the group of collegians that had been my community of faith for the last five years and that I needed to find a new community.

I must confess that the reflection I originally wrote about my experience was a bit forced.  In my eagerness to share that story, I did not sit with it long enough to glean the spiritual lesson I actually needed at that time.  Back then, I hastily came to the conclusion that the path ahead of me was hazy because I was not turning my whole life over to God.  Not long before that time, God had delivered me from a bad job situation and led me to something better.  At that time, the idea that God actually had a plan for my life sounded attractive and made a lot of sense.

In the years that followed, I painfully learned the hard lesson that there are people out there, some of whom are pastors, who will pass off their own agendas as God's will.  Having let myself be drawn into a bad situation and having fought my way out of it, I am no longer a huge fan of messages about giving God control or surrendering one's expectations.  I tend become rather suspicious of pastors who encourage their congregations to do such things, wondering if they will presume to communicate "God's will" for them.

Six years ago, I argued that we need at least three things to turn our lives over to God: the humility to admit we need help to find our way, an openhandedness with our desires and expectations, and the patience to wait for God to act.  I don't think I was wrong back then, but, looking back, I realize that I missed something even more important than the other three - trust.  An old hymn tells us that "there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey."¹  As I see it, we need trust in God in order to freely obey God.

I think that, if I had spent more time reflecting on that story in the context of my life back then, I would not have said that the road ahead of me was hazy because I wasn't trusting my life to God.  Instead, I probably would have said that the hazy road ahead of me was a reason I needed to trust in God at that time.  I think that maybe that was the message I really wanted to share back then.  I say this now, having journeyed through the fog and having entered into the fog once again in the past year.

---

My journey back into the haze began almost one year ago with a sense of restlessness and a request to my friends for prayer: I knew that something in my life needed to change.

At that time, I became the de facto leader of my Bible study group - which became my community after I left the Wesley Fellowship - when a number of core people left.  When I realized that the future of this group was uncertain, I feared that I would soon be further isolated from my peers.  I made the decision to finally leave my home church due to the loneliness, futility, and pressure that comes with being the youngest member of a small, aging congregation, and I started attending a church with more people my age.  A couple of months later, due to waning attendance and enthusiasm, I had to disband the Bible study group.  Over the next few months, I came to the realization that, despite the wonderful new friends I had made, the church I had been attending was not a good fit for me, and I changed churches once again.

To summarize, I asked my friends to pray for me because I felt my life needed to change, and I ended up losing a number of things that were important to me and familiar to me.  Needless to say, I have been enveloped in fog.  Despite the fog, I do not despair.  I keep moving forward, trying different paths, trusting that my story is actually going somewhere.

One of my spiritual gifts is teaching, but I haven't had very many opportunities to teach since I left my home church.  This year, wondering if I might have a future teaching at a higher level than Sunday school, I volunteered to teach a class on Wesleyan heritage and doctrine for Lay Servant Ministries.²  I especially wanted to teach this class because I had been feeling that many of my fellow Methodists have forgotten or abandoned their roots.  Unfortunately, the class was cancelled because the required number of students did not register.  Still, I am not giving up: I fully intend to teach this class someday.

A few months ago, when I came to the realization that the church I was attending was not a good fit for me, I found a church that seems to be moving in the same direction I've been moving.  It is not quite as large as the church I had been attending, but it has been experiencing a lot of growth lately, and I think it is a place where I can experience growth personally.  I'm also hoping that, as I get to know the congregation, I will rediscover the sense of community I've lost.

Probably one of the most surprising parts of my journey lately was the weekend I spent in jail.  I have a couple of friends who are adept at getting me into trouble in all the best ways.  What I mean to say is that a couple of friends of mine invited me to help out with the new Epiphany Ministry in my city, a ministry for incarcerated teenagers.³

We all go through times in our lives when the road ahead of us is hazy.  Such experiences are not necessarily a result of a lack of trust in God, for life has a way of becoming hazy all in its own, despite our best efforts.  Such experiences are, instead, invitations to trust in God to lead us to where we need to go.  During such foggy times in our lives, all we can do is to keep moving, open to God's guidance, trusting that the path ahead of us actually leads somewhere.


Notes:

1. From "Trust and Obey" by John H. Sammis
2. http://www.umcdiscipleship.org/leadership-resources/lay-servant-ministries
3. http://www.epiphanyministry.org/

The photograph of my glasses was taken by me.

Perspective: The Point of Authority

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

The Point of Authority

And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.  And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

Matthew 28:18-20 (NRSV)

And I will give

With the life that I've been given

And go beyond religion

To see the world be changed

By the power of Your name

From "The Power of Your Name" by Lincoln Brewster

Rehoboam, the fourth king of Israel, was a corrupt and oppressive ruler.  Inevitably, the people rebelled, and the kingdom was riven in twain.  A former taskmaster named Jeroboam suddenly found himself in a place of great authority when the people made him the first king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel.¹

Sometimes, with great power comes great paranoia.  Jeroboam feared that a common religion with a common place of worship would ultimately lead to a reconciliation with the Southern Kingdom of Judah.  Control of a reunited kingdom would revert to Rehoboam, causing him to lose his newfound power.  Naturally, Jeroboam decided to start a new religion for his kingdom with its own holy places, its own priestly order, its own holy days, and its own images for God.  He forged two golden calves and said, "You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough.  Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt."²

