If You Are Willing

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, May 2, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 8:1-17.

            Jesus did a lot of things while he was on earth.  One of the biggest things he did, though, was heal people.  The Bible gives more examples of Jesus’ miraculous healing than it does of any other miracles of Jesus.  One of the things we call Jesus is the Great Physician.  

            Jesus healed lots of people while he was on earth.  We don’t know how many, because often the Bible would say, as it does at the end of today’s reading, that he “healed all the sick.”  But it must have been a lot.

            The fact that it’s mentioned so often shows how much of an impression Jesus’ healing made on people.  It also shows that the authors of the gospels, inspired by God, thought it was important that everyone know about Jesus’ healing.  We can understand why.  For one thing, those miracles were pretty impressive.  For another, they were proof that Jesus had power that human beings do not have, and that he could do things human beings cannot do.  And because he was using that power for good, it was proof that Jesus’ power came from God.  It was proof that Jesus was who he said he was, the Son of God.

            But when we look at these stories of healing, we see something else running through them.  Jesus did not just use his healing power at random.  He did not use it indiscriminately.  There was a faith component to Jesus’ healing, and that faith is at least as important as the healing itself.

            Matthew does not give us any particulars about the healing at the end of this passage, where he simply says that he “healed all the sick.”  But let’s look at the others.  In the first one, a man with leprosy comes to Jesus.  And the man says, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

            That’s a statement of faith.  This man knows Jesus has the ability to heal him.  He has no doubt about that whatsoever.  His question is not whether Jesus can heal him, his question is whether Jesus will heal him.  He has complete faith that Jesus can do this, if he only will.

            But it’s a statement of faith in another way, too.  By putting it that way--if you are willing, you can make me clean--he’s saying that he knows that whether he’s healed or not is completely up to Jesus.  He has no ability to force Jesus to heal him.  He does not deserve to be healed.  Jesus does not owe it to him to heal him.  He is just hoping, desperately, that Jesus will show mercy and compassion and love to him.  He is coming to Jesus in complete and total humility.  He’s hoping Jesus will be willing to heal him, even though he does not deserve it.  And of course, Jesus grants his request.  He does heal him.

            The next story is the story of the centurion’s servant.  Now, to get the full impact of this, we need to understand who a centurion was.  He would not have been Jewish.  He would not have been one of Jesus’ people.  A centurion was a Roman soldier.  He was called a centurion because he commanded a hundred soldiers.  It’s the same root as our word “century”.  

            For the most part, Roman soldiers did not care about the Jewish people.  Not that they hated them or anything.  They just, literally, did not care about them.  What the Jewish people did, did not matter to them.  Not at all.  They had no interest in Jewish society, Jewish religion, or any other thing Jewish.  As long as the Jewish people did not cause trouble, as long as they paid their taxes and did not disrupt society, they could do what they wanted.  It made no difference to the Roman soldiers one way or another.

            And yet, here’s this Roman soldier coming to Jesus.  And not just any Roman soldier, a centurion.  A man with some authority.  One of the last people you’d think would care about Jesus.  But here he is, asking Jesus for help.

            That showed faith in and of itself.  He tells Jesus of the suffering of his servant.  Jesus offers to come and heal him.  And then, this centurion, this non-Jewish person, this person who you’d have thought would have no interest in Jesus at all, makes one of the strongest statements of faith in the Bible.  He says, no, Jesus, you don’t need to do that.  I’m not worthy of having you come to my house, and I know you don’t need to.  All you have to do is say the word, and my servant will be healed.  

            Just like with the man with leprosy, the centurion comes to Jesus humbly.  He recognizes that whether his servant is healed is completely up to Jesus.  He has no ability to force Jesus to heal his servant.  Jesus does not owe it to him to heal his servant.  He is just hoping, desperately, that Jesus will show mercy and compassion and love to his servant.  He is coming to Jesus in complete and total humility.  He says, Jesus, it’s up to you.  If you say the word, my servant will be healed.  And of course, Jesus does say the word, and the servant is healed.

            Then, we’re told of Peter’s mother-in-law.  We’re not told anything about her faith.  We’re not told anything here about Peter’s faith, either.  But of course, from the rest of the gospels, we have no doubt that Peter had faith, too.  Peter does not appear to have even asked Jesus to heal her.  The way it’s written, Jesus saw Peter’s mother-in-law sick, and Jesus healed her.  

            So, what’s the lesson here?  That if we or someone who loves us has faith, we’ll automatically be healed?  No, of course not.  We know better than that.  We know people of faith, and we know the loved ones of people of faith, who got sick and were not healed.  Those people did not die because of a lack of faith.  That’s not how this works.

            We know Jesus is still the Great Physician.  That’s why we pray for healing so often.  But look at what happens in these miracles.  First, no doubt is expressed about Jesus’ power.  There is complete faith that Jesus can give healing if he chooses to.  Second, there is no attempt to manipulate Jesus into giving healing.  There is no thought that Jesus owes it to them to give healing.  There is no thought that they deserve to have Jesus give healing.  Instead, Jesus is approached with total humility.  It is recognized that whether Jesus performs a healing miracle is completely up to Jesus.  And there’s no indication that, if Jesus had chosen not to heal them, their faith would have been any less.  I’m sure they would have been disappointed.  But they would have continued to believe in Jesus and to trust Jesus.

            The Bible tells us that we can ask things of Jesus.  But when we approach Jesus, whether for healing of for anything else, this is the attitude we need to have.  First, we need to have complete faith in Jesus’ power.  We need to have complete and total faith that Jesus can do anything that Jesus chooses to do.  But we need to have no thought that we can manipulate Jesus into doing what we ask.  We need to have no thought that Jesus owes it to us to give us what we ask.  We need to have no thought that we deserve to have Jesus give us what we ask.

            Instead, we need to approach Jesus with total humility.  We need to recognize that whether Jesus gives us what we ask is completely up to Jesus.  And if Jesus chooses not to give us what we ask, we need to continue to trust Jesus.  We need to trust that Jesus has reasons for not doing what we’ve asked, even if we don’t know what those reasons are.  It’s okay if we’re disappointed.  But we need to continue to believe in Jesus and to trust Jesus.

            And that, of course, is the tricky bit.  It’s easy to believe in Jesus and to trust Jesus when things go well and it seems like Jesus is giving us everything we want.  But can we continue to believe in Jesus and to trust Jesus when things don’t go so well?  Can we continue to believe in Jesus and trust Jesus when Jesus is not giving us what we want?  In fact, can we continue to believe in Jesus and trust Jesus when it seems like what Jesus is doing is the exact opposite of what we want?

            When you think about it, that’s the true test of faith.  When we come to Jesus, with complete humility, asking Jesus for help, and Jesus does not do what we want.  How we react to that shows whether our faith is real.  

            The man with leprosy said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”  The centurion said, “Lord… just say the word and my servant will be healed.”  Unspoken, but just as important, was the thought, “Lord, if you are not willing, and if you do not say the word, I will still believe.”

            May that be our statement as well.  When we go to God, may we say, “Lord, if you are willing, you can say the word and do what I’ve asked.  But if you don’t, I will still trust you.  I will still believe.”

            If we can say that, then we know we have faith in Jesus Christ.