But speak the word only and my soul shall be healed.
I suppose I learned this prayer in Seminary but I may have learned it long before. It is a prayer countless people pray just before receiving the sacrament of Holy Communion. Many priests say it at the altar before we make our own communion. I remember in my teen years serving the altar and overhearing the celebrant pray this prayer three times while striking his chest..."I am not worthy." How odd it seemed then. The very one I saw as most worthy using these words. Why was I so humbled to overhear him pray? Why did I feel so at one with him in this moment?
This is a prayer of faith and hope, that this small act of receiving the sacrament of Christ present will provide some healing in our lives. It affirms that we so often approach God not because we depend on our worthiness but because we touch our need to be more whole, more deeply real, alive. By now it is for me a prayer of deep intimacy met by the care that is core to a life well lived or hopefully lived.
It comes to us in today's Gospel. It comes from the intersection of wealth and poverty, power and powerlessness. A centurion, a gentile of significant power and a good heart, seeks healing for his slave. The Jews come to Jesus to ask him to act on the slave's behalf. Why? Because the centurion has shown charity to the oppressed community. He has paid to build a synagogue for the village. That most likely shows he was " a righteous gentile," a moral follower of Judaism who could by birth never be a full convert and yet has faith in the One True God. Or perhaps he was simply an man of a generous heart.
When Jesus is willing to come to him, word is sent back.
When Jesus was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying to him, "Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed." Luke 7:6-7
The word from the centurion further explains how he is with his own men. The word is sent and an action is done. This clarity of hope and faith causes Jesus to say, "I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith."
The healing is discovered to have happened when the soldiers return to the centurion. It comes from the intersection of wealth and poverty, power and powerlessness. The centurion has both wealth and power. His wealth is seen in owning a slave, building a synagogue he can never fully belong to. Poverty is seen in the slave and the village's need. Power and powerlessness are seen in his station (power) on the one hand and an illness he is powerless over. Yet in this place he holds the power of compassion, he opens his inner being to hope beyond easy hope, to accept his vulnerable self in light of care.
God in Jesus acts and a healing is actualized.
So we do not mistake this to be the sole province of the wealthy, this story is followed by a healing for a widow who has experienced the death of her only son and way of survival going forward. Jesus touches the bier and the son is made whole and so is her life.
It is not worthiness necessarily that causes the actions of Jesus here. It is need and hope meeting. It is done for one powerful enough to ask and one lost in a land of great grief. It comes upon request and it comes without request yet at the moment of life's deepest vulnerability.
For many, the moment we open ourselves to receive communion, the moment we are desirous and willing to receive Christ into our daily life is this moment. A moment when we release our power and become powerless except to hope. A moment when we know an inner poverty and just beyond we know the wealth of hope vulnerably held. Sometimes this accompanies a time of sorrow, sometimes joy, sometimes mundaneness.
And so we pray,
And I believe our open prayer is met with the divine acknowledgement of our hope, a healing of the soul, the compassion of God beneath bread and wine accepted.
Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof:
But speak the word only and my soul shall be healed.
But speak the word only and my soul shall be healed.
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