Patrick Comerford
We are in Ordinary time and tomorrow is both the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, which gives a popular name to Peter-tide ordinations, and the Second Sunday after Trinity (Trinity II, 29 June 2025). The Church Calendar today remembers Saint Irenæus (ca 200), Bishop of Lyons and Teacher of the Faith.
Today is an Ember Day, marked on the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday in the week before the Sunday nearest to 29 June as days of prayer for those to be ordained deacon or priest. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Matthew 8: 5-17 (NRSVA):
5 When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, appealing to him 6 and saying, ‘Lord, my servant is lying at home paralysed, in terrible distress.’ 7 And he said to him, ‘I will come and cure him.’ 8 The centurion answered, ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, “Go”, and he goes, and to another, “Come”, and he comes, and to my slave, “Do this”, and the slave does it.’ 10 When Jesus heard him, he was amazed and said to those who followed him, ‘Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. 11 I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 12 while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 13 And to the centurion Jesus said, ‘Go; let it be done for you according to your faith.’ And the servant was healed in that hour.
14 When Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever; 15 he touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she got up and began to serve him. 16 That evening they brought to him many who were possessed by demons; and he cast out the spirits with a word, and cured all who were sick. 17 This was to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah, ‘He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.’
Today’s Reflection:
This morning’s reading at the Eucharist (Matthew 8: 5-17), with its two healing stories, and yesterday’s account of the healing of the man with leprosy (Matthew 8: 1-4), follow on from our series of readings from the Sermon on the Mount in Saint Matthew’s Gospel, including the feeding of the multitude and the Beatitudes.
The immediate impact of these three healing stories should impress on the reader that teaching and doctrine are immediately and intimately connected with care for the marginalised and people on the edges on or excluded from society.
There are two healing stories in this morning’s reading: the healing of the centurion’s servant in Capernaum (Matthew 8: 5-13), and the healing of the mother-in-law of Peter (verses 14-17). This reading deals with some everyday questions that we all come across in our lives: compassion and healing, humanity and humility, power and authority, how employers treat the workforce, who is an insider in our society and who is an outsider?
1, Matthew 8: 5-13:
Centurions show up frequently in the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles. A centurion (ἑκατόνταρχος, hekatóntarkhos) was a commander, nominally of a century or a military unit of 100 legionaries. The size of the century changed over time, and by the time of Christ it had been reduced to 80 men. A centurion's symbol of office was the vine staff – in contrast to Christ, who is the true vine.
It is surprising that these figures in the Roman occupation are portrayed in such positive and devout ways in the New Testament, including today’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Matthew 8: 5-13; cf Luke 7: 1-10). They respond to Christ by recognising his identity and, at times, with faith.
In Saint Luke’s version of this event, a group of Jewish elders come to Jesus, not on behalf of the dying slave, but on behalf of the centurion. They come not on behalf of a powerless person, but on behalf of the powerful man. They speak up for him, not because he might return the favour, but because he has already done them favours.
The onlookers and the early readers would know that it was against Jewish custom to enter a gentile’s, a Roman’s, a centurion’s home. The centurion, for his part, must surely know that despite what Jesus may do, the slave too will eventually die, even if in old age, so his only motivations can be love and compassion, like the love of a parent.
This centurion can say do this, can say do that, but there is one thing he cannot do. He cannot give life itself. He recognises his limitations. He knows that he is dependent on Christ. In other words, he knows he is not self-dependent, he has to depend on God. He is a man of moving humility.
The centurion in Capernaum is not Jewish, he is an outsider. We do not know how he prays, or how he lives, or how he worships. In Saint Luke’s account, it is enough for the people of Capernaum, and for Jesus, that he loves the people. He builds a place for the people to worship, to learn and to meet. He cares for their needs, physical and spiritual.
I imagine this centurion already knew about Jesus and his disciples, and that Jesus and the disciples knew who the centurion was. It is probable that Capernaum was the hometown of Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John, as well as the Gospel writer Matthew. Jesus has taught in the synagogue in Capernaum and then heals a man there who was possessed by an unclean spirit.
We do not know about the future faith of this centurion, whether he changed roles, changed his lifestyle, left politics and the army life behind him.
We do not know about the past or the future of the servant. Culturally, because of translations over the centuries, we have referred to him as the centurion’s servant or slave. But the centurion calls him ‘παῖς μου’ (pais mou, my child) in Matthew, and the word παῖς is instead δοῦλος (doulos, ‘born slave’) in Luke (see Luke 7: 2).
We know this servant, child or slave, is found in good health … but for how long? Did he live to an old age? Did he gain promotion, or even his freedom? What about his later religious beliefs? We do not know.
This surprising story tells us that those we perceive as our enemies, as outsiders, as strangers, as foreigners, can teach us so much about trust and faith. In the end, this story is reminiscent of Christ’s teaching earlier in the Sermon on the Mount: ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’ (Matthew 5: 44).
If we concentrate on healing and the miracle potential of this story, we may just sell ourselves short and miss the point of the story. Indeed, we know very little about the healing in this story, it tells us nothing about a healing ministry, it just tells us later that ‘the servant was healed in that hour’ (see verse 13).
Perhaps the real miracle is to be found when we wake up to the reminder once again that Jesus is concerned for those we regard as the outsider, those we treat as the other, those we exclude.
Who are our modern-day Gentiles? Those we describe as unbelievers, agnostics, atheists or secularists? These are the people the Church needs to listen to and to talk to today, just as Christ listens to the centurion.
Jesus commends the centurion for his πίστις (pistis), faith, trust or belief. He has seen nothing like it, even among his own people. He commends the centurion for his faith, and invites us to embrace that calling to live as people of faith.
