Sermon by The Very Rev Chris Yaw, 10/9/2022, Luke 17:11-19
Jesus and the Lepers in Luke
From a young age Steven Kaufman’s parents noticed something different about him.
Steven didn’t understand instructions right away.
He forgot simple things.
He didn’t catch on as quickly as his siblings.
By age 8, they took him to see a psychologist, who gave him an IQ test - Steven scored 87 - which would determine his schooling.
He was kept back a grade.
He was moved to the special education department.
Another IQ test was taken at age 11.
Same result.
In addition to the classes, which Steven found boring, was the socialization.
More than once, Steven remembers being made fun of.
At one point, schoolmates took him into the bathroom, forced his head into the sink, and doused him with cold water as punishment for being a special ed student.
The course of Steven’s life continued this way into high school -- until, one day, on an average day, in an average classroom, Steven flagged down his teacher during a time of quiet study and said, “I’m bored. Can you help me?"
His teacher, not knowing Steven well, asked him to wait a moment until she got his file.
She read it. And she noticed something.
His teacher noticed something that had eluded so many other teachers and authority figures in his life for so long. And this teacher came over to Steven and said, “Yes, I’ve observed that you do look bored,” as this teacher, this patient teacher, continued to talk with Steven - ending their conversation by saying, “I think the reason you’re bored is not because you’re unintelligent, but quite the opposite. “It’s because you are immensely gifted - and really quite smart.”
Steven Kaufman says this was the moment in which a light bulb went off for him.
Pieces fell together. A veil was lifted.
For the first time in his life Steven says he felt like someone heard him.
For the first time in his life he felt like someone believed in him.
And for the first time in his life, he felt like he could break out of the cell which had been built for him and do anything - someone had finally seen him.
So Steven Kaufman started to bloom.
He went on auditions for plays, tried out for sports, joined the choir, initiated conversations, and blossomed into the person he had somehow hoped he could always be.
He got into Carnegie Mellon University on an Opera scholarship, did graduate work at Cambridge University in England, and received his PhD. And you'll never guess what for, he did some really important research into the ways that standardized testing can be wrong...
All of these accomplishments coming, in no small measure, as a result of someone saying something to him -
Someone seeing something in him -
Someone believing in him.
Friends, this is where today’s Gospel takes you and me this morning - for:
God sees something in you.
So God does something for you.
And God asks us to, then, do something for others.
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Yes, God sees something in you - just as he saw something in those 10 lepers.
If you look at your bulletin covers, you'll observe, what looks like, a rather primitive chapel.
It’s actually an old Roman Cistern, in a small town in Israel called Burkin, about 90 minutes outside Jerusalem, and, according to our Gospel lesson, ‘in the region between Samaria and Galilee.’
Yes, this is the cave where the 10 lepers in our story lived.
This is the cave to which they were annexed, far from their family, friends, and community - as ‘untouchables’ with leprosy. This is the cave, tradition has it, from which 10 lepers, 2,000 years ago, called out “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”
So this is where Jesus stopped.
This is where Jesus saw something in them
This is where Jesus did not pass by and consider these lepers, as society did, as unworthy to be in contact with others -
No, Jesus saw them as invaluable humans - who had families and friends and jobs and hobbies - so much so that this may have been what distracted them from coming back to Jesus to say ’thanks.'
Which Jesus did not hold against them, the text does not say that the lepers got sick again, for we do not serve a vindictive God.
Always surprising about Jesus's life, is that he did not spend it in Royal mansions, among famous people, doing exotic things: I wonder how Instagram-worthy his life would have been today?
Jesus lived his life among average people, often those suffering, hurting, and living life on the margins, this band of ostracized and hurting outcasts, is what caught his attention.
Time and Time again, Jesus’ message was that God hears your cry, you are not too small to go unnoticed, your tiny problem is God's big concern.
It’s a message whose importance has not died down.
I wonder if you’re feeling like no one sees you this morning?
Given the uptick in loneliness and anxiety these COVID years have brought us - I’m wondering if you have a small view of yourself?
And if we all need to remind ourselves of how God sees us?
That God sees each of us as invaluable contributors to the mission of hope Jesus was sent on - that you and I play irreplaceable roles in the lives of family, partners, siblings, children, grandchildren - roles that no one else can play but us.
This is how God sees us.
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A Catholic missionary, working with the Maasai people in Tanzania years ago, asked a local pagan chief to show him where God lives.
This Masai tribal leader took the missionary to the top of a very high peak. There, they waited for the clouds to part. Then the tribal Chief pointed to the farthest, most remote part in the sky they could see. "There," he said, "There is where God lives."
This missionary was quick to tell him that this is not how Christians see things - that God is not far off. God does not dwell remotely, nor is God uninterested.
My friend Bob, who works at an auto parts manufacturing facility, told me how productivity had doubled after the boss put in surveillance cameras to keep an eye on the workers.
I wonder how you and I might speak to one another, treat one another, interact with one another, if we were as conscious of God's presence as those workers are of those surveillance cameras? Of course, not in a creepy or judgmental way... But if we were somehow made aware of God's eternal presence...
