A reflection on Matthew 3:13-17 in observance of The Baptism of Our Lord. Thanks to St. David of Wales for the opportunity to deliver the message yesterday. Jesus was thirty years old when took the plunge. As scripture relates, he sought out his cousin, John, the desert dweller who ate locusts and honey and preached to a good-sized crowd to repent of their sins before he dunked the converts underwater. Matthew’s gospel tells us that John would have prevented Jesus’ baptism, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But that Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” It seems an odd statement from Jesus, who doesn’t come across as a man concerned by what is proper. In fact, he’s usually the opposite, setting aside customs and rules that interfere with right relationships. Did propriety really compel Jesus to show up at the river? Or was it something else? There are no Biblical clues. We assume that Jesus already knew his identity as Son of Man, that he was aware he’d been born to a unique destiny, that showing up at the riverbank and submitting to John’s baptism was perhaps a formality, the ceremonial swearing in after God’s election. And soon after his baptism he finds himself on a vision quest in the wilderness battling temptations as he determines how to live out his destiny. But on the day of his baptism Jesus queued up along the riverbank with the other sinners, with nothing in his appearance or reputation signifying to anyone that he was anything other than exactly like them. A person, soon to be wet and repentant, sharing a desire to turn their lives around, or at least to align them more closely with what they perceived in John’s message to be God’s intentions. Whatever private message God had telegraphed to Jesus over the previous thirty years when he sat by firelight sharpening his carpentry tools and contemplating life was confirmed in the light of day along the banks of the Jordan, in front of the crowd, who must have been startled by the resulting thunderclaps, the holy spirit descending as a dove from the clouds, and the booming voice of God announcing his Son’s belovedness. Baptism of water and the Holy Spirit was the first sacrament that Jesus instituted among his followers; the Eucharist was the second. Two thousand years later, public baptism remains the principal Christian rite for those who want to join with Jesus. I assume that most, if not all of us, in this room have been baptized. And most of us have stories about that momentous event the Book of Common Prayer defines as “union with Christ in his death, resurrection, birth into God’s family the Church, forgiveness of sins, and new life in the Holy Spirit” (p. 858). I was twenty-four when I was baptized in 1985, standing in front of a United Methodist congregation of sixty or so people as my pastor dipped his hand into a small bowl of water and touched it to my forehead three times. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, he baptized—my bangs. Water never touched my skin. I had thought of baptism as a sin-proof coating like Teflon. Promise to stop doing things my grandmother (the only religious person in my family) would disapprove of, apply water to skin, and after death I wouldn’t burn to a crackly crisp in hell-fire. The words in the United Methodist Hymnal were pretty clear, “Forasmuch as all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, our Savior Christ said, ‘Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, one cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.’” It was one thing not to have been baptized when I didn’t believe in God. But, once I was a believer, wasn’t I still in danger of the fiery pit since I hadn’t been adequately spritzed? Sister Ishpriya wrote, “a tiny drop of water can cleanse the whole of my impurity when blessed by your forgiveness. But, O Lord, more than all this, this tiny bit of water passed over my head is the symbol of my birth in You.” A tiny drop of water on my face—Was it too much to ask? “The Baptismal Covenant is God’s word to us, proclaiming our adoption by grace, and our word to God, promising our response of faith and love,” the United Methodist Book of Worship told me. I had done my part with my vows, but I was convinced my pastor had failed in carrying out God’s part and suspected my baptism was a fake, though I’d later learn that Methodists, like Episcopalians, believe that baptism is “permanent and indelible” (Walk in Love p. 25). I smiled when people hugged me after the service, but deep down I worried that I was still flammable. I knew I was God’s, but not because of this ceremony, where there certainly hadn’t been enough water to scrub even a follicle of me clean from sin, but because God had come into my life a few months earlier and arrived while I was in the shower. As I rinsed off the last suds of soap, the water changed. It flowed softer, filling me from inside out with what I can only describe as pure love. This love wasn’t a zingy, romantic pulsing, it was absolute and unconditional, love I’d later feel for my daughters at birth. This love was expansive, excessive, a gift I hadn’t even known I’d asked for. I had no doubt this love came from God, and later, when I came to know the stories, it seemed entirely plausible. If Jesus could turn barrels of water into wine at a wedding reception to please his earthly mother, then his unearthly father could change water to love in my bathroom pipes. When I turned off the faucet and reached for a towel, I felt like a different person, raw and alive, claimed. God loved me and I had to respond. I’d overheard something about leaving everything to follow Jesus. Was I supposed to leave my husband and join a convent, or move to a kibbutz? I decided to attend a peace study at the local United Methodist Church instead. I took a membership class after that appreciated a faith that took into account not simply scripture, but tradition, experience, and reason. I was encouraged to think for myself, something I’d always assumed becoming a Christian would negate. The social principles focused on everything from eradicating poverty and disease, to fair wages and union rights, from racial equality and respect for the environment to opposition to gambling. This care for others was so broad and contrary to the cries I’d heard from Bible thumpers during my college years, and so close to the values I held, that I was prepared to pledge my prayers, presence, gifts and service. The only obstacle to my membership was fact I hadn’t been baptized. It was an easy problem to solve. I didn’t need a class to study biblical accounts and precedents or understand historical or theological reasons for baptism. I only needed a few more questions inserted before my membership vows. My pastor didn’t even tell me specifically how my baptism would be done. If he had, I might have reached up and pushed my bangs to one side. If I’d had access to the Book of Worship then, I would’ve read, United Methodists, like Episcopalians, “may baptize by any of the modes used by Christians. Candidates…have the choice of sprinkling, pouring, or immersion; and pastors and congregations should be prepared to honor requests for baptism in any of these modes.” Knowing that, what mode would I have chosen that might have felt as powerful as my shower experience? By the time my oldest daughter was born in 1988, I’d come to understand that baptism was more about the type of claiming that brought doves to Jesus and unconditional love to my shower––a recognition that we belonged to God—and less about applying two molecules of hydrogen and one of oxygen to human skin as insurance. But I wanted her welcomed into the arms and family of God from the very beginning of her life something so absent in mine, so she was baptized at six months old, though I answered on her before. Like before, I repented of sin and declared Jesus Christ as my Savior. But this time, I pledged to nurture my daughter in Christ’s holy church and was aware of the congregation’s pledge to do the same. The pastor dribbled water on my baby’s mercifully bald head. Jennifer’s scalp wasn’t soaked, but there was no doubt she felt something. Her eyes grew wide. She looked straight at Pastor Lorraine who took Jennifer in her arms, lifted her high overhead and walked down the aisles presenting the newest daughter in Christ. Even now I think sprinkling seems the perfect way to baptize a baby, the water splashing like tears of joy, as we become aware of how precious life is, and how this ritual is not only an offer by flawed human beings to raise a child to know God, but acknowledgment that this young life is as pure and full of possibility and unconditional love as it ever will be. The infant baptism of sprinkling wraps water and spirit and gratitude and enormity into a holy moment filled with unseen and ever present doves and voices. We know the beloved is in our midst, in the form of this tiny person. But sprinkling for me as an adult was a complete bust. I was a Southern California water baby. The first fourteen years of my life if I wasn’t swimming in the community pool, wading and bodysurfing along the shore, or submerged in the bathtub submerged, I was drying off. What type of baptism would feel most like giving up an old life and becoming a new creature? It was more than decade after my baptism that I first saw pouring. Thirty-year-old Shannon, with a purple beach towel wrapped around her neck, received a pitcher of water overhead as she knelt before the altar. The towel took the brunt of the water, but the back of her gauzy dress darkened, and she sat in clammy garments during the remainder of the worship service. I was baptized in November, and even in retrospect, the idea of a quart of water dumped over my head in the midst of a Sunday service on a cold cloudy morning wasn’t appealing. Under the right circumstances, though, pouring does have its appeal. In the Cathedral of our Lady of Angels in Los Angeles, California, “The Baptism of the Lord” is depicted in the center panel of the baptistery tapestries designed and woven by John Nava. This is the image on our bulletin cover today. Against a background of sand that wavers like a mirage, Jesus kneels low, bare backed, head bowed before John. His legs are not immersed in the watery Jordan, but pressed against its gritty bank. John, looking tenderly at his cousin’s submission, pours a bowl of water over Jesus’ head.
