THE CENTURION— THERE IS POWER IN THE WORD

 Matthew 8

 Psalm 107: 19  “Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress; he sent forth the word, and healed them.”

CENTURION:  From the time I was a small boy I had been taught the structure of authority.  My father had been a soldier and he ran our farm in Northern Italy much like an army training barracks.  It was a joyless time, except when I could slip away to and watch them train in the glint of the afternoon sun.  My father ordered us around on bluff and bluster, partly because he had never risen above the rank of sergeant, partly because of the ever exaggerated stories he would manufacture about the skirmishes in France, which he had to justify– in reality he was a cook and the major risks that he came up against were irate farmers and shepherds who had to put up with his conscription of lamb, pork and beef from the rural countryside; and partly because he had a wife who ran roughshod over him the way he did over us.  It was a kind of retribution, a holding on to whatever pride might have remained in the old soldier, and we paid the price.

I was stationed in Capernaum now.  My main job was to supervise over a hundred troops in keeping the Roman road open through this part of Palestine.  It wasn’t the kind of job that I would have picked myself, but orders were orders, and I would do my best to see them rightfully executed.  It was a small country and a small assignment, but as one year rolled over into another I had actually warmed to this attractive whitewashed town on the shores of the Galilean sea.  I had a villa built, staffed it with servants, and brought my family over.  There wasn’t much to do here so I was quick to notice anything out of the ordinary, any anomaly that might prove of interest or might affect the proper execution of my duties.  That’s how I learned of Jesus . . .

PETER—REST IN JESUS

Matthew 11: 28  “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

 PETER:  When I was a young boy I was known for being hhot-tempered  The number of times I packed my hassock and strode out of our Capernaum house were plenty.  “You won’t have Peter to knock about anymore.  I’ll be off now.  You’ll be sorry, all of you.”  My father lit his pipe and yawned–he had to get up early to catch the tide and couldn’t be bothered.  Me Mum always wrapped me up a bun or a dried piece of cod and told me that it wasn’t much but that it would serve to get me through the noon hours.  If my brothers were about, and they usually were–after all, it was usually because of them that I was taking to the road– I was jeered and accompanied for the first mile or so with their mock tears, and “pitiful lamentations.”  But as I left the comfort of the blue of Galilee and wandered along the north road towards Jerusalem, and saw before me only scrub and tan hills spotted with woolies, my pace would slow down and I’d find a rock of comfort, that’s what I called it, and I’d come to the realization that I made every time I took this jaunt that when you got right down to it, where was there to go for a nine year old boy who had nothin’ more than a piece of fish and a net threader in his pocket.  But someday, someday when I was fully grown, I’d sail the seas and traverse the known world and send back a postcard, but only every two years or so, so they’d all eat their hearts out  and  it would get all quiet around the dinner table as they remembered young Peter who they had treated so badly when he was  but a child of nine.

Well, I’ve grown up.  Still have a temper of sorts, and though I’ve always felt ready, somehow the fishing trade and bringing up a family have kept me from realizing some of my boyhood dreams.  For the past year or two , I’ve become one of the followers of Jesus.  Not an easy task.  The last couple of days he’s been talkin’ about drinking his blood and eating his flesh,  which leaves us all wonderin’ just what we have got ourselves in for, especially now that so many of his disciples have packed up and left . . .