On the Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Romans 12.16-21; Matthew 8.1-13

This week’s Epistle reading continues the lectio continua through Romans 12 that I pointed out last week, what I described as “a single sustained argument about the shape of the Christian life offered to God in grateful response to what Christ has done for us.” And once again, it is paired with a miracle story as the Gospel. But it is a miracle story of a somewhat different kind, which when juxtaposed with the Epistle helps us think in a slightly different register about how it is that Jesus’ redeeming work and our grateful response fit together. For what we have to deal with in the Gospel are two different healing stories, that of the leper and of the centurion’s servant.