The gentle cascade saturates his hair, cools his scalp, refreshes him in the scorching heat. Jesus can feel the small stream of water, each drop sliding over his skin, and in John’s measured pouring he has time to breathe deeply of the significance of this moment. Soon the heavens will open, soon the voice that called us into being will speak to the crowds, and will say of this son, the words we all long to hear, “You are my beloved.” Finally, there is immersion. As much as I’d like to think I’d have chosen immersion, the truth is, even if I’d known it was possible, standing on the banks of the local reservoir while my pastor dunked me into the municipal water supply would’ve been too much spectacle as a fledgling believer. But many years later, I stood with my congregation on a hot Sunday morning as we concluded worship at the edge of a swimming pool to witness ten-year-old Sarah’s baptism. Over their bathing suits, she and our pastor wore white robes that billowed around them as they waded in. Secure in Pastor Margo’s arms, Sara went under, and reemerged soaking, hair plastered to head, watered to the bone. Then, as she climbed out of the pool, water flowing from her robe, we gingerly hugged Sara, trying not to get too wet. “Baptism is both God’s act of grace in the world and the human community’s response to that grace in faith and obedience,” according to the Book of Worship, and Sara’s was close to the way I imagined the experience of those who came to John the Baptist, as they flooded to the Jordan River, eager for sin cleansing and a fresh start. They kicked off their sandals and waded in, gasping a bit when the water slapped against their hips and stomachs. Then they held their breath as John dunked them under. There was the sensation of surrender, closing their eyes, allowing themselves to be submerged, the shock of cool water enveloping them, the smallest sensation of drowning before they surfaced gasping, and stumbled ashore into the arms of family, friends, and even strangers afterward. Before Jesus came on the scene, John warned them that there was more to it, that this was just the beginning. Someone else was coming who was going to baptize with fire. No doubt that branding would sear us into family, scar us for life, leaving marks no one could ignore or forget. Whether the people listened, whether they followed Jesus into the fire or not, there could be no arguing that their baptisms were memorable. In the Methodist tradition, each year on this Sunday when we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, and each time there is a baptism, we are called to “Remember your Baptism and be thankful.” It wasn’t hard for me to remember mine, but I couldn’t bring myself to be thankful. When I didn’t want to remember my shoddy baptism, I remembered both my daughters’ baptisms, and how meaningful they were to me, though my children have no memory of their baptisms outside photos and stories I’ve given them, and I wonder if I have taken from them the opportunity to remember and be thankful. I’m too new to the Episcopal Church to have experienced many of the traditions that surround this day. But I do know that, as much as we try, we can never do God right. Our sacraments and rituals, the big moments in our lives of faith will always reflect our humanity, our frailties, bad aim, and the things our parents did or didn’t choose for us. My baptism wasn’t the big bang I longed for. But as I look back, I can see the event perfectly illustrated not only my need for God’s grace, but my need to extend grace to my pastor, to the congregation, to God and even to myself. As Gayle Felton writes in This Gift of Water, “Baptism, then, is not so much an event as it is a process…dynamic, not static; a journey, not a destination; a quest, not an acquisition.” Today we come to the water alongside Jesus, who had no need for repentance, but who chose to be baptized, his first step into the river of his destiny. He chose to enter into our human experience entirely, despite his divinity. He became one of us and through his surrender, he was filled with the Holy Spirit, the comforter he would leave with us. With him we step into the river, we submerge under water that envelops us like our first home where we are cradled and blessed before birth, a place we can only occupy momentarily as we hold our breath and float in the weightless present that surrounds us in the expansive love of our Creator, dying to all that would separate us from that love. And when we can bear it no longer, we emerge from the water gasping, blinking, dripping, shivering, filled with the reminder of who we are and whose we are. May, each dip into river, Sound, lake, and stream, may each flume of sea spray, each drop of rain upon our skin, each sprinkling of the shower head and garden hose, each submersion into bath and dishwater, each hand dipped into the baptismal font before worship remind us again and again that we are God’s beloved. And to paraphrase the Book of Common Prayer, may that belovedness raise us to a new life of grace, give us an inquiring and discerning hearts, the courage and will to persevere, and the gift of joy and wonder in all God’s works. Amen. (p. 308)
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A reflection on Matthew 3:1-12 delivered to the people of St. David of Wales Episcopal Church in Shelton the Second Sunday of Advent. The first chapter of Matthew’s gospel begins by foretelling the birth of John the Baptist. An angel came to his father, Zechariah, a priest saying: Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. 14 He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, 15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. 16 He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Today’s scripture introduces us to John as an adult, just a few months older than his cousin Jesus, fulfilling the angel’s words about him. In Matthew’s gospel, John proclaims, “‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,’ and people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.” Later, John will baptize Jesus to mark the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, and because of this, we often think of Jesus as the first person to be baptized in a ritual that John invented, and that we continue today. But before John began baptizing people as a symbol of their repentance, converts to Judaism were baptized, leaving behind their old idols and gods to follow Yahweh. Jewish people already participated in ritual washing which was sometimes full body immersion, and other times handwashing only, but unlike baptism, which we observe as happening only once, the ritual washing was repeated over and over again. We don’t know what John said to the regular people who came before him as they confessed their sins. He may have met them with hard words, with the intent of pushing them into radical change. Maybe his words weren’t scathing, but just blunt. He doesn’t seem the type of person to mince words or to speak carefully so that everyone will like him and get along with him. We do know that when the religious leaders came before him to be baptized, he didn’t hold back, calling them a “brood of vipers!” which is a family of snakes that eat their mother! And he warns them of coming judgment that they must bear good fruit or be destroyed. Karoline Lewis, Associate Professor of Preaching and the Marbury E. Anderson Chair in Biblical Preaching Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, MN writes that, “we tend to forget that the prophets in ‘Old Testament Times’ were not doomsdayers or predictors of the future. They were truth-tellers of the present.” John, who grew up as the son of priest, familiar with church and has scathing words for those in religious power, those serving the institutional church, as he sees where their present behavior is leading—to a love of power more than a love of God, to a love of power more than a love of God’s justice and mercy for the poor and oppressed. In his book Democracy Matters, philosopher Cornel West writes that “Prophetic beings have as their special aim to shatter deliberate ignorance and willful blindness to the sufferings of others, and to expose the clever forms of evasion and escape we devise in order to hide and conceal injustice….” It takes courage to speak truth to power, and the world then and now needed and needs people like John who say it like they see it and don’t worry about what others think of them. In the words of Karoline Lewis: There are too many in the world terrified of telling the truth. There are too many in the world who cannot speak the truth because they are afraid—and rightly so. There are too many for whom telling the truth brings too much pain, both personal and professional. To be a prophet … is to give voice to those whose voice has been silenced. It is to give voice to those who have been told that their place doesn’t matter. My guess is that many of the ordinary people who came to John were those who had been silenced; those who were told they didn’t matter. They find John in the wilderness