The Centurion on Memorial Day

Luke 7:1-10

The Confession of the Centurion - James Tissot

Over the past 11 years Memorial Day has changed for me. I can’t really put my finger on it exactly, but a real change occurred about three years ago. The first 8 years following my return from a combat tour in Iraq, I was pretty angry. For many years I was angry at those I fought against, even angry at the Iraqi citizens who were caught in the middle of the conflict. When I began seminary, I wrestled with forgiveness. It was an incredibly healing experience that culminated in a trip to Israel and Palestine. Being surrounded by Arabic speaking Palestinians and the call for prayer echoing across the Bethlehem skyline had a distinct impact on my struggle with forgiveness. My memories of the Iraqi people existed in a tension between blame and admiration, until I immersed myself back into Muslim and Arabic speaking culture again. Since then, I have longed for the day I can return to Iraq. I’m not sure it will ever happen, but I hope I can return to that place one day and walk the streets of Hit or Haditha along the Euphrates river. 

The two years following my trip, Memorial Day was a day that lived in a tension similar to that of my memories of the Iraqi people. As a mainline protestant, I was oftentimes told that my participation in the Iraq war excluded me from taking an active role as an ordained rostered leader. While I received support and affirmation from many pastors, parishioners, professors, and classmates, some were very vocal in their opposition to my presence as a veteran and police officer, especially as an Infantry combat veteran. I resented those who could not recognize the struggle of those who served in combat or those who lost loved ones.

To further complicate this tension, my own faith was questioned by some of those whose support I coveted most. Some of the police and the veterans I served with could not reconcile who I had been as a police officer and Marine with who I would be as a pastor. The very perspective that gave me the greatest credibility with patients in the hospital and parishioners that were facing their own traumas, was the perspective that also caused the greatest doubt among some of those who knew me best. The question that caused the greatest conflict was simple; “How can you believe in God given what you have seen”? Maybe they thought it was a crutch? Maybe they thought I was running away from my experiences? Maybe some thought I didn’t conform to their view of what is “Christian” (for the record I hope I don’t conform to anyone’s)? I’m not sure, but I haven’t had to read too much between the lines to interpret the condescension and ridicule. What troubled me the most was not the doubt regarding my faith, it was the lack of engagement by some of those who I had so admired for their courage. I felt abandoned by many of those I regarded as the ones who knew me best. 

I reached out to both those who told me I was unwelcome to ministry and those who ridiculed the faith that offered me the hope to rise out of the anger in which I wallowed. Those I reached out to were often the most resistant to respond. Those who authentically cared and wanted to understand, usually sought me out. Some gained a deeper perspective, some provided me a deeper perspective, some just agreed to disagree, but we usually came to a place of mutual respect. Regardless, it has been trying not to shut doors to those who continue to ridicule or marginalize either communities that I still care deeply for. 

When we come to a place where we feel the most alone, we often try to inflict our pain on others. Memorial Day is one of those days. This year I am sitting at home with sick kids, and my last opportunity to worship from the pews will be spent watching Disney Junior and wiping noses. The demand made by some to take on the mantle of survivor’s guilt that many veterans and families feel - but so many cannot fully understand - is spread across social media and editorials. I still carry a true sense of survivor’s guilt, but yesterday I felt a sense of joy, and I honestly felt guilty. 

It’s nothing incredibly insightful or revolutionary. I did what I normally do on the 26th, one of my “alive days” as they call it. I reflected on that day. I reflected on the death of a fellow Marine. I looked up his obituary and the numerous articles about him. I hovered over his picture on social media, contemplating changing my profile picture in an effort to assure others I have not forgotten. I decided not to. I live with the grief and I am willing to share the pain and experience with others, but I have grown concerned that my pain has become my own golden calf. Yesterday, I took my daughter to soccer and a fun song came on the radio. She and her sister made me laugh, and my girls and I spent the morning together. I even ran into a friend who spoke to me at length about getting together on Monday -Memorial Day- to go for an early morning ‘fun run’. From the 26th through Memorial Day are normally reserved for melancholy memories and depression. So, I am still wrestling with this different perspective and unscheduled ‘living’ that is occurring in the midst of calendar dates that are reserved for a bleaker outlook.

