"Who is Worthy?"

Wednesday evening prayer - Narrative Lectionary 

2-3-10 “Who is Worthy?”

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight oh lord, our rock and our salvation, amen.

The centurion – a Roman citizen and military leader - is pretty close to the top of the food chain in Jesus’s time. Toward the bottom were all the people that the Romans had conquered, including Jesus’s people. So here we have this powerful man who answered to very few, ask for healing on behalf of his slave. He might have heard something about Jesus, since Jesus had been to Capernaum before, healing and cast out demons on his previous trip. He could easily have commanded or threatened Jesus. Instead, he asks the Jewish elders to intercede with on his behalf.

Presumably, the elders thought this centurion was a worthy candidate for Jesus because of he seemed like a “good guy.” It makes sense, since proximity to power is the next best thing to having power yourself.

But we know that that’s not how Jesus rolls. Jesus judges the worth of people from an entirely different criteria than that of the rest of the world. Because to Jesus – and to God – all people have worth.

I really like a quote from the show Doctor Who when he says, “In 900 years of time and space, I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important.” Afterall, not unlike Jesus, Dr. Who prefers to hang out with “normal” everyday people, and brings those people on their many adventures. Also, must like Dr. Who, Jesus seems to show up exactly at the right place at the right time, as he did for the widow who Jesus encountered next.

Imagine for a moment that you are the woman in this story. Though your husband has died and can no longer provide for you, you were fortunate enough to have had a son who survived to adulthood. It would have been his job to take you in and support you, since insurance policies, pensions, 401(k)s, social security, and Medicare did not exist. Now imagine you are instead attending the funeral of your only son, knowing also that now you are destitute.

When Jesus saw the widow’s grief, his heart went out to this woman who had lost everything. She was the complete opposite in every way to the centurion commander. And yet, she was very much the same in Jesus’s eyes.

Man, woman. Powerful, powerless. Member of the occupying army, part of the population being oppressed. And yet, both have worth, and Jesus helps both. Jesus healed the centurion’s servant long-distance. Then, in the next town over, Jesus got up close and personal, interrupting a young man’s funeral in order to make it unnecessary.  

I think Doctor Who (and Jesus) is right. You are important. But some people are treated by others as “worthless” - worth less than other people. We may not have slaves and centurions in this time and place, but we have questions of worth of our own to ask ourselves if we are paying attention.

Which kind of people have you seen that are treated as having more worth than others? We are seeing the answer play out every single day – some gets paid less for doing the same job. Some have access to getting the vaccine are not the same as those being hardest hit by Covid-19. Those who break the law for different reasons getting different bail amounts and being treated differently in our criminal justice system. While these things continue, we all suffer.

We need one another, because it is only together, we are whole. Together we are complete. Together we are the children of God. Together we are worthy, because it is God, not the world, who has given us our worth, and no one is not important. Thanks be to God. Amen.