Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 27 February 2022.
• First Reading: 1 Kings 8: 22-23, 41-43 (Solomon’s prayer of dedication of the temple)
• Psalm 96: 1-9
• Epistle: Galatians 1: 1-12 (Only one gospel. Surprise that they were turning to a different gospel)
• Gospel: Luke 7: 1b-10 (Capernaum, the centurion’s plea, the servant healed, Jesus impressed by his faith)
The sense of us and them probably goes back to the first cave-dwellers as they disputed access to the nearest watering hole or the hunting fields for game.
In this sense human nature has not changed very much despite all our education, medicine, engineering arts and communications. We still live in a land of us-lot and you-lot.
It applies to social and cultural differences, education and occupation, differences between countries, cities, suburbs and schools.
It challenges us whenever we think about universal values, matters of faith and politics. Just how universal are these values and understandings and just how far can we assume that others do or should think the same way as ourselves?
For many, it is those very differences that define themselves and which justify their claims against others who may wish to impose their own values and ways of doing things.
Yet as we look at Solomon’s dedication of the temple to God we also see his ambition that all nations should know the creator of the world and the Lord God of Israel as they come to pray in that temple.
The God of Israel would hear the prayers of those from all nations who turn to Him in faith and would heed their requests. Therefore the temple would indeed be a House for All Nations as they turned to the God of Israel in their prayers and worship.
In this there is a precarious balance between the universality of God for the whole world and yet the specific way in which He had made Himself known to and through the House of Israel.
And this precariousness comes to us again in the epistle of Paul as he wrote to the church in Galatia.
God had indeed revealed Himself to Israel in the law and the prophets, and this was specific to the House of Israel. Yet the same revelation had come to its climax in Jesus who was born, lived and died under the law.
But Jesus was the Logos who had expressed the will of God in the law and had exercised His spirit of interpretation of the law in His ministry.
He had confronted rigid regulation of the Sabbath with mercy in healing the sick, and equally, He had overcome the taint of leprosy by touching and healing those afflicted by it.
There was never anything wrong with the law – but there could be plenty wrong with the way it was interpreted and applied.
And so Paul insisted that the law would apply to those born under it but could not be enforced on those who had never known it.
The law might be an expression of the grace of God but it was never going to be the gateway to it. Those who had received the message of the unearned and unearnable favour of God in Jesus Christ were never going to be forced to its detailed and intimate demands.
That was never what the law was about and it could never be used as a way of distinguishing us-lot from the other-lot.
When Jesus came back to Capernaum in Galilee He was presented with an urgent plea on behalf of the servant of one of the occupying troops.
Yet this same officer was himself supported by the elders of the synagogue which he had built. They did not see him as other or an occupier. To them, he was a brother in the spirit even if he was not of the House of Israel.
To them, his faith and generosity spoke for themselves and they pleaded with Jesus for him. More than that, the officer himself had a personal faith in which he recognised the authority of Jesus. He was already in the household of faith even if of a different birth and heritage.
And yes, he spoke to Jesus as one who accepted and honoured the authority of Jesus in the spiritual realm.
What Jesus saw was a man of strong personal faith which rose to meet the challenges of the moment.
There was no criticism of him for being Roman or for being a soldier. But there was plenty of praise for the strength, the directness and the persistence of his faith.
In these strange times we also recognize the faith in Jesus Christ of others. It is also a direct and personal faith in Jesus and in none other. It is not some kind of concoction of self-directed spirituality but it is world-wide.
It embraces all who put their trust in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It covers Protestant, Catholic and Anglican.
It includes those of the Orthodox church, whether Greek, Russian, Serbian, Ukrainian or Coptic.
It knows when ‘deep calls to deep’ and when there is that kinship in Jesus Christ which surpasses all other social, cultural or political identities.
It rejoices in the same Lord, and it celebrates when He is made Lord of all.
As they hymn says, In Christ there is no East or West, in Him no North or South.
