Military discipline is all very well but we’re most of us aware of its limitations. It gets things done but it is not creative. The essence of being a soldier is to do what you’re told. A junta can bring order out of chaos and that is no insignificant achievement. But generals do not as a rule make good politicians. And the lowly rank and file know what it is to pay the price of military method. Henry Reed’s poem ‘The naming of parts’ highlights the price paid in a delicately composed fashion.
When Jesus met a centurion, he was astounded. It was an encounter of two worlds that rarely collided. What makes the encounter more astonishing is its timing. The centurion appeared on the heels of what we know as the Sermon on the Mount, a charter of human behaviour meeting God-given principles. Deep questions and answers have a precipitate application. From sweeping principles to ‘What happens next?’ is a great leap. The military machine meets the thinker and teacher. Here is consumer choice testing the product. The account is to be found in Matthew 8.
We all know the story and remember the matter-of-fact soldier and his lifetime of black and white obedience (which is of course a two-way thing). It is a reminder that just as Jesus met people working from different understandings and habit from his own, so it is today. Encounters take place between people who have grown up and matured on widely different pastures. There may be no clearly understood shared religious upbringing. There is often a vast distance between two points of view and scant time to do justice to bridging the gap.
A modern equivalent of this conversation might take place between a marketing executive saying ‘Go compare’ and a head teacher bewitching young eyes with the three Rs. A person concentrating on financial priorities meets a person opening young eyes to the world around. A gulf is being bridged. It doesn’t happen in a flash.
Jesus did not run through his manifesto with the centurion. He did not attempt to re-order the foundations, i.e. the prevailing assumptions. He found something admirable in the centurion and took it from there. It’s a breath-taking occasion, one that we do well to investigate. Just as the Rome claiming a soldier’s allegiance is not built in a day, so Christian faith seldom comes as it did for Paul in a blinding moment.
WHAT WE ARE
St Peter’s Scottish Episcopal Church, Musselburgh is looking for a new ministry leader and it describes itself in these terms: ‘We are a faithful and welcoming congregation. We trust in God’s transforming message revealed in the Bible and seek to honour his will as we grow in faith together and share the Gospel with those around us.’ Not a bad statement. St Peter’s, a few miles out of Edinburgh, is close to golf and horse-racing activities and has pictures of its array of volunteers on its website.
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