I wonder if I tell you often enough how much God loves you. Yesterday afternoon I

Transcription

1 Sermon The Ten Lepers On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As He entered a village, ten lepers approached Him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying Jesus, Master, have mercy on us! When Jesus saw them, He said to them, Go and show yourselves to the priests. And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus feet and thanked Him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? Then Jesus said to him, Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well. I wonder if I tell you often enough how much God loves you. Yesterday afternoon I married a couple on Avila Beach outside San Luis Obispo. I love those traditional words from the wedding ceremony: Dearly beloved, we are gathered here in the sight of God. I hope that every time we gather, I remind you that you are God s dearly beloved. Scripture is used, and meant, to inform and teach and shape us into the people of God. Being shaped and taught, and corrected into a life of holiness, can sometimes feel like a grapevine being bent, formed, and pruned. Discipleship can be challenging, difficult, and rigorous: God is training and teaching and molding us into the image of who God intends humanity to be: into the image of Jesus Christ. But if religious training and shaping and pruning is done with a heavy hand, we are likely to feel criticized, and unworthy, and even unloved. Some then withdraw or shut down a connection with God. One of the reasons the church exists is to be a community of support to help and encourage each other in our discipleship; to remind each other that we are God s dearly beloved people. God loves us, just as we are. I have read, God loves us as we are. And God loves us too much to just leave us there. God has plans for us, that we will mature in faith and grow in holiness, and bear fruit. Maturing in faith involves training and pruning and correction. And God intends that all of that take place in the fertile and rich soil of God s abundant and life-giving love 1

2 for us. So if I hope that I remember often to tell you that God loves you. When I pray for our congregation, I am filled with love and gratitude for you. I know the love and regard I have for you is an outpouring of God s love for you. You are God s dearly beloved. You are God s grapevines, planted, pruned, and tenderly cared for to produce fruit for God s Kingdom. Before we delve into the scripture lesson let s remember that no matter what the lesson - the correction, the instruction or pruning - that Jesus heart was full of love for the people who followed Him, who listened to Him; for those who were transformed and healed in encounters with Him, and for those who walked away. Let s take a moment to breathe in God s love for us, which is as available to us as the very air around us. Luke s gospel story about Jesus and the ten lepers has three key lessons to teach us about love, about really seeing, and about thanks-giving. Luke tells us that Jesus was traveling toward Jerusalem. We know how this story ends: Jerusalem would be the place where Jesus faced betrayal, abandonment, and crucifixion. The gospels tell us that Jesus had set His face to go to Jerusalem. Knowing what waited for Him there, Jesus traveled, deliberately, with intent, to Jerusalem; trusting God with every step that took Him closer to the cross. Here s another lesson for us in this gospel story. None of us will walk towards death on a cross, but all of us will walk through the valley of the shadow of death. It was Jesus faith in God, and the trust He had that He was held in God s care, that allowed Him to travel to Jerusalem, and to minister to people along the way. No matter what we face, no matter how dark the valley or how deep the ravine we walk through, we are, like Jesus, held in the presence of God. We are held in God s love. Even in the worst of times be mindful of this, and help your brothers and sisters be mindful of this: God is with you. God loves you. God sustains you. 2

3 While Jesus traveled to Jerusalem, ten men who had leprosy, saw Jesus and cried out to Him, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us! Leprosy was considered a death sentence - physically, spiritually, and socially - and lepers were required by law to identify themselves by wearing torn clothes, and uncombed hair, and to call out, Unclean, unclean so passersby would know to keep their distance. Amazingly these ten men knew who Jesus was when they saw Him. They must have recognized Him from stories they d heard stories about His teaching and healing - or maybe those who are desperate have keener eyesight to see Him - because instead of calling out, identifying their disease, they cried out to Jesus for mercy and healing. Those ten men saw Jesus, and Jesus saw them. Luke tells us that these men had leprosy, not that they were lepers. Luke is telling us that Jesus saw what their fellow citizens and what even the priests and the holy men couldn t see past: Jesus saw them not as lepers but as human beings, made in the image of God, beloved by God. The ten men with leprosy saw - they recognized - Jesus, which allowed them to call out for God s help and mercy. And Jesus saw them. In those moments of God and humanity truly seeing each other the ten men were healed. This is a story of miraculous physical healing. I m going to be bold and say that in every encounter with God, we are healed. It might not have the appearance of a miraculous healing. It might not be physical healing. But God s plan, in shaping and correcting and pruning us, is for our healing, and for our wholeness, so that like a well-tended grapevine produces wonderful, juicy grapes, we will bear the fruit of God s kingdom. Do we recognize - do we see - God s mercy touching us, healing us, blessings us? Because that changes us too. Seeing and celebrating God s mercies changes us into thanks-giving people. 3

