Luke 17:11-19
October 10, 2010
Did you hear the one about the 10 HIV infected men and
a crazy man of God,
getting together in the middle of Joseph Avenue?
Oh it was quite a scene I would imagine…..
Not quite sure how the HIV came about in the 10 men.
Probably not in a way that the staid and steady church going crowds would approve.
And as for that crazy man of God?
Well, your guess is as good as mine as to how he found himself in such an unsafe and quite frankly, a rather invisible neighborhood – at least invisible to the ones who count for something in this world.
And speaking of invisible neighborhoods, why would anyone who doesn’t live on or near Joseph Avenue, find him or herself in such a dangerous place – a no man’s land – an urban desert of fear and neglect if you will….
Surely there are safer and more profitable places to go if one is looking for more people in the pews and more dollars in the offering plate on a Sabbath morning.
Certainly there are more important things for this “holy man of God” to be doing than hanging out on the wrong side of the Inner Loop with people who clearly have gotten themselves into a bad situation…
I bet that’s what the religious crowds in the temple pews were saying about Jesus when they first heard Luke’s story of
10 Lepers and
A crazy man of God…
Meeting in the middle of nowhere.
And why not? For those who see religion more as “sales” than “service” it doesn’t make sense for Jesus to be wasting his time in that part of town.
Certainly the magnificence of Pilate’s Mediterranean coastal oasis at Caesarea Maritima would have more lucrative crowds for your mission. Folks from all over the civilized world come and go through that splendid city. Pilate even has a pretty decent Oceanside swimming pool for himself there. And let’s not forget the sales potential in the roman hippodrome. Captive crowd in a stadium – Can’t go wrong there….
And what about the literal glow and splendor of that great city on a hill: Jerusalem: The religious and cultural epicenter of the universe? Boy, if you wish to bankroll your religion,
those are the places to go…
those are the people that statistically speaking are going to bring success to your ministry.
And yet something tells me that though Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, it is not to rub shoulders with the rich and pure…
Nor is it to build up the balance in his Galilean bank account – if he ever had such a thing.
No, as much as I might not approve of the places Jesus goes and the company he keeps, Luke tells me that in Jerusalem there is no glow.
In Jerusalem, there is no crowd waiting to put their tithes in the Jesus Ministries Bank Account.
Instead there is a cross.
A cross of shame..
A cross of weakness…
A cross of death….
Oh yeah, Luke warned me about that right from the beginning when on Mary’s lips came the confession that in Christ, God has
Brought down the powerful from their thrones..
And lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things…
And sent the rich away empty.
Lifting up the lowly…
Filling the hungry…
Now I get it! Now I know why Jesus is in the place he is
and with the people he is with. Now it makes sense.
And lest we think that Jesus is just a really compassionate social worker, Luke reminds us again and again, that the One who lifts up the lowly, will himself be lowly on a Cross.
That the One who fills the hungry, will himself hunger and thirst upon the hardwood of a cross ~ the cruelest instrument of execution known to humanity.
So who better to not only walk with the lowly, but to heal the lowly, than Jesus – The One who being born in lowliness, becomes the lowest of the lowly by pouring himself out on a Cross?
Kind of changes the Leper story this morning doesn’t it? Kind of makes it a little less tame…Makes it a little more dangerous… A little more scandalous…A little less Norman Rockwell at Thanksgiving.
Scandalous….
Not only because the tables are turned on the power structures which sustain us day by day… (You know the mighty being cast out and the lowly being lifted up)
But scandalous because the appropriate response to God’s gift of healing comes not from one of the temple priests or parish pastors, who should know how to respond to God, but from an outsider…
Someone from an unacceptable faith tradition…
Someone to whom I have given the label, “Enemy”.
“Then one of them, when he saw he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him”.
When one of the ten returns to Jesus after being healed, Luke tells us he does more than just say “thank you”.
First he turns…
Next he praises (The Greek word there is Doxa from which we get the word, “doxology” which literally means, “gives glory to God”)…
Following this, he worships (literally “falls on his face”)…
and then finally he gives thanks (the Greek word there being Eucharisteo – from which we get the word, Eucharist.)
Turning…
Praising…
Falling on your face…
And giving thanks…
According to Luke, that is how the faithful respond to God.
Turning…
Praising..
Worshiping..
Giving Thanks…
The Shepherds do it at the news of Jesus birth…
The Centurion does it at Jesus’ crucifixion…
The Disciples do it when they witness Jesus’ ascension…
And now we are told that this dermatalogically-challenged one…
This unclean Samaritan outsider knows where his healing has come from and does something about it:
He returns and gives praise.
We can learn a lot from a leper. We can learn a lot from those who reside on the outside…
Outside of our piety…
Outside of our comfort zones…
Outside of our assumptions of how God works and how God could not possibly work.
What would it look like for us, as individuals and as a congregation, if we actually did learn something from this leprous Samaritan…
And we actually returned and gave praise to God for the gift of Jesus?
Maybe our eyes would be opened to see that what we do here on a Sunday morning in worship is not an optional event where I come a few times a year and learn how to be a good person but instead we see worship for what it is: An event where we return over and over again praising God, falling on our faces and giving thanks that we too are recipients of healing, wholeness and eternal life. And all the while measuring the worship’s value not by “Timex time” but by “God’s Kairos Time”.
What would it look like if we returned and gave praise to God for the gift of Jesus?
Maybe life on the edge wouldn’t be so scary…
Maybe our eyes would see beyond the pews of today to the see the pews of tomorrow steeped in meaningful outreach helped in part by our own generosity today…
What would it look like if we returned and gave praise to God for the gift of Jesus?
Maybe, just maybe we would be a church whose bottom line value is determined not by the size of our savings but by the size of our serving.
So let me ask this question one more time.
Did you hear the one about the 10 HIV infected men and
a crazy man of God,
getting together in the middle of Joseph Avenue?
What about the 10 lepers and
A crazy man of God,
Getting together on the road to Jerusalem?
What about the saints and sinners of a local Lutheran church and
A crazy man of God,
Getting together in the middle of the city…?
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