Healed and Made Well
An interactive sermon based on Luke 17: 11-19
Jesus and the disciples were in the region between Samaria and Galilee. there was NOTHING between these two areas. No towns, and very few people. Hardly any roads except one lone trade road.
There was nothing there that day in the region between Samaria and Galilee–nothing but Jesus, the disciples and ten lepers. In the middle of nowhere.
These lepers called out to Jesus and begged him for healing. But they called to Jesus from a distance because they knew their contagion was not welcome.
They asked Jesus, from a distance, for healing from their leprosy.
But Jesus didn’t answer this request directly–he instead sent them to the priest. Not that the priest would want to get within 50 feet of one leper, let alone 10. But, acting in great faith, they headed towards the direction of the priest. And on their way they they discovered that they were healed of their skin disease. Without treatment and without being touched, they had been healed. Out there in the middle of nowhere.
We are not told of the ones that did not return to Jesus. Did they go to the priest? did they see the family they hadn’t seen in a long time? We aren’t told.
What we do know is that one of the lepers, realizing he had been healed, turned around to thank Jesus. This leper broke the distance between himself and Jesus–he came to the feet of Jesus, lay himself prostrate on the dusty ground, and said, “Thank you Jesus.”
And Jesus said to the one leper. “Get up and go on your way. Your faith has made you well.”
But, weren’t the other lepers also made well?
The other nine were most certainly healed of their skin disease, but Jesus here makes a distinction between being healed and being made well. The word used in greek to describe the condition of the grateful leper is a word also used to describe salvation or wholeness.
Your faith has made you whole. Your faith has saved you.
The ten lepers were all healed of their leprosy, but one went back to say thank you. And in this act of gratitude, he was made whole. He was saved.
The key here is gratitude. It was noticing his physical healing, turning around, and stopping to say thank you. That changed this leper from being healed to being made complete and whole.
And I’m going to go out on a theological limb here–I would go as far as to say that it changed the leper to express gratitude to Jesus for his healing, and it changed Jesus too.
This Monday I was having a really bad day. I went grocery shopping in the rain, and forgot all the reusable bags at home. So I had to use paper bags, which became wet and pretty much useless in the rain.
And when I got home and opened the hatchback, the milk fell out, and the jug spilled all over the street. An entire gallon splattered all over my street my pants and my shoes. I cried over spilled milk. Literally cried.
It was a silly thing to cry about. Spilled milk. But sometimes it’s the spilled milk that can be the difference between no tears and tears.
But, as I walked into the house with my wilting bags of groceries minus the milk, I received a surprise in the mail. It was a thank you note from someone that I hardly know. I did something that seemed insignificant to me, but someone noticed it and expressed gratitude.
That gratitude was important for the sender, but was healing for the receiver as well. I believe that the gratitude of this Samaritan leper, an outsider in too many ways, sustained Jesus on his lonely road to Jerusalem, where he knew he would find his death. It was for this Samaritan leper, and of God’s people that Jesus was showing a new way. I’m convinced that this small act of gratitude was spiritual food for his journey towards his death and resurrection.
Gratitude is taking time to notice. Our noticing makes us aware; it is the antidote to taking things for granted.
But we can only express gratitude when we understand the grace we have received from God. It is when we understand this that we are able to turn and express our gratitude and generosity.
Brothers and sisters, we are learning to know the grace of God. So let’s take some time in this service to express our gratitude to God. Let’s stop, turn our eyes and notice those things–great and small–for which we are grateful.
You have been given pieces of paper in your bulletin, and there are pencils that will be passed around. In invite you to stop, turn back, notice God’s work in your life. Say thank you to God.
After you have written your statements of gratitude, you may–if you wish–post your gratitudes. By together, expressing our gratitude to God, we are bridging the distance between us and God. We are all being made whole and complete as we reach out to God to give thanks. And God is being blessed by our gratitude.
Let us express our thanks to God today in our worship in our words and in our actions. AMEN.
Increase our Faith
Increase our Faith
Luke 17:5-10
Increase our faith. An intriguing statement, and one that many of us can relate to. How often to we feel that our faith is not strong enough.
It’s important to take the stories in the gospel in their context. So before we get to the statement by the disciples–”Increase our faith”–I want to look at what would cause the disciples to say such a thing.
Keep in mind that Jesus had just told the Pharisees the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus. It was a scandalous story. And the disciples heard it too. Jesus told the Pharisees that they had enough information about what God wanted for them–sending a dead ancestor would not change their minds.
And after that story, Jesus turned to his disciples and said this: “Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender and if there is repentance, you must forgive. And if the same person sins against you seven times a day and turns back to you seven times and says, “I repent,” you must forgive.”
Jesus painted a stark picture with Lazarus and the Rich Man. And Millstones around the neck and the call to repeatedly forgive those that offend us is hard to hear.
So I could imagine that the disciples have the fear of God in them about what they’ve heard. Forgiveness can test faith. Riches can test our faith.
So they disciples exclaimed to Jesus, “Increase our faith!” Help us Lord! This is hard! Following you is difficult work. Give us what we need!
The trip to Hebron with Christian Peacemaker Teams was hard on my faith. I would come back from visiting people’s homes or walking kids to school and feel the pain of the people I met and wanted to cry. But I was so numb–I didn’t know yet what to do with all that I had seen and with all the stories I’d heard. I felt like I had no faith left.
So, I’d go back to the Christian Peacemaker Teams apartment and read. I read a book by Gregory Boyle, called “Tattoos on the Heart”. It’s a book about hope and compassion as witnessed by Father Gregory, a priest that lives in the gang infested neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Father Gregory has seen a lot of hard things in his life. He’s buried over two hundred youth in his tenure-most of them who were killed because of gun violence. But he also had faith, and a way to see the hope.
