In a community on the
margins of society differences become unimportant when compared to a common
purpose, that of surviving. Class distinctions evaporate, positions of
influence become insignificant, education, wealth, stature no longer count. All
are one and in trouble.
The Reverend Maggi
Dawn tells the story of when she worked in central London with an organization
that reached out to people living on the streets. For most, all she could offer
was food, clean clothes, and a listening ear. But occasionally she met someone
who wanted to find a new life.
She ran a halfway
house with a simple rule allowing a few folks at a time to relearn how to live
indoors. Such a change is not easy; a few who came to live with her actually managed
the long, difficult process of reintegration. But more than half gave up and
returned to their life on the streets.
Living closely with
people many consider untouchable she learned more than she gave. One thing she
never forgot was the way living on the margins leads folks to reinvent their
social values.
In a little community
under a viaduct near the famous Portobello Road market she met an aristocrat
who had inherited a vast country estate and been educated at one of the finest
universities. The pressure of that life lead him to abandon his fortune. Now he
walked the streets with just a few possessions in a shopping cart. His high-brow
accent was the only hint of his past.
His best friend on the street was a working-class man from
the poorest area of Glasgow. He had dropped out of the education system in his
early teens and come to London seeking his fortune.
The likelihood of
these men becoming close friends in normal society was nil. But in the
community under the viaduct, the Scotsman and the English Lord found that their
differences were immaterial compared to their common purpose – surviving on the
streets.
Luke tells us this
morning about such a community, surviving on the streets, living on the margins.
There is a leper colony on the edge of a village between Samaria and Galilee.
The people who live there where cast out by the rest of society. We can only imagine the life they came from,
the new bonds they have formed.
In the story, Jesus is
approached by ten who, in their desperation, cry out to him for help. They heard he was a healer, so they sought
him out. When they found him they called to him, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on
us!”
Jesus immediately recognized
their plight and their need. He knew the relief they were asking for and he said
to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” They did not hesitate. They
were obedient, and as they went they were made clean. The leprosy left them.
Looking at the ten and
hearing their plea, I wonder why Jesus sent them to the priests. He knew he would
heal them, so why the priests?
In first century
Israel priests were given special duties. One such duty was to determine who
was “clean” and who was not. Those found “not clean” were separated from the
community. A skin disease like leprosy would bring such banishment.
Jesus knew the
priests were necessary if these ten were to be found “clean” again and have
their lives restored. So he sends them, and they knew why. They must have run
down the road.
On the way, they were
healed. With unimaginable joy, standing before the priest, free from their
disease, they were restored to their communal relationship.
Adding to the story,
these folks with leprosy lived near a village on the border between Galilee and
Samaria. Galilee and Samaria
The healing from
their disease then becomes something larger than life, something exceeding
their wildest dreams; it wiped away their cultural divide. It restored their
social value.
All healed, outwardly
of their leprosy and inwardly of their racial divide we can only imagine their excitement.
They had been away from their normal lives a long time. I expect they were
dancing in the streets.
Then a surprise of
sorts. One lone member of the original ten returned to Jesus to give praise to
God. The others apparently rejoined society as quickly as possible. In the
process they showed their true allegiance, which was to the world and not to
Jesus, the one who had freed them.
Jesus refers to this
one who returned to give praise to God as a foreigner, as a Samaritan. It may
be the others were Galileans, we do not know.
It was only to this Samaritan that Jesus said, “Your faith has made you
well.”
Perhaps Jesus was
speaking of a different type of wellness. Perhaps Jesus meant that deeply woven
prejudices and stereotypes are a much more serious malady than even leprosy –
that our hearts, our souls can be far sicker than our bodies. Perhaps Jesus was
more upset with a society that would accept healed lepers from Galilee, yet
reject a healed Samaritan.
Luke’s message is one
that challenges our usual sense of discipleship. If we are to be faithful
followers of Jesus Christ then we are to be followers on Jesus’ terms. Jesus’ terms include his expectations of faith
and belief and trust, his gifts of forgiveness, love, salvation, his call to a
life of living for others. Jesus’ terms require duty, obligation, and
responsibility.
If we live our life
the way everyone else does, we have missed Jesus’ point and we are like the
nine who could not wait to get back to societies norms. If we desire to be like
the one who returned to give thanks, we must live like no one else lives. No
one else except Jesus, that is.
Clearly, living this
way, living like Christ, has significant consequences.
When we abandon the
priestly approval of this world for approval of Jesus Christ we must love
everyone. Especially when folk are not like us. When they are different. When they belonging over there, away from us where
we separate them because of fear, anger, hurt, or prejudice. None of which is
the will of God.
God’s revealed will
for us is that we love our neighbor, that we live to do justice, to love
kindness, and to walk humbly with our God. God’s revealed will is that we live
the ten commandments where we shall have no other god before God, we shall not
make for ourselves an idol, we shall not make wrongful use of the name of the
Lord our God, we shall remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy, we shall
honor our father and our mother, we shall not murder, we shall not commit
adultery, we shall not steal, we shall not bear false witness against our neighbor,
we shall not covet our neighbor’s house, wife, male or female slave, or donkey,
or anything that belongs to our neighbor.
When we come to him, Jesus would ask, where are
our boundaries to the will of God, boundaries that we resist crossing? Do we not
love as we should? Do we not seek justice for all? Do we not extend Christian
kindness as we ought? Do we, in our pride, not walk humbly with our God?
The people with
leprosy were sent by Jesus to see the priest. On their way they were healed
from their disease. Their affliction that separated them from society, their
boundary, was taken away. They were restored to the will of God, yet only one returned
to give thanks and praise. Jesus asks him, where are the other nine? He could
not answer. Perhaps they returned to Galilee and were welcomed home.
Jesus offers nothing
less. He welcomes us back home and then waits for us to show our faithfulness.
Are we to be like the
foreigner, the one truly on the edge of society, the outcast, the forlorn? He
alone realized his complete freedom from leprosy and from his marginalization.
He alone walked away from prejudice.
His faith in the will
of God made him well. It was God’s will that he accept Jesus’ invitation and by
God’s will, he came to follow. Not to his earthly home, but to God’s kingdom
home.
That is what God does
for us. When we have faith in his son, Jesus, and come to follow him, he heals those
who accept him in all sorts of ways. He heals us here, on the inside, in our
hearts and he heals us out here, in this earthly place, in what we say or do.
We are therefore not like those other nine who wandered
aimlessly, thinking the world will make them well. Our way is different. Our
way is towards Jesus Christ because our faith has made us well. And because we
are made well we will always live differently, we will always have that soft
place in our hearts to include all people in the good news of the gospel.
Ours is a common
purpose filled with good news that tells us about a freedom where an aristocrat
can be best friends with a man from the tenements, and they can live in the
holy margin as followers of Jesus Christ.
It is to that holy
margin we pray we will live forever.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit, one God, now and forever, Amen.
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