SERMON - October 9 , 2011
Rev. Kevin E. Johnston
"L'Chaim - To Life"
The Message
Luke 17:11-19
They were heading toward Jerusalem, and had taken the old border road that ran between Samaria and Galilee. It was a hot day – the kind of day when the dust form the road lies thick on the bushes, and puffs up around your feet with every step you take – the kind of day when the sweat runs down into your eyes and turns the grime on your face into streaks of mud.
And for a while - the only sounds to be heard were the low drone and buzz of the insects. But then, through the stillness, at first in the distance, then as they got closer, they heard them – like a steady, never-ending drone – “Unclean, unclean, unclean".
Looking around, trying to find what, and where, the sound was, they rounded the crest of a hill and began the long walk down to the village that lie in the valley below. And there the group saw them, cowering – as if they were trying to hide in the bushes by the side of the road. Then, as the band walked towards them, the crying stopped.
There were ten in all. Even if Jesus and his friends had not heard their cry, the travellers would have had no problem knowing who and what the disfigured ones were. Some of them had rags wrapped around their hands. Others had their feet bundled up in strips of old cloth. All of them were dressed in the tattered and torn clothing that people in their condition were required to wear. And all of them sported long, unkempt hair.
There was no mistaking what they were. They were lepers. At the sight of them standing just off the path staring like a pack of hungry and wounded animals, the group stopped. No one wanted to get any closer to those wretched creatures. And really, who could blame them?
Everyone knew about leprosy. It was a horrible affliction. No one would recover from it. The disease slowly rots and destroys the body, and worse yet, was very easy to catch. That's why the priests insisted that anyone who had a skin blemish report to them for an examination. The priest would check the person over thoroughly, and if there were raw patches of flesh, white bumps, or red marks on their skin, or if their hair was discoloured, the priest would pronounce them unclean. Then the person would be sent off – into isolation – for seven days so that no one else would be put in danger.
It must have been very difficult for people wondering for days if they had leprosy, wondering if they would ever be able to live with, let alone ever see, their families again. But it was fair – at least for the community, and their loved ones. Leprosy was not good. It wasn’t good at all.
Most times the person would not have the disease. Returning to the priest after seven days, their blemishes would have cleared up, and they would be pronounced clean and allowed to return to their homes. But for others, like the ten on the side of the road, their imperfections had worsened, the colour of the sores was brighter, and more of their flesh was infected. They would be banished, and declared forever unclean. No longer could they have normal human contact with anyone else. No longer would they be allowed to bounce their children on their knees, or hug their family and friends, or do anything that might cause another to catch what they had.
Imagine, if you can, living out your life in a hovel, in a camp outside the village, spending all your time with those suffering and diseased like you. Imagine what it might have been like no longer able to see anyone you love except at a distance, only being able to talk to them by yelling from far off. After a while, everyone you knew would stop coming to see you. No one would want to look at you or have anything to do with you. No one, despite the fact that they claimed to love you, would ever hug or touch you again. No one, that is, except those who are like you – those whose bodies were also twisted, deformed, and rotting like yours.
Imagine waiting to see what will happen to you, waiting to see if your disease will spread as it has in others, destroying your fingers and toes, your mouth and nose, until at last you would either starve to death, or die from some infection. But this relief may not come until you had lingered and lived a hellish existence for several years.
Imagine – waiting – hoping – or even trying to hope for that one in a million chance your ulcers will clear up and you could go to the priest that he might pronounce you clean, declare you whole and restored, and grant you “life” once again.
I wonder what it would be like having to live in rags, wearing torn and tattered clothing. I wonder how difficult it would be to have your hair grow long, unable to comb it. I wonder what it would be like to have to cry out, “Unclean, unclean”, whenever you came near a “normal” person. I wonder what it would be like to have to live “like that”, in that way?
Then again – maybe we don’t have to “imagine” or wonder at all. Perhaps some – perhaps all – of us here this morning can relate to these ten lepers on some level, in some way. Could it be that you, or perhaps your neighbour, at this place in your, or their, life feel, or have been labelled, unclean, isolated, unfit, or worse?
As the travellers came to a stop, the lepers began to call out to the group’s leader – the Holy-in-the-midst-of-the-situation – “Have mercy on us! Take pity on us and have some concern, will you? Help us! Just acknowledge us, please!” Perhaps these folk had heard that he’d been restoring others to wholeness – to life – and they figured, “Hey, what the heck? Maybe he’ll stop and help us – help me – too. After all, what have we got to lose, eh?”
But Jesus didn’t go to them, throw his arms around them, and embrace them. He didn’t touch them at all. Instead, he shouted back at them, “Go and show yourselves to the priest”. What’s up with that? What was that all about? Why didn’t he didn’t make physical contact with them? Was he afraid he’d also “catch it”? I wonder why the storyteller doesn’t say?
But off they went, to see the priest – to find out if they would be restored to community, to life, once again. I’d love to have seen the look in the priest’s face as he opened the door to find the young man standing before him, grinning from ear to ear. The priest knew his family very well – especially his father, who’d helped build the parish hall. And although the priest and the man’s dad were close friends, they never talked about the son. Years ago, his family had sent him away, and he was as good as dead. When you had leprosy, you didn’t belong any more. You no longer had family, or community. And you certainly weren’t welcome in worship!
This was the priest who had confirmed the diagnosis – the priest who had sent him from the sanctuary, never to return, asking God to “have mercy” on his soul. It was the kind of thing one would say to a criminal en route to the gallows. But the young man was back…seven years later, minus an arm, presenting himself as cured.
The priest didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know which book to look for, or which page to turn to if he could find the “right” book in the first place. He’d only been taught the ceremonial words with which to send lepers away. He had never learned how to receive them back.