of Judea dressed in simple clothing and living off the land, forsaking the comforts and conveniences of the day as he relies on God’s provision. And he preaches repentance in order to prepare our hearts for the coming of God among us. Matthew writes that John “is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’” “As much as we should focus on the identity and the foretelling of the prophet, we can’t overlook a prophet’s place,” writes Karoline Lewis. “A prophet’s place gives a prophet purpose. A prophet’s place locates the testimony to an explicit need. Prophecy means nothing if it does not touch the specificity of setting and site,” she continues. John appears as,a wild man eating nothing but locusts and honey, and he cries out from the wilderness, not from the gates of the city or inside the synagogue. In the Old Testament, the Jews wandered in the wilderness for forty years while waiting for a place to call home, relying solely on God for everything they needed to survive, and complaining in the process. Later in the gospel accounts, Jesus journeys into the wilderness for forty days as he encounters temptations and determines the manner in which he will follow God’s claim on his life. Even today, being in nature restores us. In the wilderness, away from our daily responsibilities and distractions, we have time in solitude to meet ourselves and God in new and transformative ways. Living where we do on the edges of the Olympics and Puget Sound, we understand that the physical wilderness is not a place of desolation, but a place of beauty and abundance, a place where humans are not in charge, but are reliant upon weather and landscape. But venturing into the wilderness doesn’t always mean a welcome hike to the top of Mt. Ellinor or a planned backpacking trip along the coastal beaches. It can be any situation that pulls us out of daily rhythm and routine and makes us more aware of our humanity. It can be longed for yet jarring like isolation of being a new mother home alone all day with an infant, or moving to a new community where nothing is familiar. It can come suddenly in the shock of being laid off, or in the form of an unwelcome diagnosis. It can be a long wandering living with chronic illness, or the journey through grief and loss. John and Isaiah before him ask us to enter our wilderness not in a state of hopelessness or despair, but in a spirt of repentance—of turning away from that which separates us from God’s presence. I’m not a prophet, but I know that repentance born of fear and anxiety isn’t sustainable over the years. It might turn us from destructive behavior, but our letting go and turning away from must also involve a reaching for and turning toward—a repentance of openness, preparation and expectation that will serve us over the long haul. And though our individual repentance is an inward journey, we are also called to repentance is a church and community, so that together we turn toward God. You and I have done some of that already this morning: choosing to gather in worship instead of at Wal-Mart or in front of the TV. We don’t necessarily know what’s on the heart of the person sitting next to us, but we are here together, a community asked to prepare the way of the Lord, particularly in this Advent season. For me part of that preparation happens as I prepare to speak before you in response to the Gospel. As I do so, I pray for guidance and I meditate on the words for days and weeks while I cook and wash clothes and paint rooms and clean litter boxes. What is God calling me to say to us? What sort of prophet might I, or any of us who stand before you and deliver a message be? How do we discern and speak the truth for this particular time and this particular place in a way that honors God and is true to who we are as individuals? I wonder what John the Baptist would say to us if he were here in Shelton just weeks away from the winter solstice, more than 2000 years after he thought the end was at hand. Would he be surprised at God’s seemingly infinite patience? Would he quote Martin Luther King Jr., saying, “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice”? I once read an anecdote once about a little boy having dinner with his parents at Denny’s. The boy stood up, leaned over the top of the booth and said to the diners behind him, “No one knows what’s going to happen.” No one knows what’s going to happen, could easily be the extent of my prophecies. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I do know what has happened when I prepare myself for God’s coming, and I feel called to invite you join me on a guided poetic journey into the wilderness. I invite you close your eyes if that feels comfortable, or to gaze softly at the cross. Let the sounds around us come and go easily, and begin to breathe deeply, noticing the rise and fall of your breath. Allow my words to take you anywhere the spirit and your imagination lead. We inhale deeply as we step into the unknown relying on nothing more than God’s provision Alone with our thoughts with our God we find a wilderness that calls to us a place of peace away from the clattering city stripped of noise and demands free from expectations, responsibilities and roles that sever us from our true selves We exhale deeply as we step away from friends and family with all their familiarity and stand alone in this wild place noticing our frailty and dependence on God and embracing our need rather than running from it We let even the trappings of religion rest setting aside forms, rituals, and conventions that constrict our desires and dreaming We let our faith unwind itself from outward expression and find what makes our souls sing We step beyond the boundaries of city gates stand outside the walls which welcome and shelter but also stifle and suppress We walk into the unknown where any wonderful or terrifying event might transpire where our fears and insecurities may surface but where our hearts might hunt for beauty and our feet trod toward truth In wilderness we face the sun and know we are more than the boxes we tick off more than the blanks we fill in more than the questionnaires we complete more than our latest test results and lab numbers more than any diagnosis or prognosis We let the rain fall on our faces and know we are worth more than any achievement more than any award or trophy bestowed more than any business success or failure more than any relationship restored or fractured We feel the breezing blowing and know we are more than our weakest impulses We are not defined by the worst thing we have ever done Though we wander in the wilderness we are not abandoned for God is with us The fire that baptizes does not destroy the true self but burns brightly within us Beloved—with every breath and every step and every thought in this Advent journey may the path unfold before us a blazing highway for our God a wildfire of hope illuminating the darkness welcoming all that is lost and all who wander back home into the arms of Eternal Love Amen A reflection on Luke 17:11-19
The gospel of Luke is rich with accounts of Jesus providing physical and spiritual healing to those who suffer: In the fourth chapter, Jesus stands over Simon Peter’s mother-in-law and heals her fever. Later that day “any who were sick with various kinds of diseases brought them to him; and he laid his hands on each of them and cured them.” Further on in Chapter 4, Jesus heals a man with an unclean spirit. In Chapter 5, Jesus heals a leper in verses 12-16. The account reads like this: Once, when he was in one of the cities, there was a man covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he bowed with his face to the ground and begged him, ‘Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.’ Then Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, ‘I do choose. Be made clean.’ Immediately the leprosy left him. And he ordered him to tell no one. ‘Go’, he said, ‘and show yourself to the priest, and, as Moses commanded, make an offering for your cleansing, for a testimony to them.’ But now more than ever the word about Jesus spread abroad; many crowds would gather to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. But he would withdraw to deserted places and pray. Later, in Chapter 5, Jesus heals a paralyzed man who is lowered through the roof into the middle of a crowd with the words, “Your sins are forgiven you.” In Chapter 6, we read: He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them. In Chapter 7 Jesus heals a Centurion’s servant from afar and raises a widow’s only son from the dead. He casts demons out of man and into a herd of swine that run off a cliff and drown, and heals a distraught father’s dying daughter. A woman who has been bleeding for 12 years is healed when she touches the hem of his robe. After confronting her, Jesus says, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.” In Chapter 9, a man begs for his son to be healed from a demon and it is done. In Chapter 11, Jesus casts out a demon allowing a mute man to speak. In Chapter 13, on the Sabbath, Jesus heals the woman who had been bent over for 18 years. In Chapter 14, also on the Sabbath, he heals a man who had dropsy. And now, in Chapter 17, Jesus is traveling between Samaria and Galilee on his way to Jerusalem. As he enters a village, ten lepers approach him. Keeping their distance, they call out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" Here, we need to know some things about leprosy in Biblical times. The first is that the leprosy referred to in both the Old and New Testaments is not the modern day disease of leprosy. In an article adapted by the Nepal Leprosy Trust, Dr. Jeanie Cochrane Oldman writes: The condition described as leprosy in the Old Testament section of the Bible is NOT the same as modern leprosy or Hansen’s Disease, as it is often called. The Hebrew word sara’at [which was later translated into Greek as lepra] is a ritualistic term denoting uncleanness or defilement and covered a range of conditions that could affect people, or clothing, or even a wall. The conditions described could include boils, carbuncles, fungus infections, infections complicating a burn, impetigo, favus of the scalp, scabies, patchy eczema, phagedenic ulcer, and impetigo or vitiligo on people. On walls or clothes, it was more likely to be fungus, mold, dry rot, lichen or similar conditions. Even an article from the Jewish Encyclopedia published back in 1906 notes that: Ẓara'at was looked upon as a disease inflicted by God upon those who transgressed His laws, a divine visitation for evil thoughts and evil deeds. Every leper mentioned in the Old Testament was afflicted because of some transgression. "Miriam uttered disrespectful words against God's chosen servant Moses, and, therefore, was she smitten with leprosy. Joab, with his family and descendants, was cursed by David for having treacherously murdered his great rival Abner. Gehazi provoked the anger of Elisha by his mean covetousness, calculated to bring the name of Israel into disrepute among the heathen. King . . . Uzziah was smitten with incurable leprosy for his alleged usurpation of priestly privileges in burning incense on the golden altar of the Temple.” It would have been quite natural for the people . . . to have regarded persons afflicted with ẓara'at as transgressors; they had violated the laws of God and their transgressions had been great, else they would not have been so afflicted. One had to be clean and pure in order to come before God in worship. In that prescientific era before the understanding of viruses, bacteria, and the mechanics of how disease spreads, God gives explicit instructions about how to deal with leprosy in order to prevent the spread of sin and sin-induced diseases. The entirety of Chapter 13 in the book of Leviticus is devoted to diagnosing leprosy and other skin conditions. Anyone suspected of having this condition, needed to go to a priest for examination—and often repeated examinations, casting the priest in the role of dermatologist and judge. If found to be infected, the law says that “the leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip [his mustache], and cry out, “Unclean, unclean.” He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp.” (Leviticus 13:2-3, 45-46). Why were lepers subject to such harsh public ostracism? The website gotquestions.org provides some rationale: Among the 61 defilements of ancient Jewish laws, leprosy was second only to [coming into contact with] a dead body in seriousness. A leper wasn’t allowed to come within six feet of any other human, including his own family. The disease was considered so revolting that the leper wasn’t permitted to come within 150 feet of anyone when the wind was blowing. Lepers lived in a community with other lepers until they either got better or died. The 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia says that this practice of exiling lepers gave rise to the segregation of those suffering from modern leprosy, even though the disease is not highly contagious. It also says this: There is much reason to believe that the segregation of lepers was regarded . . . more in the light of a religious ceremonial than as a hygienic restriction. Writers who hold the view that the exclusion of lepers had chiefly a religious significance conclude from these facts that lepers were obliged to remain outside the camp because they were regarded as likely to morally infect others. As we return specifically to today’s scripture, I offer a few more thoughts from Dr Jeanie Cochrane Oldman and the Nepal Leprosy Trust. Although modern leprosy had appeared in Israel by the time Christ was living there, we do not know whether the “ten lepers” that were healed by Him had modern leprosy or not. After the four Gospels at the beginning of the New Testament, there is no further mention of leprosy in the Bible. [And as for] practical applications of this understanding:
With this background and insight, let’s revisit the scripture for a close reading and some thoughts about it: On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. (Luke 17:11-12a) It’s possible that this village is composed completely of lepers; of people cast out of their hometowns in both Galilee and Samaria, and together they’ve formed this community of outcasts. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" (v. 12b-13) Word of Jesus’s power to heal has spread everywhere, even in this village in no-man’s land. Throughout the gospels, people are desperate for healing and come to Jesus for a variety of reasons and in a variety of ways. In the case of these lepers, why not ask Jesus for healing? He might say no, but having been exiled from home and family, they really have nothing left to lose. And I wonder if there were other lepers in that place who didn’t come forward, who stayed in their misery without reaching out for help when Jesus came. Though they’ve been banished, these ten lepers are still observing the law. They keep their distance, unlike the leper earlier in this gospel who broke the law to bow at Jesus’s feet and ask to be made clean. Maybe this group of ten stands six feet away from Jesus, or maybe the wind is blowing and they’re shouting from 150 feet away. Either way, they’ve summoned the courage to ask for mercy. And Jesus responds: When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." (v. 14a) Jesus doesn’t touch these lepers, as he did the one begging at his feet. He doesn’t need to. This isn’t the first time Jesus has directed his healing energy without touching those who are afflicted. Sometimes they weren’t even present. From a distance, he sees their affliction and isolation in this village where they’ve been banished between two fractious regions. Jesus recognizes that they are literal outsiders. Before the lepers are even aware that healing has begun, he sends them home, back to the priests who can give them “a clean bill of health” and restore them to home, family, religious, and community life. “And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back…” (v. 14b-15a) Healing, at least for the one who turned back seemed to happen soon after he walked away, in a short enough period of time that he could turn around, and still find Jesus there. We don’t know about the others. When their physical symptoms disappeared, when they noticed, or how they reacted. But we can assume that they were also grateful. Wouldn’t each of us be? Praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. (v. 15b-16a) The Samaritan is overcome with gratitude, and sets aside his objective—to go to the priest for reinstatement into the community—to offer thanks and praise to Jesus, the one who brought about healing. He is grateful for the healing in and of itself before, or even if, anything else in his life changes. “And he was a Samaritan.” (v. 16b) This fact is a big deal every time it comes up in the gospels. Franciscan Media provides some useful descriptions of the rift between the Jews and the Samaritans for us modern readers: Imagine the hatred between Serbs and Muslims in modern Bosnia, the enmity between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland or the feuding between street gangs in Los Angeles or New York, and you have some idea of the feeling and its causes between Jews and Samaritans in the time of Jesus. Both politics and religion were involved. Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean?” (v. 17a) Is this a rhetorical question, or is it possible that Jesus didn’t get close enough to really see each person clearly? The answer may not matter much. “But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" (v. 17-18) Those who leave and don’t return are simply doing what Jesus told them to do. They are eager to go to the priests with their newly unblemished bodies so they can be reunited with loved ones and belong again. Perhaps the nine are all Galileans, and they’ve left together along the same road to return to their towns and villages in Galilee, having something in common besides their leprosy and ostracization. I can imagine being one them, caught up in the anticipation, and then joy of reunification, and later wanting to seek Jesus out to thank him, only to find that he’d already left. He was, after all, on his way to Jerusalem. The Samaritan may have been on his own, the only Samaritan among the ten, the only one from his village. Jesus implies that he was. Though he was part of this community of outcasts, now that they are healed, he doesn’t belong with them. He is still an outsider. I don’t think the point of this scripture is to focus on the ingratitude of the nine, and I don’t think it’s meant to shame us into feeling guilty when we’re part of the 90% and caught up in the drama of the moment, the times we’ve been overwhelmed and forgotten to say “thank you” in the moment we received healing, grace, mercy, and love. And, I don’t think the purpose is to glorify being an extreme outsider, like the Samaritan leper. Instead, I think that Jesus finds his assumptions and his own cultural beliefs challenged here. This isn’t the first time he’s been surprised by the depth of faith and the actions of those outside the Jewish community he came to minister to. Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well." (v. 19) What does “your faith has made you well” mean? Is there a difference between being “cured” and being “made well”? Is there a difference between approaching Jesus out of an I’ll-try-anything desperation and approaching with a belief that he can and will heal you? Is that what distinguishes the Samaritan leper from the other nine? That may be true. But I sense another important distinction between the nine who rushed to the priests, and the one who turned back. It seems to me the faith that made the Samaritan leper well is his trust in his own experience of healing and inclusion in God’s kin-dom; a recognition that faith and belief don’t rely on following rules to the letter and the stamp of approval of those with religious authority, but rather faith and belief come from our recognition and acceptance of God’s love freely offered. Accepting grace seems simple enough, but remnants of legalism still plague us. Though our understanding of illness and infectious disease have shifted radically since the time of Jesus, we still struggle with the idea of illness being a consequence of sin, particularly as it pertains to addiction: Liver failure in alcoholics and dental decay in meth addicts often seem to us like fitting consequences for sin. “They brought it upon themselves” we say of the results of destructive. We think of such suffering God’s judgment, and see it as right punishment for sin—for our inability to master our impulses and behavior and overcome our brokenness. But even when we find better ways to cope with our brokenness, pain, and anxiety, turning from our sinful ways, becoming born again, and overcoming addiction doesn’t necessarily restore us to physical and mental health, as much as we hope and pray it will. We have centuries of history showing our human tendency to look for sin, for uncleanness, for explanation and justification of the human condition so that we can attempt to control life. We formulate rules, and opt for blame and punishment when we break them, as a way to keep ourselves safe: from bad decisions, mental and physical illness, from addiction, from pain and heartbreak. I knew a woman who built a house with her husband, and that process brought out long-buried issues in their marriage. At the same time, her husband was diagnosed with cancer. Rather than face the hard truths of their relationship, and her own part in the pain, she became convinced that the sin of her husband’s anger was the direct cause of his cancer. It was all his fault, and she was off the hook. But the world is too complicated, and our lives too intricate and nuanced for such simplistic cause and effect. And sometimes, contrary to what we might think, illness itself doesn’t bring despair or thoughts of sin, it returns us to belief. You have probably witnessed this in someone you know, or even in your own life. As humans, we are all frail, we all suffer, we’re all afflicted, we’re all outsiders at one time or another, and it is faith that can restore us to a wholeness in relationship with God, even if our conditions aren’t healed. In this gospel lesson, the ten lepers remind us to risk advocating for ourselves, to risk being told no, and to risk being told yes. The Samaritan leper reminds us to: •Ask for what our hearts desire even from those we think would never help us. •Imagine possibilities beyond our present circumstances and limitations. •Think and act beyond our own self-interest when we have the capacity to do so. •Offer thanks and praise to God and to those who remind us of God’s goodness and presence. •Live in gratitude. •Trust our own experience. And in this encounter, we learn from Jesus to offer our gifts to those outside of our own circle, our own comfort zone, our own community, and our own belief system. May the wealth contained in this gospel lesson enrich each of our lives. And may our faith truly make us well. A Reflection on Luke 15:1-10
Back in the summer of 1974, when I’d just turned thirteen, I attended my first major league baseball game at Angel Stadium in Anaheim not too far from our home. My mom, my stepdad, and I met up with another couple and their eight-year-old daughter, whom I often babysat. I can’t tell you who the Angels were playing that night, or if Nolan Ryan pitched one of his no-hitters, but I can tell you that even as a Southern California kid who’d been to Disneyland at least a dozen times, I’d never seen so many people in one place at one time. Stadium capacity at the time was 43,000, and I have no idea how many people were in the stands, only that when the game was over, we all poured out of the bleachers heading down corridors elbow-to-elbow swarming toward the exit as if we were a school of tightly packed grunion headed toward the beach. I shuffled out behind my parents’ friends and their daughter, trying not to step on her small tennis-shoed feet. I remember chatting, but not about what, as we wound our way past closed concession stands and through the concourse. As we converged with another river of people approaching the exit, I realized I ought to be with my parents, not with their friends, since we were going home, and not to their house. I stopped walking, turned around, and was engulfed by a crowd of people streaming past me, none of whom were my parents. I scanned the faces coming toward me for a few seconds, and when I still didn’t see my mom and stepdad, I turned back around to resume walking with their friends—but they were gone. I stumbled into the crowd looking in vain for a familiar face as everyone pressed on toward the exit, taking me along with them. As I got closer to the wall of doors, I fully expected to see my parents and their friends standing just inside or outside the doors, waiting for me to join them. But they weren’t. Since I was a kid, used to reading in the backseat on car rides and usually oblivious to directions, I had no idea where my stepdad had parked his car or how I’d ever be able to find it and my parents. Panic and tears both began to rise as I realized I was truly lost. I guess my distress must’ve showed because soon a woman was standing in front of me asking if everything was okay. I told her I’d lost my parents. Not far away, she spotted a man in an official jacket—an usher or a security guard; I don’t remember which now—ushered me toward him and told him my predicament. She left when he took over, asking me to wait against a wall while he spoke into his walkie-talkie. Soon someone else in a uniform jacket appeared with a walkie-talkie clipped to his belt and I followed him through a door, down a flight of stairs to an underground level, and from there, down a long windowless corridor. He stopped and opened a door revealing half a dozen little kids, all lost like me, kept watch over by yet another uniformed adult. The person on watch explained that there were too many people outside right then to go looking for our parents. We would wait until the stadium emptied out and then they’d take us to find our parents. So, I sat on a bench, like the other kids and waited in silence, trying not to cry. Though I was relieved to be safe, I was also embarrassed. In any other circumstance, I’d be babysitting these kids, reading them bedtime stories and tucking them in and watching TV in their living rooms until their parents came home from the ballgame. I was at least twice their age, and almost five feet tall. I could see faces in the crowd when I’d been looking for my parents. These kids were probably staring at belts and waistbands; no wonder they’d gotten separated from their parents. What excuse did I have? None. I should’ve known better than to get lost. I felt stupid, thoroughly humiliated, and convinced my error was going to put me in so much trouble once I was finally reunited with my parents. The minutes dragged on until finally our supervisor opened the door and ushered us onto a waiting motorized cart with bench seats. The driver cruised through the building and out toward the parking lot, which