Father Christopher Zugger

Leaving Nazareth, Jesus went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali— and in doing so, He fulfilled what was said through the prophet Isaiah:

¹⁵ “Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan,     Galilee of the Gentiles— ¹⁶ the people living in darkness  have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death  a light has dawned.”

Jesus made Capernaum his base, a city of Jews and pagans, in Galilee, a territory that the Pharisees and Sadducees mocked as being ignorant and damned because of the presence of so many Gentiles. This is where the Son of God chose to live, alongside the families of Peter and Andrew, James and John, and seven other apostles. Now here we have the ultimate representative of the Galilean pagans approach the Lord, a Roman centurion, an officer in command of 100 soldiers of the hated empire. This unique event in the gospels has the pagan soldier come forward with great faith, asking that his servant be cured. Jesus’ response is in verse 7: “I will come and heal him.”

The statement is made by the centurion that he is not worthy for Jesus to come under his roof, but only say the word and the servant will be healed, a sentence so profound that it was incorporated into the Roman rite Mass, modified slightly to my soul shall be healed. It is not only that the centurion knows a rabbi would get into a lot of trouble for coming into a Roman house; he also realizes that despite his own exalted status in Capernaum, he is inferior to Jesus. He knew that he was in the presence of someone who was much more than a prophet, because he has full confidence in what this Jewish man can do – achieve a cure simply by stating it.

Jesus first praised his faith, and then predicted that Gentiles would take the place of many Jews in the kingdom. The praise is: “I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.” In His travels in the land, in His public ministry, Jesus saw every kind of response. But this one was the greatest demonstration of faith He had seen, greater than any Israelite’s faith so far.

Jesus experienced people who walked away from him when his sayings were too challenging, like in John 6. He experienced his own apostles being weak in faith during as simple a thing as a storm, let alone what would happen in the garden of Gethsemane. This soldier, this foreign officer, has faith far beyond that of so many of the Jewish followers. In Luke’s gospel the local Jewish elders intercede on behalf of the centurion, saying that he helped to build the synagogue and was kind to the Jews. But that’s not what convinces Christ to heal the servant. It is the man’s faith.

Ruins of the synagogue at Capernaum

Jesus has an interesting quote regarding Capernaum and the towns around it in both Matthew and Luke –  And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades. For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day.  But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.” His lament is based on the fact that so many of the Galilean and Judean Jews would not accept him, would not listen to him. But here is a pagan Roman who comes forward. He is the only person in the four gospels looking for a miracle who does not ask Jesus to come to his house, or to touch the sick person, or who tries to bring the sick person near Jesus. He has complete trust and confidence that Jesus has the power and authority, given by God, to perform the cure at a distance, even a great distance. He has more faith in the power of Jesus to effect a cure than any Jew in the gospels does. He, a powerful Roman official, humbly accepted the fact that Jesus had authority. The majority of Jews did not accept that Jesus had authority over life and death, that He came in the full power of God. But this man did.

Matthew makes this the occasion for a stern warning to Jews, whose birth as Abraham’s posterity makes them “sons and daughters of the kingdom” (v. 12) but who nonetheless forfeit their birthright by refusing to accept Jesus as the Lord’s Anointed. The same holds true for Christians now – we cannot presume that we are saved just because we are baptized, or in the Catholic Church, or because our parents were believers. Christians must not simply address Jesus as “Lord” but humbly acknowledge his right to rule their lives day by day.

As sons and daughters of the kingdom, we cannot claim a birthright for granted. The Church today grows in Africa and Asia, but is declining in North America and Europe. People are entering the Church from different directions, while those born into the privilege of faith nurtured by generations of ancestors going back over a thousand years casually throw it away.

In 1969 a young German priest was interviewed on Radio Deutsche Welle, and he made this prediction: From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge — a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so it will lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, it will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members. But in all of the changes at which one might guess, the Church will find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the world. In faith and prayer she will again recognize the sacraments as the worship of God and not as a subject for liturgical scholarship.

That priest was Josef Ratzinger who became Pope Benedict XVI. We form part of that smaller Church in this small parish. You are here today because of faith, faith that hopefully is like that of the centurion. Some of you may very well throw away this treasure despite growing up in this parish and in this tradition. Hopefully most of you will hold onto this faith, this gift, and grow in it like the centurion did. That soldier had full confidence that what Christ said was true, a confidence that we can have: that Christ was God, that the sacraments are true, that the Church he founded on the rock of Saint Peter still exists today. May we turn to Him today, tomorrow, and every day, with the faith and conviction of the centurion, and may we be brave enough to bring others with us before the throne of the Son of God at the end of our lives. Christ is among us.