“All talk, no action.” I don’t know about you, but in my household growing up, there were few worse statements that could be made about another person than that one. I can see my grandpa frowning at the television set when a campaign ad came on. I can see my dad reporting back from his fifth trip to the mechanic about the same rattling noise coming from under the hood. I can see my mom standing at the top of the basement stairway looking down on us kids who, having been sent down to clean up our toys over an hour ago, had still made no progress whatsoever. All talk, no action.
In contrast, there were few traits considered more praiseworthy in my household growing up than being a “man of your word.” If my grandma described someone as a “man of his word” it meant you were okay to pay him in advance. My parents took giving their word so seriously that I cannot remember either of them ever saying something that they didn’t follow through on. If they said they would bring brownies for my class party and the car wouldn’t start (not unusual for a car that rattled incessantly) they’d bundle up all my younger siblings in the red wagon and walk a mile uphill in the snow to get me those brownies.
Now, lest you think the purpose of this preaching is to paint you a picture of Mayberry, I want to say that I suspect that Jesus and the centurion that we met in today’s Gospel were probably raised with similar values. Both were trained to take words seriously, because in both of their experiences, words meant action.
The centurion, if he didn’t learn it at home, would certainly have learned it in the Roman military. A centurion was a Roman army leader who oversaw upward of a hundred soldiers and was personally responsible for their training and discipline. His men had to answer to him, just as he would have to answer to his superiors. If not, the punishment could be swift and harsh. His were words backed up by all the violent power and authority of the empire.
Jesus, I suspect did learn it at home, growing up in a Jewish household that treasured the word of God. From his earliest days, he would have heard his people’s story of creation. “God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light.” “God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image’ and there existed humankind in God’s image.” He would have heard Isaiah, “My word shall not return to me void without accomplishing what I intend it to do.” He would know that all the way throughout scripture, word and action for God are one and the same thing, which is another way of saying—stay with me here—that God is Utter Integrity. What does that mean? It means there’s no lying in God. There is no deceit in God. God is totally truthful, totally faithful. God’s talk is all action. God is a “God of his word.”
I’m not sure how old Jesus was when he discovered that God had shared that power with him—that he could tap into God’s utter integrity and live out of that utter integrity. Integrity was such a different kind of power than what he would have seen in the wider Roman world. I wonder if he was surprised when he figured out that being totally honest, being consistently faithful to his words, made those words buzz with a divine authority. That his word alone could make things happen. I wonder if he kept this knowledge to himself for a while as he figured out how it all worked. But obviously he couldn’t keep it completely hidden.
The centurion spotted it. He recognized that the power of Jesus’ word was even more powerful than his own. His word as a centurion had the power to evoke action out of fear of repercussion, yes…. but it had its limits. It couldn’t multiply loaves. It couldn’t raise the dead. And, it couldn’t heal his paralyzed servant. He may or may not have understood where the power of Jesus’ word came from, but he knew that, even from afar, Jesus’ word meant action.
I wonder how old you were when you figured out that people with integrity possess—or perhaps more accurately, participate in—a special kind of power. Maybe you’ve always known. Maybe, like me, you were blessed enough to be raised with great examples of it in your own home. Or maybe you had a teacher whose life buzzed with it. Or maybe you’ve only sensed the power of integrity from a distance in someone like Pope Francis, or Malala, or Mother Teresa. Maybe you would say that you are still waiting to meet someone of great integrity, someone whose words and actions are aligned in such a way that a special kind of energy radiates from them. You are still longing to see what integrity can do.
But even now, are you aware that you can tap into that power yourself? That whether you have any official status or not, whether you’ve got anyone reporting to you or not, you can nevertheless participate in the power of integrity. Even if no one else around you is doing it, you can be a person of your word. You can follow through on what you say. You can connect your words and your actions like a circuit and the electricity of God will start to buzz.
It’ll probably befuddle others around you. They’ll call the things that happen weird, extraordinary, occasionally even miraculous. And they will wonder how you seem to be able to just “make stuff happen.” But you’ll know. You’ll know it really has nothing to do with you. You are but a conduit. When you live in such a way that your words and your actions are one, God will be able to do things in the world through you that an entire Roman army couldn’t pull off.