ringed the entire arena. He told us not to worry, that he’d approach each lingering vehicle, and eventually we’d all find our parents. “Believe me,” he said, “they’re waiting for you.” As we turned into the first parking area, there were still dozens of cars in the lot, many more cars than lost children, but I could see that some vehicles had their emergency flashers on, headlights blinking in the dark summer night, beckoning us. I don’t remember where I was in the lineup of reunification, but I do remember the driver commenting on how helpful the flashing headlights were when he pulled up next to my stepdad’s car. The driver said parents didn’t usually think to do that, and my stepdad responded that he’d circled the entire parking lot looking for me, and as he stopped to talk to other parents of lost kids, he’d told each of them to turn on their flashers. As the driver and my stepdad thanked each other, I stepped down from the electric cart and into my mother’s warm embrace. Then, as the cart continued on its mission, I climbed into the backseat, waiting for the dreaded reprimand, surprised that it never came. All these years later, I’m still anxious about being separated in large crowds. Every time I leave an arena, my experience at Angel Stadium surfaces, and I hold tight to the hand of whoever I’m with, afraid I’ll get lost again. Encountering this scripture passage brought the incident and my anxiety to the foreground of my thoughts. And for that, I find myself unexpectedly grateful. The process of immersing myself in Luke’s words allowed me to see the situation from other perspectives, not only as the sheep or coin or young teenager who was lost, but as the shepherd and the woman who cleaned her house, and the kind woman, security team, and stepdad who all helped in the search to find that which was lost. It’s likely that you, like me, have been lost in a situation that still sticks with you many years later. Maybe it happened while visiting a new place, or driving with bad directions, or out on a hike. Or maybe it was less of a geographical situation and more of an emotional one—feeling lost and unmoored after an unexpected move, or unsure of what comes next after the children left home, or after the death of a loved one. Whatever the particulars, each of us in our own lives and in our own ways has been lost—to ourselves, or to those we love, or to our faith in God. And perhaps you, like me, have approached being lost with judgment about yourself, with feelings of failure or inadequacy that lingered long after you were found or found yourself. Reading Jesus’ parables about the lost sheep and lost coin, and applying them to my own life, I find good news for those of us who are lost: First: There are people looking for us, even when we don’t about it and can’t see them. The shepherd leaves his flock—hopefully in a safe place—to search for the lost one. The woman tears her house apart, cleaning from top to bottom to find the coin. I don’t know when my parents realized I wasn’t with them, and even though they weren’t where I hoped or expected them to be, they were out looking for me, sending out SOS signals with flashing headlights, even helping others to find their lost children. Second: Things and people get lost. Getting lost isn’t an intellectual, moral, or spiritual failure. It’s reality, and when people see that reality, they respond. The shepherd retraces the paths he’s led the sheep on, the woman sweeps and looks in every place her coins could possibly be, strangers see lost children and young teens and offer help, the baseball stadium staff have protocols to reunite lost children with parents, parents turn on flashing beacons. None of them just sit there saying, “Oh well, it’s lost,” or, “Oh, well, she’s lost. There’s nothing we can do about it,” or “It’s her own fault she got lost, let her find herself by herself,” or “Oh well, I didn’t need that sheep, or coin, or kid anyway,” or “Oh well, I’ll get a new sheep, a new coin, a new child.” When we who are lost feel powerless to change our circumstances, there are people and forces greater than ourselves working on our behalf. Help is available in our distress, even if we don’t know how to ask for it, and even if we don’t recognize our need. And perhaps most importantly, especially for those of us who are prone to punishing ourselves for making mistakes: Joy is the proper response once we’re found, no matter what circumstances led to our being lost. The shepherd didn’t banish the wayward sheep for wandering away. The woman didn’t give away all her coins; she didn’t decide that in losing one coin she was too careless to be responsible for any coins. The stranger who asked if I was okay didn’t say that it was ridiculous for a teen to get lost in the crowd. The security staff didn’t lecture us kids to be more careful or responsible while they waited to return us to our parents. My parents didn’t shame or scold or punish me once I was found. They shared some responsibility, wishing they’d been more attentive and hadn’t lost track of me. But they didn’t wallow in self-recrimination and decide we could never go anywhere again because we might get separated. The shepherd, the woman with her coins, my parents: they all were happy to have that which was lost restored to them. Each celebrated. In the gospel, the shepherd and the woman invited their friends and neighbors and threw a party. My parents hugged me. I’d like to say that we went out for ice cream with their friends who’d waited to see that I was returned safely; but I don’t remember if the friends stayed or what happened next. What I do know is that in our finding, we are recipients of grace, of unconditional love, of welcome and celebration. A point that Jesus makes abundantly clear to those who are judging him about the company he keeps. He reminds the righteous that the welfare of each person, whether we “approve” of them or not, is important to all of us. And he asks us to consider the impact in our own lives when we have lost something or someone important to us. “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them,” Jesus says. He doesn’t ask us to suppose we are the sheep or the coin, but that’s often our first instinct. What is our modern day sheep? A missing pet? A family member struggling with addiction? A friend suffering from depression? A child caught in a custody battle between acrimonious parents? A fellow parishioner who has stopped coming to worship? What is our modern day coin? A wedding ring? A family heirloom? A vehicle registration? Who are our modern day sinners and tax collectors? Telemarketers? Internet scammers? Sex Workers? Drug dealers? People in the political party we’re not? Whatever form the sheep or coin takes for us, whoever the sinners and tax collectors are, Jesus calls us to seek that which has been lost to us, to include those who have been excluded—and further calls us to rejoice at the reunification. Celebration sounds wonderful, but can be so difficult when what or who we’ve lost has hurt us. Words that wound our pride. Spouses who break our hearts. Addictions that poison relationships. Bosses who fire us. Churches that drill in sinfulness to the exclusion of grace. And Sons who beg for their inheritance early and run away to squander it—as happens in the next verses of Luke’s gospel. It’s difficult when these lost things are restored to believe that they’ll remain found. It’s hard to welcome them wholeheartedly and take the risk of losing them again and being hurt again and not having life work out the way we want. It seems safer to be wary, to require assurances through scripted behaviors, specific beliefs, court orders, drug tests, or some other external proof that the restoration is real, that promises will be kept, that things will be different this time around. But if God doesn’t require us to swear oaths and sign promises in order to welcome us into relationship, if God doesn’t need anything more than us as we are to celebrate our belonging and love us unconditionally, then our rules about belonging simply don’t hold up. Most of those who judged Jesus genuinely believed their reasons for exclusion were justified. His ideas were so radical, his words and actions threatened their religious practices and their very identities. For us, Jesus words may be simple to embrace, but living them out is much more difficult. Be like the shepherd who seeks the lost sheep until it’s found. Be like the woman who cleans her house until she recovers her lost coin. Be like the father welcomes the prodigal son with no questions asked. Be generous; Be merciful. May Jesus’ words open our eyes, our minds, and our hearts. May his words remind us that to be human is to be lost to be human is to be found, to be human is to seek, to be human is to find to be human is to forgive others and ourselves, to be human is to celebrate inclusion to be human is to live and love in the manner of the one who gave his life in love for us. A slightly modified version of my most recent sermon based on Luke 13:10-17, the healing of the bent over woman.
