20071014 Luke 17b

Luke is telling us again and again about healing and about hope. This is the third time in as many chapters that he has used the theme of being dead and made alive again. There was the prodigal son in chapter 15, Lazarus the beggar in chapter 16 and now these lepers in chapter 17. All three of those men were unclean in some way, and being labeled unclean in those times was just the same as being dead.

Having leprosy was one of those shameful, horrible diseases that you didn’t talk about. It is not so common today because modern medicine has found a vaccine that works against the infection that causes it. It is very, very infectious and spreads from on person to another quickly and easily. Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease of humans caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae. For many years, it was considered a mysterious disorder associated with some type of curse, and persons with the disease were isolated and ostracized. Today, there is effective treatment and the disease can be cured. There is no longer any justification for isolating persons with leprosy.The disease can affect the skin, mucous membranes, and eyes and some of the nerves that are located outside the central nervous system (peripheral nerves). These are primarily the nerves of the hands, feet, and eyes, and some of the nerves in the skin. In severe, untreated cases, loss of sensation, muscle paralysis of hands and feet, disfigurement, and blindness may occur. (medical info from www.webmd.com) Fingers and toes grow numb, the skin gets hard and dry. This happens to such an extent that the fingers and toes can literally be broken off without the person feeling them. Or they become so rotted from lack of blood flow that they simply fall off. The disease progreses up the limbs and finally to the lungs and heart which stiffen and stop, causing death. The key things to remember are the numbness, the hard, cracking of the skin and the loss of feeling.

The leper in today’s text had two strikes against him for being a leper and for being a Samaritan, the hated enemies of the Jews.

Who are the ones that are considered unclean or outsiders today? Because it is through the ones on the margins that Jesus showed who he was and what his kingdom is about. The first group that always springs to my mind are the illegal aliens, mostly Hispanic, in our culture that have come here to work in agriculture. There is truth and hurt on both sides of the debate but, I can’t help wondering if they are the disenfranchised, the ones on the outside, that are the modern-day equivalent of the Samaritans of Jesus’ day. I don’t have an answer here and I am not falling down on one side or the other of this debate. But I am saying that there is a pricking in my soul that tells me that this is important, that this is a topic we need to wrestle with as a community.

The ten lepers are healed by Jesus but only one comes back to thank him. And the one that comes back isn’t a Jew but a Samaritan. This foreigner, literally in the Greek, this alien, is showing us what real gratitude is all about. And in this context, I can’t help thinking about rain.

We’ve prayed a lot for rain this summer and we’ve gotten a little precipitation here and there. But, according to the way I see it, we haven’t gotten nearly enough. Everything is sort of OK for now but it is hard not to worry about what January and February will bring when it will be cold, the ground hard as stone and there won’t be much for our animals to even nibble on, even less than the little bit that they have right now.

What we need is rain. We need a soft shower everyday that will soften up this hard ground until it is able to soak up drenching showers that will sink deeply into the soil. We need cool, dewy mornings and warm afternoons to grow a fall crop of grass that will allow our herds to start off the winter already sleek and fat. We know we need the rain as much as the leprous men knew they needed healing.

Their disease-ridden bodies were as cracked and lifeless as our pastures. So they reached out to the one whom they believed could restore them. Yes, the one they hoped could resurrect them.

And without any special words of healing, Jesus sent them off to the priest, the human authority that could declare them well and allow them back into their families, their homes and their community.

In the act of simply turning away to follow his instructions, they were made physically whole and well. Their skin was restored to dewy softness; the cracked and hardened places were warm and flexible. Fingers and toes that had been stiffened with disease could curl and uncurl, could grasp and hold, were functional again. All from the single word of Jesus – “Go.” There response in just a small amount of faith, just mustard seed-sized was all that was needed to turn and set out on the path he directed.

Now, let me say here that using the illustration of how we need rain here falls a little bit short of perfection. I am NOT saying that God is withholding rain from us because of some bad behavior on our part or because we haven’t prayed hard enough or in the ‘right’ way. God knows we need rain just like he knows about every other need we have. And we humans can’t force God to act or understand the mystery of why things happen the way they do.

But I do think the kind of rain that we’d like to see falling on out fields is the kind of softening healing that God wants to rain on our hearts. The same way that the leprosy had deadened the bodies of the men Jesus healed, there is a spiritual and emotional leprosy that deadens our hearts and souls. Oh, our hearts may keep physically beating but our feelings and spirits are so dead, numb and lifeless that we become just an empty shell. That healing and softening comes to our hearts by simply exercising the faith that we have, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem. As we turn to follow Jesus’ instructions to go, we are made well. Maybe just a little at a time, maybe not in ways that we even immediately recognize.

But that’s not the end of the story. One of the men, realizing the magnitude of what has happened, turns back to Jesus to say thank you. And in that action, Jesus gives him more than any physical healing. “Your faith has made you well” our English translations say. But in the Greek it is more than that. “Your faith has saved you.” Jesus says and he means not just from physical death but spiritual death as well. Salvation comes from obedience and gratitude.

That kind of gratitude is what we are being called to. It’s not a one time thing but an attitude that characterizes a lifetime.

Being a grateful person grounds us in the things we know to be important. Tonight when you go to bed, count 5 things you are thankful for, starting with the 5 breaths you take while you think about it. And tomorrow morning, before your feet hit the floor, thank God for 5 more, especially the 5 beats of your heart while gratitude crosses your mind.

No matter whether rain is falling or the sun is shining, or as sometimes happens around here, both are happening at the same time, remember the words from 1st Thessalonians: “Give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of Christ Jesus for you.” Are there hard places in your heart that need softening? Not the places where we live most of the time, when we consider our spouses, our children and grandchildren, the friends that surround us.
What about when we consider folks who are different from us, folks that are offensive to us in some way: foreigners living in our land, people who live lifestyles that we despise. Where do you need the softening touch of the Master’s hand? It may be in places you can’t even identify, places where fear and anger have sunk so deeply down into your soul that you don’t even know it’s there but you react out of that fear and anger when you least expect it.

The rain may not fall from the sky everyday or as often as we want it to but the blessings of God through the Holy Spirit continue to flow all the time, abundantly, overflowing in ways that are more than we can ask or imagine. All we have to do is be open and willing to change, willing to follow Jesus’ simple command “Go” and to be grateful, to live in an attitude of thanksgiving.

Remember the words of the 10 lepers to Jesus? “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” He did and He has.

Amen