In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. What does it mean to believe in God? What does it mean to say, “I have faith”? Is it just an idea?
Is it just a profession of faith? Is it simply the fact of saying, “I believe in Christ”? You see this a lot in Protestantism where they want you just to state your belief that you’re saved. “I believe in Jesus” and that’s it.
According to what the apostle James, the brother of the Lord in his epistle says, “You believe that there is one God, you do well, yet even the demons believe and they tremble. Even the demons believe and they tremble before God, yet their faith, the faith of the demons is dead faith,” because St. James says later, “Faith without works is dead.” So what’s the difference between us and the demons? Is our faith alive or is it dead?
And how do we know the difference? What does real and living faith look like? In today’s gospel, we are given an example. Christ says about the centurion, “I have not seen such faith in all of Israel.” That should be quite alarming to us that out of all the chosen people of God, this outsider, this Roman centurion is held up as being the one with the greatest faith.
He says, “In all of Israel, I have not seen such great faith.” That is a wake up call. What is it about the centurion that makes his faith so great? What is it that he has? Because if Christ says about him that I have not seen such great faith in all of Israel, we should desire what he has.
We should want that type of faith. So I’d like to take a closer look at today’s gospel reading and I want to highlight three aspects of the centurion’s faith that make it a living faith, a great faith and not the dead faith of demons. And those three aspects of his faith are his humility, his trust and his obedience. First, the centurion’s faith is a living faith and not a dead faith because of his humility.
This Roman centurion comes to Christ because his servant is sick. Keep in mind that this centurion is a man of importance. He is a military commander. He is a man of status and of rank.
First, it should be impressive that he is concerned about his servant. Servants come and servants go, yet this Roman centurion was concerned about his servant. And then he comes to Christ and who is Christ in the eyes of the world at that time? He was a Jewish rabbi, a Jewish teacher.
Think of the great risk that this Roman centurion is taking by going to Christ for help. A military commander of the great Roman Empire, going to this Jewish rabbi, this Jewish teacher for help. Despite all of that, the centurion approaches Christ in humility, not regarding his status, not regarding his rank, not regarding what his fellow Romans or his fellow soldiers might think. And then when Christ offers to come to his house, how does this man of great authority, of great status, of rank, how does he respond, no Lord?
I am not worthy that you come under the roof of my house. Just imagine the great humility of this Roman centurion. St. John Chrysosom says, “Humility is the root, the mother, the nurse, the foundation, the bond of all virtue.” In other words, humility is the mother of all the virtues.
Without it, we cannot approach God in faith. You remember the story of the Pharisee and the publican. The Pharisee stood before God in prayer, praying, but what was he doing? He was judging those around him.
He was judging the publican and justifying himself before God why he is so great. He went away condemned. The publican on the other hand would not even lift his gaze up towards heaven, but rather looked down, beat his breast, and said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” He did not judge anyone but himself. How often do we come to church judging other people?
Thinking that we are in some way better than the person next to us or across from us or behind us. Thinking that we are superior in whatever way it might be. We look down on them, we judge them, and we gossip about them. And after receiving the most precious body and blood of Christ inside of us, we go to coffee hour and we talk about them.
The audacity that we have to stand before the living God while we are judging others. Instead of our prayers arising and ascending, they instead become like heaps of burning coal falling back upon our heads and burning us. How can we stand before the living God and consider that we are anything before him? Dust thou art, O man, and unto dust thou shalt return?
The Roman centurion says, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under the roof of my home.” And I want you to listen to what we pray in the third prayer preparation before receiving Holy Communion. And if you do not know these prayers, they are in the back of the Divine Liturgy Book. There are ten prayers before Holy Communion. And if you would like a copy, you can always email me or text me and I can send you a copy of those prayers.
But listen to what we say, just a sentence out of the third prayer, O Lord my God, I know that I am not worthy, nor sufficient, that thou should enter under the roof of the house of my soul, for it is all deserted and in ruins, and thou has not a worthy place in me to lay thy head. But as from the heights of thy glory, thou hast humble thyself, so now bear me in my humility. We must acknowledge that there is nothing we can bring before God except our nothingness in order to receive Holy Communion. That there is nothing that we can bring before Christ except our nothingness.