So I took the time to read over the Gospel for today. Luke’s telling of the Centurion’s servant. A man who also lived in a strange tension. A Roman Soldier, living in a foreign land. It is hard to tell whether he is beloved by the people of Capernaum or if they are indebted to him for the favors he has offered them. He is most likely unwelcome in Capernaum, regardless of what favors he has granted. He represents the imperial forces of Rome and is the physical representation of persecution and oppression in that town. Perhaps he serves as the enforcer of imperial law in that community? A mayor of sorts imposing a sense of martial law to keep order in a region of the world that has consistently risen up against Rome, violently. 

Regardless, he has also supported a religious community that is mocked by Rome as superstitious idealistic nonsense. What is even worse is the fact that he drinks the Kool-aid. He appeals to the religious leaders for their help in healing his beloved slave. Asking a favor of the very people who are meant to submit to his military rule. The very act of asking anything of these people undermines his authority and threatens to erode the very nature of the office he holds. 

It’s a pretty extreme stance for any Roman soldier but this is a Centurion. He is a seasoned veteran who has seen much and grown to rely on one thing alone, himself. So, the story takes an odd twist in his appeal to Jesus. This Centurion places his faith in something beyond established religion, beyond national allegiance, beyond himself. He places his faith in the Christ. What is more, he places his faith in the Christ for the sake of another. 

I cannot speak for others but I wrestle with what I have done as much as what I have lost. I cannot erase the past. If I could have given my life for the sake of any we lost, I would have gladly done so. If I could have established a lasting peace between those I fought against and those I fought alongside by giving my life, I would have gladly done so. I wonder if this is the perspective of the Centurion? Perhaps he realized he could not erase his past, nor could he forgive it? But there is a detail that goes unnoticed in most translations. In verse 7 (Luke 7:1-10) the slave is referred to as a child. I cannot help but wonder if he seeks to plant his hope in another, free of his own jaded perspective. A far more fertile soul for joy and hope, maybe obviously so because this child may be his only window into that joy and hope. 

By far the most revealing thing for me in this text is that the Centurion, who has seen the magnificence of Rome -and is aware of the general scorn directed towards the ‘superstition’ of the occupied Judeans- puts his faith in Jesus. Jesus is a figure he has only heard stories of, a Judean man who subscribes to what is concluded to be such a ridiculous superstition. Without asking to even see Jesus with his own eyes, and even turning Jesus away for the sake of Jesus’ own reputation. Knowing full well that if Jesus is seen going into a Gentile home and especially a Centurion’s home, it will invite anger from Jesus’ own people. You would think that by placing faith in something that he has never seen, he would at least invite the opportunity to witness it for himself. To invite the chance to become a follower of Jesus, perhaps even finding the chance to heal his own wounds and erase his past. 

We cannot escape the past. We only live with it, but in Christ I can reconcile the world I have seen with the joy I am still capable of feeling. You don’t have to subscribe to the most orthodox doctrines to recognize that hope in a man that we can see and touch is a lost cause. You only need to recognize that human beings are incapable of being a reliant source of hope or goodness. There is only one way I can reconcile the notion of a world that continues to turn; an external hope. It is in that hope that I find joy. It is in the joy my children share on those days reserved for my own despair. A joy that they find in the unseen. A hope and joy I hope others can find in the unseen.

A chaplain I worked with at the hospital once used to say, “I don’t work in sales, I work in customer service”. I stole that line from him and I use it often. Because faith is a personal thing that an individual must find for themselves. It doesn’t mean I cannot or will not share my own. But it does mean that I pray that others can find their own hope on the darkest days, wherever it may be. 

Much like the Centurion, I do not believe I can find that hope in me, in my nation, in my despair, or in any person. I can only find it in the Christ. When I see God continue to create, I know that God is still actively creating in the world, no matter how broken. The Centurion never saw Jesus lay his hands on this child, he only found the child in good health and in that moment he found hope, because he knew God was at work. 

