Grace to you and peace…from God who creates us, from Jesus who has mercy and heals us, and from the Holy Spirit who challenges us, and moves among us now. AMEN.
ON THE WAY TO JERUSALEM…our gospel passage starts out…Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem. But then he encounters a group – and pay attention to directionality in scripture – was the group on the way to Jerusalem too? Probably not. The movement of the people in this story makes a cross! This directionality (where people we going) – has always been a part of our experience. People making crosses—coming this way, going that…
We make crosses all the time today, as we encounter one another, as we encounter difference. Every intersection is a cross. Just think how many crosses you’ve made this past week…
It’s true physically, of course, and on other levels as well. Making crosses all the time, in our conversations and our actions, making crosses across the earth…Jesus makes a cross, in our text today, with 10 lepers, and with us — a cross of healing, salvation (from the Latin for healing). Jesus makes a cross of peace.
Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem, and he encounters this group of lepers, who keep their distance but, knowing who he is—“Jesus, Master,” they say—they cry out to Jesus to have mercy on them.
Interesting – they don’t ask to be healed, even though that’s what we all assume they want. Interesting their words are simply—well, the same words we say at the beginning of every service. When we encounter the living God, “Kyrie (Master), eleison…”
And Jesus immediately sends them to the priest. He doesn’t invite them along his way to Jerusalem. He simply sends them to a priest. I imagine, that they were invited to keep moving in the same direction. Almost like they just asked someone for directions. Jesus give them some directions, some instructions. “Go and show yourself to the priests.” And they do: they’re desperate, they’ll do anything to be rid of this state of rejection anywhere they go.
And AS they go, having encountered the healing presence of the Living Christ, “they were made clean”! [keep telling the story…only one comes back…] Only “the tithe”, only one tenth, came back.
Did this one who came back…did his directionality merge with Jesus’ directionality? Jesus invites him to get up and go “his” way, but did “his” way become Jesus’ way? Did he go a new direction from that day on? [+ the directionality in this story when we “cross” ourselves, ending in the center]
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Friends in Christ, Jesus has mercy on us too, showers, showers “our ways” with mercy. “I’m going this way, God!” and yet, Christ still chooses to shower that way that we seem to think is ours, with mercy, love and forgiveness: WE are made clean too.
When we cross paths with the salvific power of Christ (every Sunday!)...when the healing power of Jesus crosses over us, everything can change. Everyone receives mercy, but like the one tenth leper, our directionality can even get “dialed in” with God’s directionality, as we come back to the center, as we come back and give thanks. The healing is much larger and more mysterious than simply the sores going away! Jesus took the sores away from everyone, everyone gets mercy, but only one was “made well”, only one was made whole, only one was faithful. [+ going back]
Many in the world have been made free of sores — free of major physical illnesses, free of oppression, free of blatant injustice and discrimination on the level of a leper, free of financial hardship, and social alienation. Maybe you fit into that? “I’ve got it pretty good.”
Think of all those people, many of us fit into that category: how we too can seem (on the world’s surface) to be in a good place — plenty or at least enough material goods, and security and even happiness: and yet are we whole? We’re all clean, but are we “well”? Has our faith made us well, has our joyful thanksgiving made us well? How we can give God the credit for our being in such a prosperous state, much like how I’m sure the other nine went and told everyone who performed that miracle…“God blessed me, God freed me of my disease, God gave me all this!” they will tell others. The sores are gone, but are they healed, made whole, are they well?
You see, the wholeness, the healing, the full salvus that God offers us is wrapped up in this directionality idea. When our directionality is re-calibrated, and joyful thanksgiving turns us back to the center where we fall at Christ’s feet, dialing into God’s movement, maybe even heading now with Jesus to Jerusalem — then we’re really in for the good stuff. The wholeness. That doesn’t always mean fun stuff, but in that sacrifice, in that giving praise, in that offering, that tenth, in that devotion to the one who cures us from our dis-ease, in that morphing of our directionality, because of our encounter with the Living God, our faith makes us well…[get this!]...for our faith becomes the very faith of Christ! (Our newly installed Bishop Leila Ortiz said yesterday, there’s such a difference between knowing about Jesus and knowing Jesus...she diagnoses the church’s condition this way, impacting our programs and our budgets and our staffing and our structures...) When Christ crosses our paths, knowing Jesus, everything changes.
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Finally, I have to say this as we study, “Honoring our Neighbor’s Faith” — Notice how Jesus treats those of another faith and culture, the Samaritans: he treats them with love and longing, not with contempt or condemnation. Theologian and pastor Barbara Brown Taylor talks about this passage as the quintessential story for doing inter-faith dialogue. For those who would not join Jesus on the journey, Jesus doesn’t spew hatred and curses on them. With Jesus in Scripture, it’s always a peaceful crossing, albeit a crossing of love and longing. If Jesus gets ever gets angry in Scripture, it’s always with his own people, for their lack of faithfulness. There’s absolutely no biblical evidence that Jesus hated people of other faiths. Some theologians even read this passage as Jesus regarding another’s faith as being salvific in its own way! Go your way, your faith (whatever that faith is—Buddhist, Hindu, Islam, Christian) has saved you.
However we read this, we must pick up Jesus’ reverence and love for those who are different. I mean, he takes their sores away! All of the lepers, all of the foreigners.
In the end, aren’t we all? Aren’t we all lepers, outsiders, beggars as Luther said on his deathbed? Aren’t we all foreigners? Foreign, alienated from God’s path, because of our sinfulness and self-centeredness? Aren’t we all coming to Jesus, begging for mercy, crying out for wholeness?
And sisters and brother in Christ, in the end Jesus does offer us healing, offer us life. We are changed and forever changed in our encounter with the living Christ. We encounter the living Christ in this place, in the healing waters of baptism, in the life-givng meal of Holy Communion, in the laying on of hands in our prayers for healing today, in this community that we share with one in our eating & drinking Christ together, in our singing and praying, in our caring for one another and our side-by-side reaching out beyond ourselves. Jesus loves us and longs for us in whatever our directionality was, and today Jesus invites into his directionality.
Friends, having been made clean today, may that trust and faith to journey now with Christ be yours, this day and into eternity. AMEN.
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