Out-of-town champion.

A Sermon for the Third Sunday after Epiphany

January 26, 2025 at Holy Communion

1 Kings 8:22, 30, 41–43; Matthew 8:1–13

O God, “listen in heaven your dwelling place” (1 Kings 8:30). In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. ☩ Amen.

Shortly after I arrived in Shelburne, I started attending pickleball at the high school gym. I had never played before. So I was very happy that one of the people in attendance, someone in town for a few months on a work contract, was willing to show me the ropes.

This guy was good. He was kind too—he dialed it back for us locals without making a big deal of it, but when he really wanted to play he could put that ball anywhere he wanted to on the court. After one game, another player says to him, “You’re really good, man! Have you ever competed?” “Just a bit,” he says. “Did you hear that there was a provincial championship recently? It was open entry.” “Yeah, I entered that actually,” he says. “How did you do?” “Pretty well,” he says. So the local asks, “You won it, didn’t you?” “Yeah, we won it.”

So next time you’re playing pick-up sports and an out-of-towner wipes the floor with you, don’t feel too bad about it. You might be playing the provincial champion.

The readings in Epiphany season, which are mainly about the manifestation of the divine glory of Jesus, have a secondary theme about the relationship between Gentiles and Jews in the church. That theme comes out particularly strongly today. In our Old Testament reading, King Solomon prays as he dedicates the Temple, and asks that God would hear both the prayers of his chosen people, and also the prayers of foreigners. In our Gospel reading, Jesus performs two healings, one of a Jew and another of a Gentile.

The Jew-and-Gentile theme is not just a historical curiosity. We’ve said recently that, when we read about Israel, we should not only see the historical nation of the Jews, but we also see the church. The spiritual Israel, Paul teaches, is the same ancient community of the covenant into which the faithful of all nations have been grafted, like wild vines onto a cultivated plant (Romans 11).

But this implies something else. As we identify with Israel, when we read about Gentiles in the Bible we should think, “outsiders.” For Christians, the meaning of the word “Gentiles” doesn’t mean “non-Jews,” but “non-Christians,” people outside of the ancient covenant we have with our God. We see this in the New Testament: St Peter tells the church to “keep its conduct among the Gentiles honourable” (1 Peter 2:12), meaning “don’t scandalize unbelievers.”

So when in our Old Testament reading we hear Solomon pray first that God would hear the prayers of the covenant people, that’s us. When he goes on to pray for the Gentiles, that’s when something interesting happens. He prays that God would hear the prayers of the unwashed masses of the world, the unbelievers and idolaters, the godless and immoral. Anyone who has a sincere desire to pray: that’s whose prayers God will hear in his holy temple.

Likewise in our Gospel reading. We have two healings. The first man, a Jew, makes a remarkable statement of faith: “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean” (Matthew 8:2). But even this example of faith is put to shame by a Roman officer who comes to ask healing for his servant. He doesn’t even ask Jesus to come and touch him—though Jesus is willing. He says that he knows what it’s like to hold authority; Jesus just needs to command, and it’s done (v 8–9).

Jesus’ response gives us the point: “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith” (v 10). The centurion is the out-of-town champion. Jesus spends three years working mostly with Jews, healing them and preaching. But the strongest faith he ever encounters is a foreigner, and outsider, perhaps an idolater, certainly an occupier of Jewish lands.

Jesus once told the Pharisees—that is, he told the most faithful and observant members of the covenant people—that “the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you” (Matthew 21:31). God prefers the prayers of an outsider who really prays to the formalities of a Christian with a long resume of service.

Last week at Christian education, I told the group that it is a healthy practice to develop a “rule of prayer,” an achievable baseline of daily prayer practices which you can commit to as a way of growing daily in your relationship with our God. Most of the time, we pray less than we plan to pray; and not planning to pray is planning to not pray.

However, Katy and I also purchased a new book of prayers, called *Orthodox Christian Prayers*. In its preface, it talks about developing a prayer rule, and pushes back against being the inclination to have an impressive and demanding rule of prayer, preferring flexibility, simplicity, and authenticity. Using the voice of saints from the past, it says that “the essence of the work of prayer consists not in the quantity of the prayers read but in reading such prayers as are read with attention and with sympathy of heart.” Or again, “You must not forget that we are not saved by prayer rules, but by our willingness at every moment to fulfill God’s will instead of our own” (p. xv).

Christians are always in danger of getting out-prayed by outsiders. Unless we pay attention to the quality of our prayer, healthy regularity turns quickly into dry formality. And dry formality can go on for years and years without being challenged because it has the outward appearance of faithfulness. It’s nothing like the exuberant, messy vitality of the person who pours out his heart to the God he barely knows—but this is the person God wants to hear.

We celebrate that God hears the prayers of the outsider. We also want to emulate them when we see them demonstrate an authenticity in prayer which we have fallen away from.

The Gospel today asks us to pray like outsiders again. How long has it been since you came before God like someone with a real need, and a confidence that this strange and powerful God might be willing to hear you, even though you have no claim on him whatsoever?