He writes: “Homies get stuck in the morass of desperation, both the impasse writ large and the ordinary mud of inertia.” and then he tells stories about youth he’s worked with that struggle, and make some strides to make their lives better. He concludes, “I’ve come to trust the value of simply showing up–and singing the song without the words. And yet, each time I find myself siting with the pain that folks carry, I’m overwhelmed with my own inability to do more than stand in awe, dumbstruck by the sheer size of the burden–more than I’ve ever been asked to carry.”
Father Gregory understood this burden of pain that I was carrying, and his faith and hopefulness even in a difficult setting gave me hope that I might be able to make it through this trip.
In Hebron, if it wasn’t Father Gregory it was my roommates and I laughing at something absurd, and reminding each other of the joy and humor of life, even in seemingly hopeless places.
Increase our faith.
It’s understandable that the disciples would demand this of Jesus. So Jesus told the story of the mustard seed. He said, “If you had the faith of a mustard seed” (which–by the way–mustard seeds are very small and round, and if you try to hold them in your hand, they roll around, and spill out everywhere. So, these mustard seeds are elusive.) “If you had the faith of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “uproot yourselves and plant yourselves in the sea, and it would obey you.”
I think Jesus was being sarcastic here because the disciples do have the faith of a mustard seed. They’ve been following Jesus all this time. They know they are on to something. They just need to access that faith, hold on to it.
Increase our faith.
So then, what is faith? Well, let me tell you what it’s not–it’s not a question of “Do you believe it?” or “Can you organize this into an intellectual construct?” It’s not an intellectual question. It’s relational trust. It is following in the way of Jesus, even if you don’t know exactly where you are going. It’s having questions–and having some of the answers, but being willing to live into the mystery and to lean into the questions.
In the words of Paul to Timothy–our faith is something that we already possess, that is handed down to us from our spiritual ancestors but must be rekindled. Paul doesn’t describe faith as something we must earn, it is a gift freely given. Paul said, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. 6For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; 7for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
Faith is something we already possess–it is a gift of God. ut like a flame on a candle, sometimes it can go out. Sometimes we must borrow the flame from our friends in faith to re-kindle our faith when it is weary.
Nadia Bolz-Weber, in her recent interview with Krista Tippett, said this about the rekindling of faith:
Faith is not given to individuals in sufficient quantity, necessarily, I think it’s giving in sufficient quantity to communities. In the same way, we hear “God will not give you more than you can bear,” I think God will not give the community more than it can bear. We’ve individualized this idea of faith so much, in a way that makes it inaccessible to people.
This is western individualism run amuck in religion. This is not your faith, it’s the faith of the church and we’ve lost track of that in my personal Jesus, personal piety, prayer life thing. This is about community. It always has been “the body of Christ.”
There is grace in that. Because on the days that my faith is tired, I know that you will have the faith to carry me through. And on the days when your faith is weak, I can be there with my little mustard seed of faith to carry you through.
Faith is not something that happens alone. I happens with all of us, and because of all of us. It is many of those slippery rolly mustard seeds of faith make that make our communal faith strong. We don’t all need to have a grasp on our little bits of faith to know that it’s being held and honored and that we can access it.
Lord, increase our faith. Lord, help us. Kindle that little mustard seed of faith that is already within us, and with the help of God and this faith community, it will be rekindled as we journey together. AMEN.
Just Say Thank You
Cross posted at http://practicingfamilies.com/2013/10/07/just-say-thank-you/
I’ve drilled it into my kids to always say “thank you,” Even if it seems like something small to them. Gratitude is important, even for the little things.
“Thanks for helping me with my hair this morning, Mom.”
“Thanks for the ride!”
I don’t get those words nearly as much as I’d like. And so, I do that annoying thing that exasperated parents do–I thank myself out loud. “Thanks for dinner, Mom.” “Thanks for helping me with my homework, Mom.”
It does nothing productive for my relationship with the kids–it only leads them to eyeroll.
Our gospel lectionary text this week is the story of the ten people with leprosy being healed and only one coming back to say thank you. They were already made clean, but the one that came back was made well by his faith.
Gratitude gives perspective. It teaches us to be thankful for the little things. It teaches us not to take anything for granted. It teaches us that everything is a gift.
Last year, my husband was in a terrible bicycle accident. He broke his arm in two places, and had a bad concussion. The kids were genuinely worried for him, especially because his face had a pretty bad case of road rash.
On the day of the accident two neighborhood women called me from the scene to tell me about the accident, and to let me know that they had my husband’s bike. They also checked in by phone throughout the day, to make sure he was ok.
The kids wanted to visit with the women because they wanted to say thank you. They didn’t have to do that–I was certainly prepared to express my gratitude on behalf of the family. But it was important to them that they say thank you in person. They felt a connection to these women because they had stayed with their dad at a difficult moment for all of us.
In saying thank you to our new friends, all of us were transformed. Our new friends saw the fruits of their neighborliness, and my children were to meet the strangers that cared for their dad. Our neighbors didn’t stay with my husband because it was convenient, but because they believed it was the right thing to do. That kindness deserved a special kind of “thank you.”
I wonder if that’s what happened with Jesus too? Was he transformed by the gratitude of the one who came back to say thank you?
I think he was. I think Jesus appreciated that people noticed what he did, whether it was big or small. The gratitude transformed that miracle into something miraculous for Jesus too.
This week–in light of the text for the week–I’m going to focus on gratitude during our evening meals. What are the things my kids are thankful for? What are the things that I am thankful for? And how do we express our gratitude?
This week, I’ll tell the story again of our neighbors for whom we are so grateful. And we’ll remember the transformation we all experienced last year when we met our neighbors and said “thank you.”