Faith. Or something like it.

Semper Fidelis. That’s the motto of the U.S. Marine Corps. Semper Fi. Any Latin students? What does it mean? "Always faithful." Actually in Latin it means, “forever faithful." What does it mean to be, “forever faithful”? If you know anyone who’s been in the Marines; maybe an older sibling, maybe the old man across the street, maybe your history teacher at school. If you’ve known anyone in the Marines, you should be able to finish this phrase: “Once a Marine…Always a Marine.” That’s what this motto is supposed to stand for. You see, in the Marine Corps, all Marines are expected to uphold and live by the ideals of the Marine Corps for the rest of their lives.
Always faithful… Faith… What does it mean to have faith in something? What does it mean to have faith in someone? Think about this for a second. Is there anyone who you have faith in? - Is there anything you have faith in? - Is your family on that list? How about your friends?
We looked at a story today from the Gospel of Matthew about a centurion whose “faith” – Jesus’ words, not mine – healed his servant. What exactly was it about this centurion that he said or did that led Jesus to call him a man of rare faith? ___ Let’s take a look at some of the other instances where Jesus healed someone – This section of Matthew, by the way is laden with stories of Jesus healing people.

• Matthew 8:1-3 : “who came to him and knelt before him”
• 8:14 “When Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever.”
• 9:2 “he said to the paralytic.”
• 9:20 “and touched the fringe of his cloak”
• 9:23 “ when Jesus came to the leader’s house.”
• 9:28 “The blind men came to him.”

What’s the common theme here? ___ No clue? Let’s take a look again at today’s passage:
5When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. 6"Lord," he said, "my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering."
7Jesus said to him, "I will go and heal him."
8The centurion replied, "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it."
10When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 11I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
13Then Jesus said to the centurion, "Go! It will be done just as you believed it would." And his servant was healed at that very hour.

What’s the word in verse 10? Astonished! Some other translations say, “amazed.” Okay. Let’s think about this for a second. We’re talking about Jesus here. Jesus Christ. The son of man. The king of kings. The lord of lords. The one and only begotten son of God. Our Lord and Savior. Who walked on water. Who fed 5000 men. Who was born from a virgin. Who turned water into wine. Who died on the cross and was raised back to life in three days. Jesus Christ was amazed. Amazed. What was so amazing about this centurion that set him apart from all the followers?
What sets this story apart from the others in this section of Matthew? If you noticed in all the other stories from chapters 8 and 9, Jesus Christ actually physically went to those he was healing. Christ physically interacted with those he was healing. All of these miracles required a physical interaction.
Isn’t this how our faith is sometimes as well? We need something, anything to hold on to.
Sometimes our faith is conditional. “Lord, I need to pass this exam tomorrow, if you will please let me pass the exam, I will be a good servant.”
Sometimes our faith is superstitious. “We will win the NCAAs if I wear the same shirt and hoodie that I wore when we beat Michigan State, UNC, Wichita State, and UConn without washing them.”
Sometimes our faith is material. “If I invest my savings in a retirement account and a diversified portfolio of stocks, bonds, and securities, I’ll be able to live happy and comfortably and retire.”
Now don’t get me wrong. It’s not faith in and of itself that is the issue here. In all the instances of Jesus Christ’s stories of healing, Jesus commends the healed on their faith. But the centurion in today’s passage took his faith a step beyond and based it, not on the physical presence of Christ Jesus, but the actual power of the words of Christ.
Our faith can be so easily shaken. One curveball or speed bump in life, and it shakes our faith in God down to the core. It could be something as trivial as a broken nail, or something as big as the death of a loved one. Either way, if our faith is not grounded then we are like dust in the wind.
Think about this for a second. We love to box God up and think of God as our own personal genie.
“God will heal our relative who is on his deathbed.”
“God will magically mend our friend’s broken leg.”
“God will help me pass this exam.”
And when our prayers aren’t answered our faith is shaken. You see, we set ourselves up for disappointment precisely because we think of God as our own personal genie. We ask and question God when our relative dies. We ask and question God when our friend is on crutches for six to eight weeks. We ask and question God when we fail our final exam. Our faith, or rather, our lack thereof, skews our perception of how God works in our lives, so that when these storms come we panic and question God, “Don’t you care that we are going through a hard and difficult time? Don’t you care that my world is going to end? Don’t you care that my heart feels like it’s dying?”
We get so caught up in the way we have defined God, we fail to see that God has indeed calmed the storm in our lives. Think of the dying relative whom everyone prays for. Yes, they may have died physically, but his spirit was healed when our prayers brought him peace in his heart. Those of us who have experienced a loved one’s death could only ask that he or she would die in peace. If our loved one dies peacefully, we, ourselves, find peace in our hearts, and in the process, have been healed, and even strengthened in knowing that his or her death was a peaceful one. We have prayed in faith for healing, and not only has our loved one been healed, but those who loved him or her have also been healed. When we place our faith in God, our perspective changes and we see the healing that has taken place.
The extraordinary faith that the centurion had was because he placed his faith solely on Christ Jesus. It wasn’t the magic touch of Christ or the flick of the wrist or even the physical presence of Christ. No. His faith was based on the fact that Jesus Christ had the power and the authority such that even the seas would obey him. That’s the point I’m trying to get at here. It’s okay to believe and trust in people and things. If we don’t trust people, we will live a very lonely and solitary life.
But don’t place the whole of your faith in these people and things. The things of this world will pass away. People will fail you. The only person… the only being… the only thing that we should place the whole of our faith into is simply Jesus Christ.
And so I challenge you, and I’m also challenging myself, if there’s anything in your life that you’ve been wary of placing into the hands of God, give it a try. Keep your heart open. Keep your eyes peeled. That faith may yet change your life.

Anabaptists...

Excerpted from Hans Denck's Concerning True Love 1527
Love is a spiritual power. The lover desires to be united with the beloved. Where love is fulfilled, the lover does not objectify the beloved. The lover forgets himself, as if he were no more, and without shame he yearns for his beloved. The lover cannot be content until he has proven his love for the beloved in the most dangerous situations. The lover would gladly and willingly face death for the benefit of the beloved. Indeed, the lover might be so foolish as to die to please his beloved, even knowing that no other benefit could come from the act. And the less his beloved acknowledges his love, the more passion the lover feels. He will not cease in his love but strives the more to prove his love, even if it will never be acknowledged.

When love is true and plays no favorites, it reaches out in desire to unite with all people (that is, without causing division and instability). Love itself can never be satisfied by lovers. Even if all lovers were to desert their loving, even if the joy of loving were no more with them, love is such a richness in itself that it was, is, and will be satisfied into eternity. Love willingly denies all things, no matter how cherished. Yet love cannot deny itself.

If it were possible, love would even deny itself for the sake of love. Love would allow itself to cease and become as nothing so that love's object could become what love is. We might even say that love hates itself, for love selflessly desires only the good of others. If love were unwillingly to deny itself for the sake of the beloved, it would not be true lov­ing but a form of selfishness in love's own eyes. Love knows and recognizes that total giving for the sake of the beloved is good. That is why love cannot deny itself. Love must finally love itself, not selfishly, but as loving what is good.