Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 47 · February 16
Under My Roof
“The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.”
A town on the lake with an officer of the occupying army in it, and the officer has come out into the road to stop a Jewish teacher walking any further toward his house.
Listen: the exchange is short, and both men move in it.
Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.
I will come and heal him.
Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.
He turns the visit down and asks for something harder, and his reasoning is professional. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth. He has worked out that Jesus is under orders too, that a man under orders can give them, and that such an order travels the last half mile on its own. He is reading a chain of command.
Luke tells the same afternoon with an extra voice in it. The Jewish elders go on ahead to argue his case, and their word for him is worthy: That he was worthy for whom he should do this. Then he sends friends to say the opposite about himself while the elders are still talking. Two verdicts on one record, in one story, and the one Jesus marvelled at is his.
His sentence went into the liturgy of the church, where it can rot in the mouth. Lord, I am not worthy is a statement about who Jesus is. Turned round, it becomes a statement about you and a reason to stop asking for anything. Whatever this man thought of himself, it did not close his mouth. His servant was healed in the selfsame hour.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 47 is Unpluckable (John 10:29).