There is so much richness in this relatively short scripture passage, so many themes we could explore about the nature of the Sabbath, about our human tendency to put rules and regulations around our humanity, about Jesus’ ministry and his words and actions that illuminate the differences between the spirit of the law and the letter of it, so that we might learn to choose the law of love above any other. But it is the bent over woman herself who draws me most deeply into this gospel reading and sparks my curiosity: Who is this bent over woman? How old is she? Is she married, widowed? Who is she living with? What is her role in the household and community? What happened to her body, and how did her physical ailment impact her spirit with each passing year? Given the time period, did her family and community think her condition was a result of her sin? Did they care for her, or ostracize her, or perhaps both? Did she fight against her body’s limitations in the beginning? Did she injure herself more by refusing to admit to her limitations? If she’d fought against this new reality, when did she stop fighting? And what sort of “giving up” was it? Resignation or acceptance? Had anyone tried to help her? Had she sought out cures? Did she come to the synagogue faithfully, or did she come that day just to see Jesus? Had she planned to ask him for healing? How had he noticed her? Why had he chosen to heal her and not someone else? What happened to the woman after the commotion of her healing died down? How did the people in her life and synagogue treat her after her healing? How did her daily life change? Was it Jesus’ words or his touch, or both that brought about her healing? In what ways did the healing of her body return her to her former life? And in what ways did it close her off to her former life yet open up to a new one? In what ways did this healing impact her body, mind and spirit? Does healing have to come in one dramatic moment, or can it be gradual? Most of my questions can’t be answered. But I want to understand the story of the woman in Luke’s gospel and learn about healing from it because I have both been a bent over woman myself, and I love and have cared for a bent over woman. The bent over woman I love and have cared for has been bound by physical, emotional, and spiritual pain for decades, a crippling that wouldn’t be a stretch to attribute to Satan, as does Jesus in this gospel. The experience of being in relationship with her has impacted me deeply. I have seen the loss of physical abilities and the insufficiency of treatment or cures. I’ve seen a person stripped of dignity, trapped in dependency, robbed of happiness, and beset by hopelessness and despair. There are moments, despite my love for her, and despite my own faith, when I do not think I can bear another moment of her suffering. I want Jesus to heal my bent over woman. I want him to say as he did to the daughter of Abraham: “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” And I want him to do it now—or to have done it already, years ago. Each of us has been bent low in some way, crippled by illness or disease, by infirmity or job loss or natural disaster or divorce or grief or violence or any number of human experiences that derail our plans and identities. And our healing, and how, or when, or if it comes in this lifetime, can be unexpected and mysterious. I became a literal bent over woman in January 2016. I was crawling under bushes to dig out Himalayan blackberries by the roots when I felt a sharp twinge in my back. I hobbled into the house for a dose of ibuprofen and ice, but within a few days I couldn’t put weight on my right leg without crumpling. My husband drove me to Urgent Care that evening, and to the ER the next as the pain got worse. I was given a shot, prescription anti-inflammatory, painkillers, muscle relaxer, a pair of crutches, and told to rest. I spent weeks mostly laying on one side in a near-fetal position, unable move freely. Pain made me tired, grumpy, weepy, and narrowed my world. Sometimes my consciousness extended no further than my body as I sought a pain-free breath. I was completely dependent on my husband for dressing, bathing, meals, transportation, shopping, laundry, and housework. Though I was grateful for his uncomplaining generosity, it humbled me not to be able to contribute to our household, and to accept so much help. A month after the injury, I felt worse and not better. My doctor thought the initial diagnosis of a sprained iliac ligament and inflamed sciatic nerve, might be a herniated lumbar disk, and recommended an MRI, which my insurance wouldn’t pay for, saying I hadn’t suffered long or severely enough. I certainly felt I’d suffered long and severely enough so my husband and I, who were strapped for cash at the time, decided to charge the MRI to our credit card. I shared a prayer request on Facebook with my family and friends, and within an hour of scheduling the appointment, a loved one called and offered to pay for the procedure, though I hadn’t asked. I hadn’t recognized until that moment that there had already been some gifts in my suffering: In pain and illness, the trivial and irrelevant had been stripped away. Though I spent much of each day zoning out watching HGTV, I also appreciated daily life with a heightened awareness and gratitude: the beauty of sunrise and sunset, the melody rain on the roof, the many ways my body had so often done what I asked without protest. Accepting that I couldn’t cook or clean or even wash my hair and being vulnerable enough to ask for and receive help was part of my healing. As was accepting money for the MRI. It was gift I couldn’t repay. A gift given in love by someone who wanted to relieve my suffering and couldn’t; but could do this. I’d never had an MRI before, and I didn’t know I was claustrophobic until I was confined in that coffinlike tube with magnets banging like a jet turbine rattling my teeth and nerves. To quell panic, I brought hymns to mind, but my favorites, like “Morning Has Broken,” and “All Things Bright and Beautiful” were too happy for the circumstances. It was early February and Lent. I needed a hymn of lament and “O Sacred Head Now Wounded,” floated into consciousness where I repeated the lyrics in my mind like a mantra. I latched onto Jesus and the words of his wounding, for who and what else could be present with me there? Not the technician who was only a disembodied voice speaking via microphone between scans. Not my husband in the waiting room. Not even my wedding ring stashed in a locker with my clothes. In the middle of that MRI, clinging to Jesus, I knew that I would be healed no matter what images the machine generated, no matter what sort of treatment I would or wouldn’t receive. I knew because people I love had suffered much worse, and were whole despite diagnosis, disease, disability. God did not take the cup from them or from Jesus—though each asked to be spared. I can’t say if my doctor saw Jesus lurking between vertebrae when she read the MRI report, but I felt him—and the knowledge that God will not forsake us penetrated me bone deep. There was nothing more to resist. Somehow, in that blaring machine I was cradled and blessed. Feeling that blessing, I wondered if anyone had blessed the machine and the room, the technicians, physicians, and janitors who worked here, those who came here like me, under extreme circumstances, and our friends and families, at home, in the lobby, waiting, hoping, fearing, and I cobbled a silent prayer in the final minutes: “May this machine be used for the highest and best good by all who come in contact with it. May those entrusted to operate this equipment do so with great skill and compassion. May all who enter here be comforted.” Jesus spoke healing to the bent over daughter of Abraham, laid hands on her, and she stood up straight for the first time in eighteen years praising him. Two thousand years later on the far side of the resurrection, as I was bent over in pain, he healed me, and I praise him. Will Jesus heal the bent over woman I love and so many in our midst who are bound by illness, injury, addiction, trauma, abuse, who are crippled under the weight of so much they cannot bear to carry? I do not know, but I believe he is able and willing to heal us and waiting for us to come near, like the woman in scripture. I believe Jesus waits for us to surrender whatever it is that we cling to that stands between us and him. For some, like the bent over woman who suffered for eighteen years, that thing might well be her pain. If your pain is all that defines you, the only thing that has remained with you when everything and everyone else has deserted you, who are you without it? How can you possibly let it go and live when you have no idea what will happen? Where can you find that courage? Where do any of us find the courage when we’re bent low? Perhaps in the words of scripture. Perhaps through prayer. Perhaps by opening our eyes and our hearts and listening deeply to the experience of others who have found their way to healing. Perhaps all of these can lead us to take the first steps toward healing. I have been part of a faith community for the past year, lifting each other up in prayer every Sunday as we worship, kneeling at the altar together as we feed on the bread of life. I look at the faces of those who have become dear, and I know they know what it is to be bent over. And I know they know what it is to be healed. Among us, we know what it is to draw near Jesus and to surrender what we can’t control. I see faith in the midst of pain and suffering. I see wholeness and healing. I hear praise as we lift our voices in song. In a world where so much seems broken, where so many strive after a false illusion of happiness, where so many are bent over, I hear