A SERMON for THE
TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY
The Rev'd Gavin
Dunbar
16TH October
2005, at Saint John’s Church in Savannah Georgia
FROM THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO SAINT JOHN 4.50
Jesus saith unto him, go thy way, thy
son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto
him, and he went his way.
How is faith born? And how does it grow? And what does it
look like, when it is mature? These are questions every believer should be
able to answer, and today’s gospel lesson is wonderfully instructive in this
regard. Let’s look at it carefully.
The
story begins in “Cana of Galilee”, the place where Jesus did his first
miracle, changing the water into wine for the wedding feast. No doubt the
report or rumour of this and other miracles had circulated widely in
Galilee; for the news of Jesus’ return from Judea to Cana drew out of
Capernaum, a town some distance away, a certain nobleman, desperately afraid
for his son, who was “at the point of death.” He came to him, and begged
him to “come down, and heal his son”.
Now
the nobleman it seems was a royal official in the court of Herod Antipas,
son of King Herod, who ruled Galilee at that time. You may savour the
irony, that the important, and perhaps self-important servant of a proud and
worldly king, humbles himself to seek the help of the prophet of the Kingdom
of heaven. But that is a necessary condition for faith’s birth: only when
the barriers of pride are broken down, perhaps by some adversity or sorrow,
can there be any opening to God. Only then can the vague rumours of God’s
mercy to men awaken a strange hope – a wild surmise –of his help.
So
in the nobleman we have the vague, rudimentary beginnings of faith, driven
by desperate need, and ignorant of what it believes in. For in asking him
to “come down” to Capernaum, he was limiting Jesus’ power to do good to his
physical presence, as if Jesus could not heal at a distance, in his
absence. He has not yet learned what it is to believe in Jesus.
And
so we should not really be surprised that this initial appeal meets with a
kind of harsh rebuff. Jesus says, “Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will
not believe”. There is something odd about this saying which no modern
English translation can show us. In Greek and older English, there are two
ways of saying “you”. You can use a word that indicates you are speaking to
one other person, which in English is “thou”. Or you can use a word that
indicates you are speaking to more than one person, which in English is “ye”
or “you”. But in modern English, of course, there is only one way of
addressing another person or persons, namely the word “you”, and you can’t
tell whether one person is being spoken to or more than one, unless you are
from the south, and can say “you all”. Modern English translations of the
Bible therefore are intrinsically less accurate than the King James Version
– a point rarely if ever acknowledged by the scholars and publishers who
profit from them.
The
point of this digression is simply this: when Jesus says “Except ye see
signs and wonders, ye will not believe”, the word “ye” tells us that he is
not singling out the nobleman for criticism. If he were, he would have said
“thou”. His rebuke is addressed to a general tendency among the people who
came to him – a greedy appetite for sensational signs and wonders together
with an indifference to the teaching those miracles were meant to confirm.
And in this greed for miracles, there is an unwillingness to believe, an
unwillingness to lift up hearts and minds in response to his teaching beyond
the realm of things visible and tangible to the realm of things invisible
and intangible. There is a false faith that is blind to the greater goods
of the Kingdom of heaven, obstinately materialistic, and lasting only as
long as the supply of miracles. And sustaining that kind of false faith is
not the business that Jesus is in.
Despite this sharp rebuke, the nobleman persists in his plea. “Sir, come
down, ere my child die”. Here is a powerful man, used to having his own way,
yet he does not burst out in a passion when he is crossed. He does not
stamp his feet or waste time in resentment. Wounded pride is an indulgence
he renounces when his son’s life is at stake. Wounded pride is always an
indulgence to be renounced, since our soul’s eternal life is at
stake. And though his faith is still rather vague and confused, yet his
humble perseverance in prayer proves that it is real; and Jesus rewards his
faith with a word of promise and command, “Go thy way, thy son liveth”. By
telling the man to leave, with the assurance that his son will live, he
pushes the miraculous event, the wondrous sign, out of the spotlight, where
it cannot be seen and cannot become a sensational crowd-pleaser. The
miracle is pushed ‘offstage’, and the challenge of faith and obedience in
response to Jesus’ word are brought into the spotlight instead. So the
question for the royal official becomes not, will Jesus come down and heal
my son, but, will I obey his command? And that in turn depends upon the
question, will I believe his promise?
