Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity: September 5, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝
Perhaps it may help you to pray, and really make it a central part of your daily routine, if you intentionally remind yourself, I am God’s dear child. He has commanded, even pleaded with me to pray to Him and trust in Him as a dear child asks for something from his or her dear father. Pray like a Child– It’s taught in the Catechism, it strengthens that bond of faith that you have that keeps you close to Jesus Christ your Brother who prayed in a similar way to His Father, and you can be certain that you are doing something truly pleasing to God your Father, instead of making up something you think or you hope will please Him and get for yourself what you want. That attitude is not faith; it’s self-centered, foolish, and it’s why the child-asking-the-father analogy can get corrupted with our evil desires that often cause us to stumble.
Instead of discarding completely the advice to Pray like a Child, I would suggest adding this also: Pray like a Leper. Whether they had specifically Hansen’s Disease, which is what I believe leprosy is called in today’s medical texts, or some other skin ailment, the lepers spoken of many times in the Bible were the original socially distanced community. They were to be avoided. They were not careful to protect themselves against something contagious. The Jewish temple courts, indeed, all access to the priests was permanently cut off to the lepers, so they were even kept distanced from God’s gifts. No remedy for health could get to them, because the caregiver would then be exposed to the disease, and become a leper himself. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Lepers are out of options; they cannot trust in themselves or in their own strength even to get the outside help that they need.
The Biblical analogy is clear. You are lepers, infected not with a skin disease or a bodily contagion but instead with what the Law calls sin. As King David admits on behalf of all of us in the human race, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. (Psalm 51:5) Conception and birth are themselves God’s precious gift, what was passed on through conception and birth did not come from God. You and I start out distanced from our Creator, and it’s not a safe or social or a physical distance. We are cut off from our one source of life, and, all that surrounds us, including the very skin on our bodies, is enveloped in death. The rebellion of all mankind, the raw anarchy that horrifies us when we see its gross outbreaks, that has always been with us since the beginning. Sin is your plague and you’re stuck in it. By yourself, you are out of options.
And what makes it even worse, you are not only victims, but also willing participants in sin. The selfish, evil heart that you’re born with keeps on thinking evil thoughts, saying evil words, doing evil actions. It’s no coincidence that this story involves 10 lepers; Jesus uses that detail to remind us of the 10 commandments, the statement of God’s Law we know from the Catechism that is on the one hand a lovely description of love for God and care for our neighbor, but too often on the other hand, those commandments condemn you and condemn me for the sinners that we are, marked by the sinful things we do that break those commandments. It’s just too easy to think of our situation in this world only as being victims. We can say we’re trying to protect ourselves by whatever means and we’re shielding our loved ones from death’s attack. We can deny it or try to cover it up any way we can, the plain truth remains: we are lepers. Death has me surrounded, and I am to blame.
Once you acknowledge that, you now have something to learn from the Ten Lepers of Luke chapter 17. This miniature congregation in an unnamed village had somehow heard the Word of God. They had at one time heard about the prophesied Savior, the Son of David foretold from centuries past. They believed what they were taught, that this Messiah would have both the power and the desire to heal anything that sin has touched and corrupted. He will not be kept away by distance. Israel’s true King would come close. Everything from sinful hearts to leprosy-eaten skin would be cleansed and renewed thanks to this Man Jesus, the Son of David. And here, this Mighty God in real human flesh was entering their village! These lepers have finally found their one opportunity, and you could be certain they would spend every ounce of energy they had calling to Jesus, the Master, for mercy.
What is mercy? It’s the kindness shown from one in a high place, toward one who is in a lower place. The Greek, Kyrie eleison was once a greeting to a generous king from his loyal subjects. The plea for mercy is a request for an undeserved gift. One time Jesus answered the prayer, Kyrie eleison, with “What do you want Me to do for you?” In this instance, our merciful Lord simply sent them to the priests. Go show ourselves to the priests? We’re lepers! Nobody would have let us in the first gate to the temple courtyard! Do you know what this means? By the time we get to Jerusalem, we’re going to have clean skin! We’re finally going to be able to get in to see the priests, because Jesus said we would! Let’s go! Run faster!
You have been given this same opportunity, with the Master, Jesus the Son of David passing by here in this place to give you gifts, forgiveness, the true healing that you need. Pray like a Leper, for you do not have to remain victimized with sin, nor are you trapped in the consequences of your rebellious choices any longer. Your time of salvation is now, and your Lord has heard your cry to Him for mercy. He, the Son of the Most High, has visited you in your lowly place, as we heard Mary sing in the Magnificat a few weeks ago. He has come to cleanse you, to speak healing to your heart and conscience, and to extend that mercy to the ones for whom you pray as a priest in your own calling.
Remember, though, how today’s Gospel story takes a twist. The ten lepers go, as Jesus told them to go, to the temple priests to receive God’s blessing through the touch of their hands and the sacrifice of an animal on their behalf to make them clean, fully accessible to worship with their fellow Jews once again. The one leper, the Samaritan, knew he would still be cut off from the temple, the priests, and the blessing accessed through the worship laws of Moses. His skin was cleansed, but this man was still a leper of another sort. He still had to keep social distance, even though his disease was taken away. He was the one who not only remembered to Pray like a Leper, but he also recalled the first rule of prayer that we know from the Catechism: Pray like a Child.
If only for an instant, this Samaritan might have felt, once again, out of options, lost, cut off from God’s love. But then He remembered Jesus, that He’s not merely the next best thing, but that He literally IS the best thing, who has come next, and one day because of Him and what He came to do, the temple, priests, and old rituals would be completed and done. Better than the hands of the priests, He’ll go to the healing, blessing Hands of God Himself! Better than the animal giving its life for cleansing, He’ll believe in the Suffering Savior who would give His life on the cross for the whole world. And so, the cleansed Samaritan goes back to Jesus and kneels in thankful adoration to the One True God standing before him. Leper no more, outcast no more in the sight of his Loving, heavenly Father.
Remember always, you have access directly to God your heavenly Father through Jesus Christ who is not only your healer, but also your Brother. He’s the Lamb of God Himself who was sacrificed once on the cross to bring you fully cleansed into the real, not the symbolic, or promised future presence of God. The touch of your pastor’s hands in absolution, the Body and Blood of Christ in your mouth and on your own tongue, these are not only your healing and forgiveness, but also your standing, currently-in-force guarantee of inheritance, resurrection, and everlasting life. That’s why the Lord’s Supper is for certain your strengthening food for body and soul, for both ongoing healing as well as one-time forgiveness, a joyful uniting with God as well as a somber remembrance of His sacrifice.
As our ancient Communion prayers state: it is truly good, right, and salutary to give thanks and glory to God as this one man did who returned to Jesus. For just like him, our leper-like and Samaritan-like distance has been overcome with reconciliation, forgiveness, grace undeserved. Your master, Jesus the Son of David, the true King, has had mercy on you. You are attacked, harassed, persecuted, cast out of whatever sort of club because of what you believe, but you are no longer victims. You no longer face the consequences that had threatened to do you in. Jesus said the Word, and life is yours, forever. And to help you understand that better, and apply it to your life constantly, He has commanded, urged, even pleaded with you and your family to keep on praying. If it helps remind you, then take this advice:
Pray like a Leper, so that then you can fully and rightly, Pray like a Child—even better, Pray As God’s Child!
In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Readings:
Prov. 4:10–23 Take firm hold of instruction, do not let it go
Psalm 119:9–16 How can a young man cleanse his way?
Gal. 5:16–24 But the fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace…
Luke 17:11–19 But where are the nine?