Jeroboam's actions should have raised a bunch of red flags for the Israelites.  Shortly after the Israelites were saved from slavery in Egypt, a priest named Aaron forged a golden calf and said basically the same thing Jeroboam would say hundreds of years later, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!"  Had Jeroboam's subjects remembered their own history, they would have realized that some very bad things were about to happen.³

Like Jeroboam, a later king named Ahab fell in love with his own authority and sought to increase his power.  To forge an alliance with another kingdom, he married a princess named Jezebel who brought with her to Israel the worship of the false gods Ba'al and Asherah.  Under their reign, idolatry spread throughout the land.⁴  The problem with idolatry is not just that it diverts attention from the one true God: it also causes people to do some very inhuman things.  The worship of false gods makes demands of us that the God who is Love itself would never make of us.  One prophet indicted the people of Judah, who also fell into idolatry, for sacrificing their own children to such gods.⁵

Ba'al and Asherah were weather and fertility gods, meaning that they were thought to have authority over the success of people's crops.  When the prophet Elijah appeared on the scene to speak out on behalf of God against the people's idolatry, he announced a drought, showing the people that their false gods did not have the authority they thought they had.⁶

After generations of bad leadership, both the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah were conquered by foreign powers, and the people of both nations found themselves as captives in faraway lands.  Though many of the exiles were eventually allowed to return home and rebuild, they always remained under the authority of a foreign power.  By the time of Jesus, the Jewish people were subjects of the Roman Empire.

---

Jesus did not seem to have a lot of fans in His own hometown, but He was apparently well liked in the town of Capernaum, even by the elders.  On one Sabbath day, not long after He delivered the sermon that got Him run out of Nazareth, He taught in the synagogue in Capernaum.  While He was speaking, a demon-possessed man started making a scene in the synagogue.  Jesus silenced the demon and then commanded it to leave the man.  The demon then knocked its host to the ground and then left him without doing any further harm.⁷

The people in the congregation were impressed with Jesus' authority.  They were impressed that Jesus spoke with authority, meaning that, unlike other teachers, He did not feel the need to quote those who came before Him ad nauseam.  The people were also impressed that Jesus cast out demons with authority, meaning that He could simply command demons to leave, unlike other exorcists who relied on bizarre rituals.⁸  Jesus performed numerous other healings in this town in a similar manner.⁹

Later on, when Jesus returned to Capernaum, He was met by some of the town's elders who begged him to heal the ailing servant of a certain centurion.  This centurion, despite the fact that he was an officer in the Roman military, was loved by the people of Capernaum because he loved the people.  It was he who was responsible for building their synagogue.

The centurion did not feel worthy to have Jesus come into His house or even to be in Jesus' presence, so he sent people to speak on his behalf.  He understood that, in the same way that his superior officers had authority over him and in the same way that he had authority over his soldiers and servants, Jesus had authority over demons and illnesses.  He knew that Jesus had a kind of authority that his superiors could only dream of having.  It was then Jesus' turn to be impressed, for Jesus had not seen such faith even among His own people.¹⁰

---

The corrupt kings of the Northern Kingdom selfishly used their authority to solidify and increase their power.  On the other hand, Jesus, the King of Kings, used His authority to help people.  When we become addicted to whatever authority we have, it becomes an idol, an object to be worshiped instead of God; however, when we use our authority in the service of others, it becomes an object for worshiping God.

At the end of one Gospel account, Jesus tells the Disciples that all authority has been given to Him and then commands them to travel throughout the world, inviting others to be His disciples.  Jesus had given them the authority as Disciples to take part in His redemptive work and the authority to invite others into the same work.

So how did these early followers of Christ use the authority they were given?

On one afternoon, while heading to the temple for prayer, the disciple Peter encountered a crippled man who was begging for money.  He said to the man, "I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk."  He then pulled the man up to his feet, and then the healed man headed off, walking, leaping, and praising God.¹¹

Later on, a Christian named Philip encountered an Ethiopian official who was reading the words of one of the ancient prophets, words about the Suffering Servant.  This man wanted to know who this Servant was, so Philip told him about Jesus.  The man decided that he wanted to be a follower of this Jesus, so, when they approached some water, he asked, "What is to prevent me from being baptized?"  The rules of Philip's own religion could have prevented the man from being baptized, as the man was a eunuch.  The Scriptures clearly stated that "he who is emasculated by crushing or mutilation shall not enter the assembly of the Lord,"¹² but Philip disregarded this rule and baptized the man anyway.¹³  Nearly two thousand years later, Christians in Ethiopia still trace their roots back to this eunuch.

Authority is often cast in a negative light.  For example, it has been said, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."¹⁴  Power is only an evil when we use it selfishly; however, when we use our power to serve others, as Jesus used His authority, it is a great blessing.  Peter used the authority vested in him to lift a person up.  Philip used his authority to break down barriers.¹⁵

How will you use whatever authority you are given?


Notes:

1. 1 Kings 12:1-24
2. 1 Kings 12:25-33 (NRSV)
3. Exodus 32
4. 1 Kings 16:29-33
5. Jeremiah 7:30-31
6. 1 Kings 17:1
7. Luke 4:31-37
8. William Barclay.  The Gospel of Luke, Revised Edition.  1975, Westminster Press.  pp. 50-51
9. Luke 4:38-41
10. Luke 7:1-10
11. Acts 3:1-10 (NRSV)
12. Deuteronomy 23:1 (NKJV)
13. Acts 8:26-40
14. Wikipedia: John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton
15. For more about the early Christians' breaking down barriers, see Acts 10:1-11:18,15:1-32.

Jesus Healing the Servant of a Centurion was painted by Paolo Veronese in the 16th century.