union avenue christian church |
|||||||||
 |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
The Life of Thanksgiving Luke 17:11 – 19; Jeremiah 29:1, 4 – 7 Leprosy – not a familiar disease. There are no registered cases in the United States. However, Brazil has the 2nd most cases in the world – (80,000) next to India. It is a disease that spreads in the unhealthiest situations, among the poorest of the poor. Lepers in the day of Jesus didn’t get medical treatment. They were merely pushed away from the rest of the society – for the protection of others. So they formed colonies in which to live, to have some sense of community...and then often positioned themselves in the traffic way in order to beg. And so, I can safely assume that not one of us can get fully into the character of these 10 who encountered Jesus on this day. We’ve all been sick – and some of you with absolutely devastating illnesses. Although rest and medicine are contributors to healing, one of the other major factors within medical science is compassionate care…doctors, nurses, therapists, chaplains, friends, neighbors, support groups, churches, synagogues. Imagine for a moment when you were the very most sick in your life – if those factors had been eliminated ...and instead you were shuffled into a place with other folks feeling as awful as you – as diseased as you – as weakened as you and with no care. As hopeless as debilitating diseases make us feel…most of the time we have others who are hanging onto the hope for recovery and health, and will encourage us to catch that glimmer or tiny thread of hope and begin to look and work toward it. The lepers had no such fortune. They were pushed aside to die. They were ostracized to not contaminate others…and they were given nothing except what they could beg from passers-by. The first amazing part of this story is that Jesus did heal them. Their plea to him was for mercy. Mercy could have meant some food. Mercy could have meant the change we put in the cans or palms of those who ask as we walk on our streets. Mercy could have meant praying for them. We do not know what they expected, and we truly don’t know if they realized WHAT they received! Jesus told them to go to the priests – which was forbidden if they were leprous – but then they went on their way…and realized they had been made clean, had been healed. Jesus had that power – we believe it, although we don’t understand it…and we wonder why that power cannot be called upon in every instance of disease. But it did happen here. And that’s the first part of the story – the healing. The second part is more important. This part is about saving. Salvation is one of those words that makes many of us squirm. Reading sermons and hymns written in the 19th and early 20th century give evidence of this word and concept over and over. It is a part of the Christian faith. Through the years, however, we have allowed our more fundamentalist brothers and sisters to capture the word and define its meaning. We really cannot let the concept go, however…because something very distinctive happened to the one leper in our Gospel story today…that did not happen to the other nine. What happened to him is critical to our faith development. Bishop Desmond Tutu wrote a little book, which he considers a ‘cumulative expression of my life’s work’ (p. ix, God Has A Dream, Doubleday. 2004). In God Has A Dream, Tutu writes letters to his readers – children of God. His basic premise is that what we are is a gift from God. What we become is our gift to God. How we live out our lives is a thank offering to the one who loved us into being. And God is waiting and longing for the relationship – the partnership – that will only come when we realize to whom we must be grateful for our existence. That moment – that realization – that transforming instant and ‘aha’ changes our entire life and the rest of our days…because that is the beginning of possibility for God to use us in God’s dream for this creation. Tutu has a wonderful image in the last pages of his book: “If you were in heaven now you would notice the tears in God’s eyes. The tears streaming down God’s face as God looked on us and saw the awful things that we, God’s children, are doing to each other. God cries and cries. And then you might see the smile that was breaking over God’s face like sunshine in the rain, almost like a rainbow. You would see God smiling because God was looking on you and noting how deeply concerned you are.” (Ibid. p. 128) There is a time – when we know we are a child of God – and that our life is a gift given to us and we have a response to make. Allowing that moment to penetrate our very being will cause us to give thanks…will cause us to want to be drawn into a relationship and reliance with the gift-granter. The more we are drawn into that relationship, the more eager we will become to discover the dream that God not only has for the whole creation, but specifically what our part will be. And when we begin to capture that piece of the dream, we will long for the energy to live it out. That, my dear Christian friends, is salvation. At that moment our life is SAVED for its real and intended purpose. And that concept is integral to the Christian Gospel…and not something we can let slide away because the word makes us uncomfortable from its mis-use. The leper – the one of the ten – acknowledged his healing. He gave thanks to God as the source of his new life. He didn’t just bank his good fortune. He experienced the moment of connectedness to God – that I believe God longs for in all of us! Another amazing part of the story is that this particular leper was a Samaritan. He was not just an outcast because of his disease – but he was culturally offensive as well. That piece certainly didn’t need to be remembered. It could have been written out of the script – except that it was an incredibly important part of Jesus’ ministry. He was always crossing lines of acceptability. That should make us a bit uncomfortable… because we are, for the most part, right there in the mid-stream of acceptability. It isn’t that there is no hope for us…but time and again Jesus’ spectacular experiences were with those whom society had pushed aside…who are living on the edges. It is undoubtedly when we are MOST vulnerable – closest to our last hope that transforming moments can happen. But dear Bishop Tutu would say: God is crying now…God is waiting now…yearning now for us to respond to the invitation of partnership. May we long for the moment of ‘salvation’…the moment when we come to the grateful realization that God is source of all…that God has a dream for our very lives – and that God is longing for us to partner – to build that relationship – to live out that dream – and day by day to live a life of thanksgiving to God as the source of all that is and all that can be. • SW |
OUR LIFE OUR WORSHIP OUR STUDY OUR HISTORY OUR CHURCH LINKS
|
||||||||
 |
|
|
|||||||