It is in that confidence that I will find joy this weekend and tomorrow. Not because I deny what I have seen or what I owe, but because of what arises from the unseen. That is where I find faith that God is still creating in the midst of the darkest corners of our pasts. 

Let it BURN!

Acts 2:1-21

In the summer of 1988 a series of wildfires flared up in and around Yellowstone National Park. 

The National Park Service had recently researched the value of naturally occurring wildfires on vegetation and wildlife. 

For decades, many researchers had argued that wildfires served a definite purpose in the natural ecological cycle. 

They proposed that wildfires could help to clear out underbrush, dead plant matter that had accrued on the forest floor, eliminate vegetative competition for the same rich soil, reduce overgrowth, and increase grassland space for herd animals. 

Aldo Leopold made this claim in 1924 but not until 1972, -after timber companies, private citizens, and the Park service itself recognized the potential benefits- did the Park service pass a new policy. 

That year, the park service deemed fires that were prescribed as natural would be allowed to burn under controlled conditions. 

Between 1972 and 1987 235 wildfires broke out, but out of those 235 wildfires, only 15 had exceeded 100 acres.

The new policy went largely unnoticed until the summer of 88.

But that year, after an extensive drought and over 1,000 years since a major forest fire, Yellowstone erupted in flames. 

250 fires broke out that summer, with 7 major fires that were responsible for 95% of the famous Yellowstone wildfire. 

After remaining largely unnoticed throughout its history as a government agency, both the National Park Service and the National Forest Service became magnets for media attention. 

Sensational media reporting deemed these government agencies as irresponsible and incompetent. 

Some even claimed the Park Service was maliciously destroying a national treasure. 

By the time the fires ceased burning, 793,000 acres -36 percent of the park- had been impacted by the fires. 

Today, the Park service claims that even if they had tried to put out the fire, they were exhausting every resource they had to protect human life and property. 

The story of Pentecost is another story of a completely uncontrolled burn. 

The sound of a violent rushing wind fills the room, and it is the sound that attracts people throughout Jerusalem. 

And the people it attracts don’t meet any specific criteria. 

It is a vast array of people, different languages, different ethnicities. 

I read this text on the Pentecost Sunday I was confirmed, and ever since I have felt for whoever was tasked with reading off this geography lesson.

But the broad range of geographic locations these people call home and the diverse languages that are present, serves a purpose in our reading. 

As the people were scattered and divided at the tower of Babel, now the God who has scattered does a new thing in a new way. 

By the Spirit, God gathers together. 

Regardless of their language or ethnicity, they find that they are driven to hear the same thing.

Drawn to this room by a sound like the rush of a violent wind, confronted by the sound of people they hear speaking their own language. 

It is at this point that I could throw in the catchy gimmick about the language we all speak being the language of love, but that is a language that seems less prevalent or desirable today.

It’s also quite dishonest to the text, because what is heard does not spawn love, faith, answers, or certainty, just confusion and astonishment. 

This moment is often described as the “Birthday of the Church” but this is not the anniversary of the founding of the Church or the anniversary of a birth.

This is the dedication, the initiation of the Church that Christ has been building throughout his ministry. 

It isn’t the birth, it is the removal of the training wheels. 

The church that began with a man is now entrusted to his followers. 

They are given the power to move forward in this mission if they can train their ears on what they hear,  if they can listen. 

This past year has been difficult. 

The internship committee, Pastor Nickols, and a few others have been aware of the ups and downs of this past year. 

Over the past four years, my family and I had attempted to discern a very specific call. 

We believed that we were being called to return to the military. 

Throughout the process, I continuously dotted my i’s and crossed my t’s. 

I checked and rechecked paperwork. 

But paperwork was lost, emails mysteriously missed their intended inboxes, and finally in October the Navy changed their policy regarding the chaplain corps. 

The weekend of the Oktoberfest, I received an email advising me that my path would not only be an indirect one, but it may not lead to the ministry I envisioned at all. 

To be honest, this path was a rocky one from day one.

Surprise pregnancies, surprise classes, surprise transfers, surprise internships. 