God sees you - God sees something in you -
We are not alone.
We are not unknown.
We are seen by a God who also wants to do something for us.
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A friend of mine visited Sam’s Club recently and decided to get a hot dog - you know, one of those hot dog and coke lunches for a buck-and-a-half.
Don’t look at me like you’ve never had one - or wanted one - because those hot dogs are delicious… and they’re always piping hot, waiting for you after a long shopping trip, 'Come eat my me!'... talk about ‘deliver us from temptation…’ Anyway...
As my friend stood in line, a man, presumably impaired in some way, came driving up in one of those mobility scooters, and seeing as no one would give him ‘cuts’ in line - he got in back - right in back of my friend - who started up a conversation.
My friend learned that the guy in the scooter was also in line for the hot dog special - so my friend told him to go find a table - and he would bring him his hot dog lunch - which he did -
And my friend brought it to the table, and he said the guy in the scooter was so excited - he behaved as if my friend had just brought him a winning lottery ticket - and was overjoyed that my friend had actually paid for it - and would not accept reimbursement.
My friend saw someone no one else did.
And did something no one else did -
The beauty thing about this is that my friend said that years ago, before he had started taking his faith seriously - going to church, opening himself to the Gospel, he would never have done that - that he, too, would have been just another guy in line not paying attention to the guy in the scooter.
This is what Jesus does - makes us like himself:
Someone who sees us -
And does something for us.
God asks us, then, to do something for someone else.
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Acts of service, of course, are what readily come to mind, in this wonderful community where we worship, reach out, and have love for all. Acts of service are at the heart of Jesus's ministry, who not only healed, but fed, and even raised the Dead.
But Jesus did something else, something even bigger, Jesus embodied the Gospel, the Good News, which is much greater than any act of service. After all, the church is not a social service agency, it is a missionary organization, and its mission is to be a channel of hope.
As Father Vincent Donovan writes, the message of the Gospel, and the basis for its urgency, is to put all things under the Dominion of Christ.
The human race, the destiny of the human race, of all creation, is what is at stake. Personal salvation, personal healing, is a secondary question. The recapitulation of all things in Christ is what is in store for the human race.
God intends to bring the Earth and the human race into the fulfillment of the kingdom, planned from the beginning of creation, with the Word there at the beginning, "In the beginning was the word," and the recapitulation of all things, all humans, all nations, all the earth, in the man Jesus, and the Word made flesh, at the end.
The nations and the cultures of the world, with all the riches they imply and possess, are not destined to be saved and conserved, they are called to be lifted up and fulfilled and transformed into Jesus Christ.
Our job is to be bearers of this hope, witnesses of this message, conduits, to an apathetic, discouraged, and anxious world, to be heralds of the news that God has a plan!
Friends,
God sees something in you.
So God does something for you.
And God asks us to, then, do something for others.
And that is, to be the Gospel, to tell others about the Gospel, to share the Gospel.
I'm going to share with you a personal shortcoming now, and I hope you will have patience with me, but as some of you know this is the 15th year of my ministry with you. And this will be the first year that I've been with you when I haven't done one baptism.
Why is that important?
It's important because baptisms are an indicator of how well the gospel is being shared.
And as your pastor, your leader, I think I should be leading by example.
Unfortunately, many of the examples of evangelism that church has, I would say most of them, have been corrupted by bad theology. Just the word, evangelical, carries too much negative weight in our society. People tend to think of evangelicals, who are not universally looked up to and respected in our society, but I'm not going to go there.
What I am going to share is that I had two separate conversations this week with people whom I know, who are not Christians, but have expressed to me a desire to learn about the Christian faith.
So I am undertaking, with them, a course of study, declaring at the outset that I am not bringing God to them, I understand that God is already with us all, already present in our world, and that the God who has been known in the dark can more completely be known in the light of Christ. And so, they have agreed to undertake a course of study with me in which I will share with them all I know about Christianity.
What curriculum am I going to use? What book am I going to refer to? ...are questions that came immediately to mind.
Then it dawned on me that I have been a Christian nearly all my life, and if I can't explain the faith as it is, as it has impacted me, with some completeness or efficacy, then I haven't been paying attention.
So there is only a vague outline before us, and at the end of our time of study the question will be posed, I've told you all I know about Christianity, about Jesus, about God, and the Christian faith, would you like to become a Christian? Without judgments and without any sort of change in my love for them, I will have done my job in presenting the gospel, what Jesus has asked us all to do for others - for God sees us, God does something for us, and gives us the chance to return the favor, and do something for others.
So my question for you, is about the people around you, is there someone around you who is curious about the Christian faith? Is there someone you are being asked to share Christ with?
I think St. David’s is here not just as a place for us to worship and reach out in service to others - but to learn more about Christ and to equip us as to share Christ with others.
In a few weeks I’ll be teaching a 9 o’clock class called ’Sharing Faith’ that I’d like to invite you to - especially if you have someone around you who is curious about Christianity - I’ll be teaching you step by step, ways that I have found helpful to share the faith with others.
God sees us,
God does something for us,
Now let us, more fully, do something for others.
Amen.