It took a long while – a long while – for the priest to come within three feet of the man standing before him. At first, the priest wanted the young man to tie a blindfold on himself, until he said, “I’ve only got one arm. You’ll have to do it.” But the priest couldn’t bring himself to touch him.
So he asked the man to put a sack over his head. And then, taking a pin began to stick it into different parts of his body, asking, “Where am I touching?” And every time, the young man knew. Because every time, it hurt. Pain had returned because he was healthy and whole once again.
The priest even pushed the pin into the man’s stump, and he yelled as loud as he could. Actually, he screamed perhaps louder than he needed to. But he reckoned that, if this guy was going to give him a hard time, perhaps he, too, should feel some of the pain.
Finally, the priest took the bag off the young man’s head and asked, “How is this possible?”
“It’s possible”, the man answered, “because in a world where everyone has abandoned, rejected, and avoided me, somebody acknowledge that I am a person, and that I do matter.”
But the priest didn’t even ask who this “somebody” was. Perhaps the priest knew, and was disappointed in the fact that, what everyone else – including him and the church had turned away from – the Holy One had embraced, and accepted, and acknowledged. The young man had dignity, he had worth, regardless of what the priest said or thought or could do.
In the musical, Fiddler on the Roof, we hear the story of Tevye the milkman, father of five daughters, and his attempts to maintain his family and religious traditions while outside influences intrude upon and meddle in their lives. Tevye must cope with both the strong-willed actions of his three oldest daughters, as each one’s choice of husband moves progressively further away from established customs. In the scene where Tevye arranges the marriage of his eldest daughter, Tzeitel, to the wealthy butcher, Lazar Wolf, he and Lazar toast to a better, richer existence. “To life! To life! L’Chaim!” the two men sing as they buy rounds for their bar buddies and toast “To life!”
And I wonder if perhaps the ten lepers, on their way to see the priest that day, might have also been singing, “To life! To Life! L’Chaim!” as they danced toward the village, having been restored to wholeness once again?
In her book, Out of the Ordinary, Joyce Rupp notes that
In one of his journal notations, [twentieth-century Trappist Monk and poet,] Thomas Merton writes that we are always thinking that our life will be truly happy “when”. We are not satisfied with what is currently our situation because we have it in our mind that our life won’t be happy until something else occurs: when I have one more thing I want, when I get rid of that personality flaw of mine, when I can finally have life as I always dreamed it to be, when I am truly successful, when I learn to pray better, when I find the right person in my life, when, when…
Waiting for the “when” keeps me from appreciating what I now have. Longing for promises and dreaming dreams is not a harmful deed as long as the present moment is not overlooked, as long as gratitude rises for what is already here, as long as I do not base my happiness on what is still wanting. Thankfulness for what has already been given is the foundation for hoping for what is not yet.
Today I am going to put aside my “when this happens” and my “if only this could be” and my “when things get better” and my “as soon as I have this.” I am going to harvest what I now have, gather all the many gifts that are already mine. I am going to observe what has been placed in the granary of my heart and marvel at the abundance.
I will stand before this heap of blessings and take a long, grateful look. I will say farewell to my “when” and be thankful for what is.
Only one of the ten returned to give thanks that day. We’re not told why the other nine didn’t. And I wonder why? I wonder if they forgot. I wonder if it wasn’t important to them to do so. I wonder if it even crossed their minds to stop for a moment and say thanks.
I wonder, too, if perhaps the ten lepers could be a metaphor for us, God’s people. I wonder if the majority of us sometimes – maybe too-often – forget to return to the Holy One in our midst, and say thanks – thanks for all we have been gifted, and granted, in and through God’s grace. I wonder if perhaps that’s the lesson here in the story from Luke’s gospel – that we’re more like the other nine who merrily went on their way, who returned to life-as-they-knew-it, and forgot, or possibly couldn’t be bothered.
I know that I’m in that other nine. I don’t always stop to say thanks to God for all I’ve been gifted – especially life that the Eternal One gives abundantly. And I wonder, are you in that group of nine as well?
May an abundance of gratitude burst forth as you reflect upon what you have received.
May thanksgiving overflow in your heart, and often be proclaimed in your prayer.
May you gather around the table of your heart the ardent faithfulness, kindness, and goodness of each person who is true to you.
May the harvest of your good actions bring forth plentiful fruit each day.
May you discover a cache of hidden wisdom among the people and events that have brought you distress and sorrow.
May your basket of blessings surprise you with its rich diversity of gifts and its opportunities for growth.
May all that nourishes and resources your life bring you daily satisfaction and renewed hope.
May you slow your hurried pace of life so you can be aware of, and enjoy, what you too easily take for granted.
May you always be open, willing, and ready to share your blessings with others.
May you never forget the Generous One who loves you lavishly and unconditionally.
“A Thanksgiving Blessing”. J. Rupp
On this Thanksgiving Sunday, and as we continue our month-long focus on stewardship, may we give thanks not only for all we have both individually and as a faith community. May we also be thankful for the wonderful gift of children and youth among us. I was told that our one youth class is so large that two groups had to be created. There are congregations across this country that would give anything to have that “problem”.
And as we dance forward into life – into our new, restored, unimagined, whole life – may our song also, like Tevye and Lazar, be “L’Chaim! To life!”
May it be so.
Resources for this sermon were found in and/or adapted from:
http://www.rockies.net/~spirit/sermons/a-than-se.php; “The Leper” (“Present on Earth: Worship Resources on the Life of Jesus”. Wild Goose Publications. 2002); and “Out of the Ordinary: Prayers, Poems, and Reflections for Every Season” (J. Rupp. Ave Maria Press. 2000)