These four years have been filled with uncertainty and the path forward was anything but clear. 

And had I known as I started down this path, I would never have dared to take the first step. 

So I guess being drawn to the mystery of it all is a good thing, but the problem is when we attempt to contain it. 

Throughout this process, I have been told time and again to trust in the Spirit. 

One afternoon I called a chaplain to resign my commission from the Chaplain Candidate Program. 

He was also one of the first to implore that I trust in the Spirit.

The chaplain who answered the phone asked me why I planned to resign my commission.

He was dumbfounded when I told him it was because I wanted to trust in the Spirit. 

You see, the Spirit always leads the church forward, oftentimes to places it doesn’t want to go.

Places WE don’t want to go. 

Never in my life did I plan to be a parish pastor. I knew my call.  I knew my place. I controlled that call, and I controlled what I was hearing. 

But this year I was given the gift of hearing a call from you all. 

This year I was entrusted with your children, your questions, your anxieties, your fears, your pains. 

This year I was given blank checks to be a pastor in a context that few interns will ever experience. 

And because of that, I have had the chance to hear the call of a congregation and a pastor, to do the same work I have done here. 

And so, here I stand, confused, uncertain. 

I will begin my call at St. Michael, Virginia Beach in June. I will be ordained at the Synod assembly and shortly thereafter installed. 

I don’t know where I will live and my family will not join me until the end of June, but I am so excited. 

Because I don’t know where this goes, just like I didn’t know where this internship would go. 

When I sat in a room with a youth group of two great people as we three sat staring blankly at one another, not knowing where it would go. 

But we listened to one another and those around us, even when we didn’t want to, even when it took us where we didn’t want to go. 

And during this past year another heard the sound and came to see what it was, and then another, and another, until the youth ministry grew to eight youth, one pastor, and one almost pastor. 

It wasn’t the youth group anyone wanted or anyone planned. 

You can bet I took credit for it when it came time for approval with the candidacy committee, but I didn’t do it. 

We did it because we listened, even when it meant the death of something. 

Peter, the eleven, and the rest of the gang are not where they want to be in the account we read today. 

Peter didn’t want to lead a church and even if he did, I am pretty certain he didn’t know that his own path would land him in the same place it landed Jesus. 

When we talk about the Spirit, we usually picture some magical ghostly figure like Casper the friendly Spirit, but it is described as a fire because it destroys. 

The Spirit destroys our dreams, our plans, our decisions about what is best for our lives, our church, our gifts. 

God, the Spirit does this because these are not our lives, this is not our church, and these aren’t our gifts

These are God’s lives. This is God’s Church. And these gifts belong to God. 

But that doesn’t give us a lot to look forward to when our plans are burned in these flames. 

But the flames give us the confidence that if we continue to listen, if we continue to look for the path forward, that even when we fail we can keep getting up to fail again, knowing that the way forward will eventually come about. 

Following those fires in Yellowstone, recovery began almost immediately. 

Very little replanting occurred when the Park service witnessed the fast pace of vegetative regeneration, the restoration of the old habitats, and the birth of new ones. 

They found that seed dispersal had been the most successful in the places where the fire had been the most severe. 

Aspen -which had been less prevalent before the fire- grew more abundant.

Aspen is the preferred food source for elk.

Elk are the preferred food source for bears and wolves. 

And contrary to the media reports, the fires killed very little wildlife, some of which were actually killed by the fire retardants used to contain the fire, rather than the fire itself. 

And the following year, Yellowstone attracted the highest number of visitors in a decade who came to see the wildflowers and wildlife that was in abundance as never before. 

It isn’t the way we want it to be, but this isn’t just biblical or theological. Fire serves a purpose in our lives. 

Because it is by the loss of the things we cling to the tightest, that new life takes shape. 

Today is my last Sunday and it is the loss of one thing and the beginning of a new thing, and yes, I am excited.

But I am not just excited for me, I am excited for you. 

Because today there is new room being made for new life, new growth, if we can just let go of the things we are grasping so tightly and listen. 

Are you listening?

Amen