And in this humility of faith, Christ will receive us. Second, the centurion’s faith is a living faith and not like the dead faith of the demons because of his trust, because of his trust. He trusted Christ after he confessed his unworthiness that Christ should come under his roof. He says to him, “Only say the word, and my servant will be healed.
Only say the word, and my servant will be healed. The centurion trusts that whatever Christ says will happen. He has that complete faith and trust in Christ. If we do not trust in God, what kind of faith can we claim that we have?
We must approach Christ trusting that our entire life is in his hands, all of it, and that everything that happens, the good and the bad, all the suffering and all the joy, everything is in God’s hands. Those and sisters, true faith is trusting in God even when we don’t understand. Even when we don’t understand his plans. We pray in the Lord’s prayer, “Thy will be done, not my will, thy will be done.” Those words have meaning only if we believe them.
We must trust that everything that happens to us is allowed by God and allowed by him for a reason, and we trust that he is guiding our life. We pray in the morning prayer of Saint Philip of Moscow, these words, “Teach me to treat all that comes to me throughout the day with peace of soul and firm conviction that thy will governs all.” In unforeseen events, let me not forget all are sent by you, the good and the bad. We have to trust God that he knows better than we do and that he allows things to happen for our betterment, that we might grow closer to him in fellowship with him. All the good, all the bad, is allowed by God.
And if we face our difficulties trusting in Christ, they will only bring us closer to him and they will build up our spiritual integrity. Don’t be afraid of anything, be courageous and trust God. Finally, the centurion’s faith is a living faith because of his obedience, because of his obedience. The centurion says, “I say to one go and he goes, to another come and he comes and to another do this and he does it.” He recognizes that just as his soldiers are obedient to him, that we must be obedient to Christ in all things because Christ is the ultimate authority.
Nothing is above him. But people in general have a problem with obedience because they only want to be obedient to themselves. Was this not the reason Adam fell? Was this not the reason Satan fell, that they wanted to be obedient to themselves?
My beloved family, obedience is so central and fundamental to the Christian life. Thanks to Christ, to the gospel, to the Holy Church, to the leaders of the Church, our bishops and priests, to our parents, to our spouse. Without obedience, we cannot call ourselves Christians. Without obedience, there is no spiritual life and we act like the demons.
Faith without obedience is demonic. Without obedience, we cannot be freed from our sins and passions. Without obedience, we cannot deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Christ. In Christ himself, we see this, Christ, who is God in the flesh, was obedient to his earthly presence, was obedient to the love Moses, was obedient to the Roman authorities, was obedient, Saint Paul says, even unto death, if Christ who is our God was obedient, who are we to imagine that we are not called to that same obedience?
If you cannot be obedient, then you cannot deny yourself. If you do not deny yourself, you cannot take up your cross. And if you cannot take up your cross, then you have nothing to do with Christ because you have become your own authority. To be obedient is to share in the life of Christ his cross, his death, his resurrection.
Faith is the source of God’s blessing and the path to the kingdom of heaven. So my beloved family, what does it mean to believe in God? What’s the difference between faith that is alive and faith that is dead? The difference between the faith of the centurion and the faith of demons who believe and tremble.
And the difference is humility, trust and obedience. And if we can cultivate these three virtues in our life, we can turn our faith into a real, authentic and transformative faith that illumines every aspect of our life. We will truly become a light that cannot be hidden when people see that our faith is real and authentic. How can we transform the world around us if we ourselves are not transformed?
How can we give people the light of Christ if we do not have the light ourselves? People look at Christians and they mock us because they don’t see Christ. They mock Christ because we mock Him, because we do not contain Him inside of us. So let me conclude by saying, we should be very careful about claiming that we have faith in God if we are not cultivating humility and obedience and trust.
Otherwise, we may be imitating the demons and not the centurion because faith without works is dead, and the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.