It is interesting that seemingly the child, servant or slave is not aware of any of this, and is left playing a rather passive role in the story.
So, we should note that Christ does not discriminate against the centurion, or against the child, servant or slave. He makes no distinctions, no categorisation, allows no compartmentalisation. We do not know the religion, the ethnicity, the sexuality or the cultural background of the one who is healed.
Christ does not allow us to hold on to any prejudices or attitudes that tolerate racism, sexism, and ageism. We judge other people’s worthiness every time we withhold compassion or refuse to stand up for justice in solidarity with the oppressed, the ostracised, and the under-served. Will we take our cues from Christ and let God’s compassion and justice demolish the dividing lines we draw to protect ourselves?
2, Matthew 8: 14-17:
Immediately after healing the centurion’s servant, Christ also heals Simon Peter’s mother-in-law at her home in Capernaum (Matthew 8: 15-17). She remains unnamed, and she is identified only by her relationship to Simon Peter. Indeed, there is no reference at all to her daughter, Simon Peter’s wife.
All three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, tell this healing story (see Matthew 8: 14-17; Mark 1: 29-31; Luke 4: 38-40). Matthew says Jesus ‘touched’ the woman's hand, Mark say he ‘grasped’ it, and in Luke he simply ‘rebuked the fever’. Mark says the house was the home of Simon and Andrew, who both interceded with Jesus for the woman. Luke alone says she had a high fever. In all three synoptic Gospels, the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law and of a demon-possessed man trigger a wave of sick and possessed people being brought to Jesus.
Mother-in-law jokes illustrated many seaside postcards and were part of the stock-in-trade of comedians in the 1960s and well into the 1970s. Those mothers-in-law were never named, and the jokes served to emphasise the domestic role – perhaps servile role – of women in homes and families in those days.
But mothers-in-law were also mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, wives, nieces and daughters; they had careers, hopes and ambitions, fears, illnesses, and sufferings; they had love and emotions; and they had names … none of which were acknowledged in those postcards or comic sketches.
Yet a closer reading of this story shows that it does not reinforce a woman’s place as being servile or secondary, the ‘complementarian’ view offered by some commentators who claim they are ‘conservative evangelicals.’ It is not a story about a woman taking a late Saturday morning weekend sleep-in on her bed, and then getting up ‘to make the tea’.
The verb for serving, διακονέω (diakoneo) in verse 15, in reference to this woman, means to wait, attend upon, serve, or to be an attendant or assistant. Later, in the Acts of the Apostles and other places in the New Testament, it means to minister to, relieve, assist, or supply with the necessaries of life, or provide the means of living, to do the work of the διάκονος or deacon (see I Timothy 3: 10, 13; I Peter 4: 11), even to be in charge or to administer (see II Corinthians 3: 3, 8: 19-20; I Peter 1: 12, 4: 10).
The word describing this woman’s service also describes the angels who minister to Jesus after he is tempted in the wilderness (Matthew 4: 11; Mark 1: 13), the work of his female disciples (Luke 8: 1-3), and describes Martha of Bethany when she serves while her sister Mary sits at Jesus’s feet and learns, before Jesus specifically affirms Mary’s choice (Luke 10: 38-42).
Most significantly, this word describes Jesus himself, when he explains to his disciples that ‘whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many’ (see Matthew 20: 26-28).
Being healed is not just about personal relief but also about being restored to a place where one can serve and contribute to the community. The Book of Common Prayerdescribes God as the one ‘whose service is perfect freedom,’ and this is modelled by Peter’s mother-in-law. Her response to Jesus healing her is a model not just for women but for all Christian ministry, for all Christian service, for all being ordained this Petertide.
In the kingdom, serving is not women’s work, it is everybody’s work.
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 28 June 2025):
‘Windrush Day’ has been the theme this week (22-28 June) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). This theme was introduced last Sunday with reflections by Rachael Anderson, former Senior Communications and Engagement Manager, USPG.
The USPG prayer diary today (Saturday 28 June 2025) invites us to pray:
Father, give us a spirit of celebration for the people around us. We pray that by your Spirit, hope will arise.
The Collect:
God of peace,
who through the ministry of your servant Irenæus
strengthened the true faith
and brought harmony to your Church:
keep us steadfast in your true religion,
and renew us in faith and love,
that we may always walk in the way that leads to eternal life;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Collect for those to be ordained:
Almighty God, the giver of all good gifts,
by your Holy Spirit you have appointed
various orders of ministry in the Church:
look with mercy on your servants
now called to be deacons and priests;
maintain them in truth and renew them in holiness,
that by word and good example they may faithfully serve you
to the glory of your name and the benefit of your Church;
through the merits of our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
God of truth,
whose Wisdom set her table
and invited us to eat the bread and drink the wine
of the kingdom:
help us to lay aside all foolishness
and to live and walk in the way of insight,
that we may come with Irenæus to the eternal feast of heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Heavenly Father,
whose ascended Son gave gifts of leadership and service to the Church:
strengthen us who have received this holy food
to be good stewards of your manifold grace,
through him who came not to be served but to serve,
and give his life as a ransom for many,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Collect on the Eve of Peter and Paul:
Almighty God,
whose blessed apostles Peter and Paul
glorified you in their death as in their life:
grant that your Church,
inspired by their teaching and example,
and made one by your Spirit,
may ever stand firm upon the one foundation,
Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Collect on the Eve of Trinity II:
Lord, you have taught us
that all our doings without love are nothing worth:
send your Holy Spirit
and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love,
the true bond of peace and of all virtues,
without which whoever lives is counted dead before you.
Grant this for your only Son Jesus Christ’s sake,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Yesterday’s reflections
Continued tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition copyright © 2021, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.