The Say-But-the-Word Centurion

It isn't often that a sermon turns up in my inbox, but today – the 4th Sunday after Pentecost – one did, and it's rather good. Here's a link...https://www.rememberingsion.com/p/foundation-faith-sermon-4th-sunday-pentecostAnd of course this led me straight back to Les Murray's great poem of faith, 'The Say-But-the-Word Centurion Attempts a Summary'...That numinous healer who preached Saturnalia and paradox has died a slave’s death. We were manoeuvered into it by priests and by the man himself. To complete his poem.He was certainly dead. The pilum guaranteed it. His message, unwritten except on his body, like anyone’s, was wrapped like a scroll and despatched to our liberated selves, the gods.If he has now risen, as our infiltrators gibber, he has outdone Orpheus, who went alive to the Shades. Solitude may be stronger than embraces. Inventor of the mustard tree,he mourned one death, perhaps all, before he reversed it. He forgave the sick to health, disregarded the sex of the Furies when…