When today’s Gospel was written, leprosy
was one of the worst things that could happen to you. Before I talk about leprosy,
I want to reassure the children that this terrible disease is NOT something
that’s going around in Louisville, Kentucky today. Don’t be worried--You are not
going to catch it. And in far-away places where people do catch it, scientists
have invented medicine that can cure it right away. Over two thousand years
ago, though, when Jesus and his disciples were traveling around, doctors couldn’t
cure leprosy. Everyone was terribly afraid of it. For us all to understand what
it was like to suffer from leprosy, I’m going to need ten volunteers to come to
the front to help me out.[1]
OK,
you all are the 10 lepers--people with leprosy--from today’s
Gospel. Leprosy showed up as
terrible sores on your skin.
- X, put this bandage on your arm to cover up the bloody, oozing sores there.
- X, put this bandage around your head to cover up the sores that are even on your head.
- Lepers could also get sores on their faces, and sometimes their noses could fall off. X put this Band-Aid across your nose.
- X, cover your ear with this bandage. Sometimes leprosy made your ears fall off.
- Sometimes lepers’ fingers would fall off, too. X, wrap this around your hand.
- X, take this cane. Sometimes, your toes would fall off, and you couldn’t walk very well.
- X, hold your arms out in front of you like you’re saying, “Stay away from me.” People thought that they could catch leprosy if they got too close to someone else who had the disease. To keep others well, when you were diagnosed, you had to leave your family and go live far away from everyone else. Usually lepers lived way out of town in dark caves with other lepers. Whenever you came into town, you had to ring a bell and shout, “unclean,” so that people would know you were coming.
- X, get down on knees and hold out your hands to beg. The only way lepers could get food was for people to bring it to them. If no one in your family could bring you something to eat, you had to beg for left-over food from strangers. As you sat there with your hands out, they would whisper and stare at you in horror as they passed by.
- X, this is all you have to keep you warm and dry. You don’t have money to buy new clothes or any place to wash them, so you have to wear dirty, raggedy old clothes.
- X, you sit down over here on the floor facing away from everyone. Hold your head in your hands and look down. Imagine how discouraged and sad you would get living this way, often for years, with no hope of getting better. You are especially discouraged, because you are also a foreigner. Your home is far-away from here. You don’t have any family members checking up on you. Even the other lepers make fun of you. They won’t share their scraps of food with you. They tell you to go back where you came from.
Now, let’s imagine that someone turns up who can help you. You’ve
heard that a healer named Jesus has divine power that can make blind people see
and deaf people hear. As you cry out to him for help, he sees you. And he doesn’t
run away! He hears your desperate cries. He doesn’t throw you scraps or call
you names. Instead, Jesus gives you hope. He tells you how to be well again,
and it works! He makes the disease leave your body. All you have to do is to go
back and show the men in charge that your skin is now beautiful and smooth. No
more sores! No more bandages! See! No more pain and loneliness and death! You’ll
get papers declaring that you are no longer an outcast. You can go home again!
You can be with your family! You can have your life back!
So, lepers, what will you do? Show us your happy, hopeful
faces. Throw off those bandages and run home! Hug your parents. Rejoice! (Send
9 of them back rejoicing.) Won’t it be amazing to be back home with your mom
and dad and brothers and sisters and pets? To play video games and rediscover
your toys? To go shopping and listen to music and eat your favorite meals and
play outside? Even being back at school and church might seem like a treat now!
It’s as if the disease were just a bad dream.
“Wow,” you might think, “that healer Jesus is
pretty amazing. I’m never going to forget what he did for me.” Maybe some of
you will even send him a thank-you note like your parents want you to. But I
bet some will forget. After all, you have your life back. You want to put all
those bad memories behind you. You’re back in control. And there’s so much to
catch up on, so much living to do.
I
remember times when I would join in the Post Communion Prayer with extra joy
and gratitude. You might think that’s because I’m a churchy-priest. You might think
I felt that way because I know how much God loves me. That I’m rejoicing
because God has sent his Son to feed me with his very own body and blood. You
might think I was grateful because I have been made whole and put on a path to
new, unending life in Christ. But no, that’s not it at all, I’m afraid. I have
said the Post Communion Prayer with extra joy and gratitude because it meant
that church was almost over! That’s right, just one more hymn, and I could get
back to my life. I could go home and do what I wanted. Church was just another
thing that I did because I was supposed to. I couldn’t really see Jesus standing
there pouring blessings over me at all. “Thanks be to God!” I would shout at
the end of the service, eager only to dash out of the door. I can very much
identify with the nine healed lepers who didn’t return to thank Jesus.
But
wait! I almost forgot. What about this foreigner here? Jesus has healed her,
too. She too stands up, throws off her bandages in amazement. She watches the
others as they hold hands and skip home down the road. But she doesn’t belong
with them-- not really. If she goes to the authorities in Jerusalem, they’re
going to tell her that she’s undocumented, that she’s nothing but a dirty
Samaritan. They’ll chase her out of the Temple, instead of handing her the official
papers to prove that she’s healed. People are still going to call her names.
Jerusalem isn’t really home for her. So she hesitates, just for a moment. And
in that brief moment of hesitation, she looks back and really sees Jesus.
That little pause in her life is all that it takes. Something clicks. She notices
the light of love in his eyes as that love follows the healed men and women
down the road. This light of love is too compelling to resist. It calls to her.
She wants to be able to love them, too. Looking down at her own smooth arms and
healed hands, she sees the chance for a new, different kind of life. Maybe
she can become a part of what Jesus is doing? That recognition plunges
her to her knees in gratitude. Right there in the middle of the road. “Go,” says Jesus. “Your faith has made you
whole.” Not just healed, but whole.
Jesus
can’t help but wonder, though: “Where are the nine?” he asks with sad longing. “Were
not ten made clean?”
“Here
we are, Jesus. Sitting safely in our pews, doing what you told us to do.”
Hear
the Good News: Jesus opens the door and waits, even for us. Perhaps, at the end of today’s
service, you will join me in taking a deep breath before we say the Post-Communion
prayer together. In the silence, let’s see if we can’t recognize God’s loving,
strengthening presence somewhere in our lives: in a healing touch, in a moment
of relief, in a loving hand, in a true word. Let’s give thanks for that moment before
we head out to parish business or back home into our lives. Just as it’s the broken
cracks in our souls that let God’s light enter our hearts, it’s our moments of deep gratitude that let that light change our lives. Seven hundred years ago,
the German mystic Meister Eckhardt wrote this: “If the only prayer you ever say
in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.” Thanks be to God!
[1]
This idea comes from Carolyn Brown, found at http://worshipingwithchildren.blogspot.com/2016/09/year-c-proper-23-28th-sunday-in.html
No comments:
Post a Comment