Those are the questions for us all, when we bring our hopes and fears to God
in prayer. Will we insist on his submitting to our demands? Or will we
subordinate our wishes to the purpose of his will? When we rise from our
knees, are we still trying to have our way with God, or have we decided to
let God have his way with us? Specifically are we ready to trust in his
mercy, and obey his will, leaving the outcome to him? Notice also that you
can’t believe, but refuse to obey; or obey, without first believing: Christ
gives us something to believe, and something to obey, and our faith and
obedience are the right and left hands by which the soul receives the
blessing he gives.
The first miracle of
this story is this: “And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken
unto him, and he went his way.” Without signs and wonders, without Jesus’
physical presence, he takes Jesus at his word, abandons his own condition,
and accepts that of Christ, and goes his way, believing what he cannot see,
trusting that Christ can work mightily by his word alone, though absent in
his body. Notice that it is at this point that his attitude to Jesus first
deserves the name of faith; when he submits his mind and will to the word of
Christ, in trust and obedience. Before he had a vague and wishful hope that
Christ would help his son; now in the word of Jesus he has a firm assurance
in which he can rest his heart and mind. Before, in the naivety of
arrogance, he had a plan for Jesus to carry out, in order to help his son;
now, in the wisdom of humility, he obeys the plan that Jesus has for him, in
order to help his son.
Such true faith and
obedience does not go without vindication, even while he is still on the way
home, before he has even seen his son. “And as he was now going down, his
servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth.” By his faith and
obedience, he has opened the door to the benefits promised by Jesus, which
unbelief would have kept locked close. Now notice what happens next. “Then
enquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto
him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. So the father knew
that it was at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son
liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house.” Earlier, we were told
that the man “believed the word that Jesus spake”; but now we are told, that
after reflecting on the word of Jesus, and the recovery of his son, we are
told that “himself believed”. What is the difference? In reflecting
upon what Jesus has done for him in this particular case, he is moved to
trust Jesus in all respects. “He [had] believed that particular word of the
Lord’s; but this is something more, the entering into the number of Christ’s
disciples, his yielding himself to him as the promised Messiah” (Trench
131). Out of thankful remembrance for all that Christ has done, he
surrenders himself and his whole life to Christ. And so it is for us all.
“The more carefully the divine works and benefits are considered, the more
nourishment faith acquires” (Bengel quoted in Trench 130 n3).
This is the fullness
of faith, the maturity of believing. But that is not all. His faith grows
and matures in another way also. Not only did he believe, also “his whole
house”. His faith did not remain buried in his heart, like an embarrassing
personal habit. It breaks out in joyful testimony, thanksgiving and praise,
for what Jesus has done by his word to help his son. And in response to
testimony from such a trusted source, his entire household – family, staff,
servants – also came to believe. “For it is” says Martin Luther, “in the
character and nature of faith that it attracts other people, breaks forth
and becomes active in love”. As Paul said to the Galatians, the only thing
that avails in Jesus Christ is “faith which worketh by love” (5.6). Faith
does not remain silent, buried in one’s breast like a guilty secret; it
cannot stay quiet, it must praise God and seek its neighbour’s good. Such
are the signs of a mature faith, and the fruit it bears in the lives of
those it touches.
Writing many
centuries ago in a cold cell in a northern English monastery, the Venerable
Bede summed up today’s gospel lesson with admirable conciseness. “So we see
that faith, like the other virtues, is formed gradually, and has its
beginning, growth, and maturity. His faith had its beginning, when he asked
for his son’s recovery; its growth, when he believed our Lord’s words, Thy
son liveth; its maturity, after the announcement of the fact by his
servants”. May it please Almighty God to grant us all the same beginning,
increase, and maturity of faith in all humility and obedience; a faith that
is founded upon his word to us in Jesus Christ, a faith that is active in
love, fruitful in good works, vocal in praise, redounding to his glory, and
effective to our salvation.
Amen.