the hurting clamoring for reason to hope, looking for something to believe in. The daughter of Abraham Jesus set free immediately stood up and praised God, and I want to think that she told her story again and again over the years, to anyone who hadn’t heard it, and to those who had, but needed a reminder of God’s healing power. I want to imagine that she became a disciple in her own place in her own way. May we be like the daughter of Abraham. May we stand and speak. May we be emboldened to offer a glimmer of hope to those who are hurting, sharing not doctrine or theology, but the truth of our lives, the stories of our own pain and suffering, and the ways in which we risked opening ourselves to God’s presence to be healed by an outpouring of grace and love. A Reflection on Luke's Gospel, Chapter 10:1-11, 16-20 Years ago, my husband and I left our young children with his mother and went to see a Shakespeare Santa Cruz production of Othello. In an attempt to make the 400-year-old play more approachable, much of the cast was dressed in modern day military uniforms. But the language was just as Shakespeare wrote it, and I admit that although we recognized some of the words in the characters’ dialogue, we didn’t understand it. We felt frustrated and clueless, and when the lights came up at intermission, we left the theater and went to dinner. I’ve felt a bit like that as this Gospel reading percolated in my mind the past few weeks as I thought about what wisdom I could glean from it to share with congregation I attend. My ruminations raised so many questions that I found myself wishing, not for the first time, that I could ask Jesus for clarification, or put in a request to the Gospel writers for a new edition with contemporary situations, so I’d understand better the meaning behind his words. I’d like to know how Jesus would word his directives if he were sending the 70 followers out in the context in which we live now: a world of instant global communication where we can seemingly know everything about places we’ve never been and people we’ve never met. A world of letters, books, email, Facebook, Twitter and the Internet, where people can speak to each other across space and time without being physically present or even alive, since our words are preserved and archived in print and The Cloud. And I’d have questions about the specific details of his instructions: “Carry no purse, no bag.” No purse? No bag? I need my keys, driver’s license, phone, cash and credit cards. And a water bottle, lip balm, and a sweater are always a good idea, aren’t they? Shouldn’t my purse equip me with everything I need in order to serve God? “Greet no one on the road.” Does that still apply in a world of cars and planes? Is speaking to the stranger next to me on the train, plane, or bus taboo? Or is it the modern-day equivalent of staying with a stranger’s household? I hope these small encounters count, because otherwise Jesus’s directives seem impossible to me. “Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you,” and “Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide.” I certainly can’t imagine going door-to-door in a town of strangers hoping to become a houseguest forced to eat dairy and wheat, soy and eggs, and so many other foods that would make me sick in order to talk about God. And even back then, what if a host fed one of the 70 pork, which was against their religion? Was Jesus saying they should they eat it anyway? Can’t we buy our own groceries and still profess our love for God? And, what about being a resident in the towns where Jesus sends the 70 in a nation with motels at every Interstate exit and cities full of Airbnb’s? Am I supposed to open my door to two strangers and invite them to stay for days, doing their laundry and cooking for them while they wander around Union or Shelton looking for people willing to be healed? I have a hard enough time being polite to the Jehovah’s Witnesses I talk to through the screen door. But, back then, in a culture centered around hospitality, Jesus’s plan actually worked. The seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!" And he replied, "I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you.” I wouldn’t even want to ask Jesus about demons, Satan, snakes, or scorpions or “the enemy.” I want to follow him in a world free from supernatural forces, venomous creatures, or enemies. Would Jesus tell me that today’s demons are addiction and violence and mental-illness? And the venomous creatures are corporate greed and systemic injustice and government corruption? And that the enemy is our own inability to recognize the humanity and belovedness in all people? If so, I could really use his help understanding how to gain authority over them. I’d want to talk to him about “Being a lamb among wolves.” Now that Christianity has become a dominant institution, those of us in the West who consider ourselves Christian are hardly in danger like the lambs Jesus’ followers were. Too often the church has acted like the wolves, preying upon the bodies of children and bilking money from the flock for personal gain, aligning itself with power, currying political favor, and promoting cultural conformity, rather than remaining rooted in Jesus’s teachings of aiding the poor, orphaned, and widowed. In that way, I wonder if we’re any different from the religious establishment of Jesus’ day. And what’s modern-day equivalent of shaking the dust off my feet when the roads are paved and my feet are safe inside shoes as I walk from home to car to store to car to home? Is it a scathing letter to the editor or shaming on social media? As you can see, I could go on and on, asking Jesus to explain himself just for me. In my imagination, I did ask Jesus all these questions. And in my imagination, he is always patient with me—even if he wasn’t with his disciples. I imagined him shaking his head with sad laughter, and telling me that I am so caught up in details and context, that I’m missing the core values and timeless truths behind his words. Like his disciples, much of the time I just don’t get it. Jesus asked me to set aside my intellect and literalism and listen for the Spirit’s guidance. To clear my mind, I cleaned my kitchen and bathroom. As I wiped and scrubbed, a few words floated into consciousness from early in the passage: The reminder that Jesus sent out his followers in pairs. We are not meant to follow him in isolation, to be guided only by our own interpretations of his words and actions. Whether we are two or twelve or seventy, we are meant to live out our faith in community. How better to understand what Jesus means by saying, “The kingdom of God has come near to you,” than to walk alongside someone for an hour, a day, a year, or a lifetime, and to learn about and share in their experience of faith, of questioning and struggle, of hope and celebration. Personally, I’ve been blessed to have a prayer partner for 25 years, a woman I met at church in California, who moved to Washington a year after me. Together, we confess our transgressions, share our joys, wrestle with God’s call in our lives, pray for others, and listen for the Spirit. All things I can imagine the pairs of 70 followers doing on their journeys to the nearby cities. The other thought that came to mind as I cleaned is what Jesus asked his followers to say as they approached strangers and how to handle the strangers’ response.
Greet them by saying: “Peace to this house!” We come to others with words of blessing, of kindness, not of condemnation, guilt, or coercion. Offering peace—however we might phrase that today—we extend an invitation to speak about the things that really matter in life. An invitation the other is free to accept or not. Jesus says, “And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you.” When I step back from the feeling that I need to interpret and follow the words of the Gospel correctly, I remember that Jesus is always more interested in relationships than right beliefs. That he is always extending the circle of God’s love wide enough to include everyone who responds to his invitation. An invitation offered by the desire for human flourishing, not as a matter of force or fear motivated by the need for power and control. Growing up in a family fractured by divorce four times, I strove to be perfect so that I would be loved enough not to be left. But I could never be good enough. When I accepted the unconditional love God offered, I began healing the brokenness in my own life. As that old wound has been healed by faith, I’ve longed for some of my dearest loved ones who are trapped in pain and suffering to experience the freedom and peace I’ve found. And yet, the words I’ve offered about God and the healing power of love haven’t “worked.” My dear ones are still suffering and not at peace. For a long time, I believed I’d failed them and God by my failure to save them, or win them to Christ. But in this scripture passage Jesus offers me the much needed reminder that his peace can remain with me if I accept it—no matter how others respond. There is so much richness to be mined from this Gospel passage, especially if we can look beyond the questions of how to translate the culture of the time to 21st century circumstances. I encourage you to spend more time with these words this week, to let them percolate in your life and see what emerges. May the timeless truths of Christ continue to reach through time and space, blessing those who listen with open hearts and minds. May we be among them. |
I began blogging about "This or Something Better" in 2011 when my husband and I were discerning what came next in our lives, which turned out to be relocating to Puget Sound from our Native California. My older posts can be found here.
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