“…And My Servant Will Be Healed”
4th Sunday after Pentecost
Romans 6:18-23; Matthew 8:5-13
Those who have studied the history of the ancient world, especially the Roman Empire, know that Rome and the Romans were very proud and arrogant and, in many cases, disdained other countries and peoples whom they conquered with their powerful legions of troops, their organization, and their system of government.
Therefore, the representatives of the Roman authorities in the enslaved countries (governors, procurators, and officers of various ranks) overwhelmingly had a developed complex of superiority and contempt for the enslaved peoples. Commandants of military outposts, including centurions, enjoyed not only authority over the army but also over the local civilian administration.
One of these centurions was in Capernaum. But unlike other Roman officers, he was not arrogant, but a man of good soul, showing love and mercy to people of other faiths. In The Gospel of Luke, where this event is described, we read that the Jewish elders said this about the centurion:
“He is worthy that you should do this to him. For he loves our people and has built a synagogue for us” (Luke 7:4-5)
But, as both evangelists testify, Jesus was greatly impressed by the centurion's display of great faith. However, it must be said that the centurion was not asking, begging for his family members, but for his servant:
"Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented." (Matthew 8:6)
The centurion pleaded for his servant and revealed his personal humiliation and deep faith in Jesus and His ability to heal him:
“Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and to another, 'Come,' and he comes; and to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it. When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!’” (Matthew 8:8-10)
Thus, Christ set the Roman centurion as an example for the Israelites, and let us not
forget that the Israelites in general, and especially the Jewish elite, the chief priests, Pharisees, and scribes, considered themselves the most true and perfect in faith, for they knew the Holy Scriptures, especially the Torah, the Law, considered themselves true confessors of the one God, and considered the rest of the people - other nations - to be professedly sinful and inferior to them...
We should also note that the centurion pleaded for his servant, whom St. Luke calls a slave. (Luke 7:10) A servant-slave in those days was a possession of the master. Let us not forget that the Roman state at that time had been a slave state for many centuries. In Palestine, too, for a long time, people had been accustomed to considering slavery a legitimate necessity.
Historians of the time inform us that in the ponds and lakes of the Roman Empire, it was considered normal to feed fish with the bodies of servant-slave children... We also learn from those historians that when the nephew of a rich uncle complained that he had heard about killing in wars in different countries but had never seen people killed, the uncle ordered seven slaves to be killed for demonstration...
And what of the gladiatorial fights? -- For the amusement of the public, gladiators-slaves fought with swords and killed each other. They were trained for this in special schools.
These examples give us an understanding of the situation of servant-slaves and how the Romans treated them at the time of Jesus Christ on earth, and at the same time give us an example of a Roman centurion pleading for his servant, how he was concerned that he was "dreadfully tormented". Beyond his deep faith, the kindness and mercy of this Roman soldier and government official, and his example of humility, are striking, and thus these are virtues that all Christ's followers, Christians, can and should imitate.
Amen.
Very Rev. Fr. Taras Slavchenko
Taras Slavchenko was born on March 8, 1918 in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine. After graduating from school and the Pedagogical College, he entered the language and literature faculty of the Scientific Pedagogical Institute. Having successfully completed it in 1938, he served as a teacher in a secondary school.
