“Healing and Wholeness” – Sermon on Oct 13, 2013
October 13, 2013
Scripture: Luke 17:11-19
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 he 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 he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
Sermon: Healing and Wholeness
by Rev. Doreen Oughton
My friend Sue posted on FB for Breast Cancer Awareness: “I don’t like to label myself as a breast cancer survivor. It is not who I am. Yet, it is impossible to ignore. Looking back at my journey, I am realizing that it has indeed changed me, and yes, I am a survivor. I got through it (twice) and it has formed the woman I now am and the way I look at myself and this life. I’m still having trouble with my new identity. Oddly, I appreciate how cancer has altered my life view. Did I really need such a harsh teacher?”
I wrote back that I believe she absolutely did not need such a harsh teacher, that it was awful that she got it anyway, and that she could find blessing in it tells me she is doing much more than surviving – much, much more. She is grateful to have survived, she is grateful for how it has formed her, but it would be hard to say she is grateful for having had breast cancer. There is this borderland.
Our Gospel reading from Luke this morning starts out in a borderland. Jesus is traveling through a region between Samaria and Galilee, and is approached, sort of, by a group of ten lepers. These ten are in the borderland Jesus is travelling, and a borderland of a different sort, forced by law to keep their distance from all others, whether Samaritan or Galilean. We learn later in the reading that at least one of them is Samaritan. And even there, way out on the fringe, they have heard of Jesus, the teacher and healer and they call out to him for mercy. He responds, telling them to go to the priests. This is what the Jewish lepers must do to be formally declared clean and be reconciled with society. What an act of faith that they immediately do so, even before any apparent healing. And as they head toward the Temple, they are made clean, their skin problems clear up.
The Samaritan, however, turns back, praising God, prostrating himself at Jesus’ feet and thanking him. Jesus sees this as an act of even greater faithfulness,and says that because of it, he has been made well. The word translated as “well” has a complex root which indicates being whole or saved – much more than just clean. I wonder what was going on in the mind of that Samaritan as he went with the others to the Jewish Temple. In their common banishment, they must have become community to one another, and their ethnic and religious differences didn’t matter so much. Perhaps at first he just went along with his group, not really expecting to be healed. And as the healing became apparent, perhaps he wondered, “what now?” He wouldn’t have been accepted into the Jewish society, would he? He would have been seen as unclean just because he was a foreigner. In being healed he was once again being cut off from community. Before being told he was still unclean, he turns back himself to the borderland. And it does so with loud praise and thanksgiving.
I wonder if he could have turned back towards his original home in Samaria, if there was a priest there who would have declared him clean, declared him fit for reconciliation with the community. I would imagine that there was, but I’m not sure. But he doesn’t seek it out. He goes back to Jesus, the source of his healing, calling out his praise to the God that both Samaritans and Jews worshiped. And I wonder where he went after Jesus sent him on his way.
I’m puzzled and intrigued by Jesus’ response to the turning back. He seems a little indignant that only the one came back – like, hmm – I never got a thank you note from those other nine! Now Jesus has never impressed me as someone who was concerned with courtesies, with politeness. I see Jesus as someone who is concerned with salvation, with getting people to turn around, to pick up their crosses, to give all their money to the poor, to turn the other cheek, to love their enemy, to forgive 7 times 70 times. Those nine were doing exactly what he told them to do – going to show themselves to the priests. I’m sure they were praising God in their hearts as they saw the healing. They most likely made an offering of thanks as part of reconciling with the community. They did nothing for Jesus to be miffed about. They got what they wanted, and there is no reason to think they were not grateful. Perhaps they counted on seeing Jesus again and thanking him then. In fact some of my research said that it would have been cutting off relationship with Jesus to turn back right away. Like the time I went out to lunch with colleagues after a meeting and forgot my wallet. A friend paid for my lunch and said, “don’t worry about it. Next time you pick up the tab.” If I had sent him a check and a thank you note, it might have been perceived as me saying, “No, no. There will be no next time. I have no interest in having lunch with you again.”
But this one, this one who did turn back, what was in his heart? Could be he just had no where else to go. Could be he did not expect to see Jesus ever again and this was his only chance to say thank you. But I wonder, did he find himself healed in a way that was so much more than he’d asked for. Did he realize that he just couldn’t be the same as he was before being unclean? He just couldn’t go back home and have things be the the way they were. Jesus had touched him, and he was turned around. He went back to the borderland. What a tremendous act of faith. And Jesus declared him well and whole and saved. I wonder if that is what it takes to find the kindom right here and now – seeing that what we’ve always wanted is right there for us, and yet turning away from it because Jesus touched us and we just can’t be the same. I wonder if it means we have to go to the borderlands where we don’t feel quite at home in the world, where we don’t know quite who we are or where to go. I wonder if it is by building and planting and multiplying there on the borders, by seeking our welfare in the welfare of that place of exile that we move from lovely healing to radical wholeness?
What would that look like? What are your borderlands? Between saving and giving? Between clinging to youth and opening ourselves to our lives experience? Between health and recovery? Between fear and love? Will we have the courage to go there? Can we help each other find blessing and give thanks and praise to God no matter where we are? Are you willing to let Jesus touch you in a way that turns your life around? May it be so.