4 This is not the first time Luke has told us that Jesus saw past outward appearances. Or rather than seeing past, I think Jesus saw into people. Lepers were almost non-people; in their culture they were almost invisible. But Jesus saw them. Jesus saw people, saw into their hearts and minds, and saw who they were created to be. The lesson here is two-fold. First, let s acknowledge that Jesus sees into us. He sees us, He knows us, and He loves us. Unlike Santa He sees you when you re sleeping; he knows when you re awake. He knows if you ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake! - Jesus sees past our behavior, and into our motives, and past that, into our souls. Jesus sees who we were created to be, who we have potential to be. And He loves us. Second, there s both an invitation and an expectation here - that because we are known by God, and loved for who we are, and loved for who God created us to be - because of that we will cooperate with God s intent to shape and prune us into vines that produce holy fruit. Our Methodist roots are in the practices of holiness. John Wesley called the practices of holiness the Means of Grace and the Works of Mercy. These are the practices that train us in the two great commandments: that we love God with everything we have and everything we are, and that we love everyone with the merciful, compassionate love of God that we ourselves have experienced. Or as Pat Hershey likes to say: our goal and purpose is to get love, give love, and repeat. Let s go back to the lessons for us in Luke s gospel. To encounter Jesus, as the men with leprosy did, we need eyes to see Jesus. When we recognize Jesus in big and small moments we can identify them and share them with others. We can show and tell others about the wonderful, loving, merciful, grace-filled presence of God. This is the best kind of witnessing to our faith. It s recognizing and identifying every holy moment. And then responding with thanks-giving. So we need hearts trained to hear Jesus voice. We need souls shaped and trained in holy living. Don t 4

5 shy away from this expression: holy living. Holy living is not holier-than-thou living; it is a life shaped by time spent with Jesus. Time spent with Jesus is a balance of loving Him and loving others. And it is living a life of thanks-giving. Thanks and giving are the fruits of holy living. Ten men with leprosy cried out to Jesus for mercy and healing. Jesus sent them off to the priests to be declared healed and clean, for this was also the Law. One of the men who was healed came back to Jesus to thank Him. One man returned and threw himself on the ground in front of Jesus, praising God. Jesus marveled that only one had returned, and that one a foreigner. Even though Jesus knew that God s salvation was for all the world, Jesus was a Jew, and the Jews expression of holiness was to be separate and exclusive from those outside their faith. When Jesus did interact with a foreigner, a Gentile, a Samaritan, or a woman, Jesus had the opportunity to practice God s values of love and mercy that were more inclusive than the cultural values around Him. As Jesus followers we have that same opportunity: to practice God s values of love and mercy instead of the cultural values of impatience and intolerance. Jesus marveled that the nine men who were healed in this encounter with Him, presumably Jews, did not return to give thanks to God. It was this foreigner ; a Samaritan who was an outsider, someone as outside the inner religious and cultural circle as a leper himself. A bonus lesson from this story from Luke s gospel is that once again we see the gospel value that no one is beyond God s sight, or love, or the hope of redemption. This one man returned to give thanks to God. This is whom I encourage us to identify with: not the nine who were healed and never returned, but the one who was healed inside and out (for Jesus said to him, Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.) This one who was healed, practiced thanks-giving. Thanks-giving is not just being thankful; it is giving to 5

6 God in proportion to what has given to you. Do you know yourself to be God s beloved? Then say Amen! Do you know yourself to be a forgiven sinner? Then say, Amen! Do you know yourself to be the recipient of blessings too many to count? Then say, Amen! Thanks-giving is both being thankful and giving back to God a portion of the mercy-gifts God has given to us. This is a wonderful scripture from the prophet Malachi about giving to God in proportion to what we have been given. It fits well with this month s finance campaign Give Boldly! Bring the full tithe (a tithe is ten percent of one s income or harvest) into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the window of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing! Let us see ourselves this morning as the one man, healed, and restored to full life, who returned to praise God. Let us see ourselves as God s beloved, blessed beyond measure - for God has again and again opened the window of heaven and poured down on us overflowing blessings both as individuals and as a community - and then let us respond to God with thanks-giving. We are God s beloved. We are God s grapevines tended, shaped and pruned to bear fruit for God s Kingdom. Let us respond to God s healing, and mercy, and grace, with thanks-giving. Amen. 6