28 LECTIONARY GLORIA DEI, ANCHORAGE
OCTOBER 14, 2007 PASTOR SCOTT FULLER
2 KGS 5:1-3, 7-15c; PSALM 111; 2 TIM 2:8-15; LUKE 17:11-19
Is Cleanliness Next To Godliness?
Prepare our hearts, Lord, to receive your Word. Silence in us any voice but your own that in hearing we may believe and in believing we may obey your will revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear friends in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Cleanliness is next to godliness…at least, that’s what my piano teacher would say as she made me wash my hands before playing her pristine piano. Every Saturday morning I’d hike across town to Mrs. Iverson’s house – and I know I didn’t leave home looking grubby – Mom was kind of a stickler about that. It probably had more to do with the fact that my journey involved crossing: a big field, a little creek, and the railroad tracks…plenty of places to dally in the dirt.
So, would you agree with Mrs. Iverson that cleanliness is next to godliness? Maybe it’s more that we find the opposite to be true. Maybe it’s more that filth or infection, dirt or disease indicate: possible perilous problems; serious struggles with sin; an absence of God’s approval??
Certainly that was the case back in Bible times in general, and with those leprosy-afflicted people in today’s Gospel in particular. In a very real sense, lepers were double-damned.
In the first place, society dealt with this disfiguring disease by requiring those infected to separate themselves from the rest of civilization. And if ever lepers ventured into public, they were to announce their pathetic appearance with shouts of “Unclean! Unclean!” to warn away the healthy…and righteous?
The other way in which lepers were damned was in the presumption that people who suffered, did so because of their sin. It was and still is a common misconception. Take, for example, the story of Job.
One day Satan challenges God by saying that Job only praises the Lord because his life has been so easy. Well, God allows Satan to take it all away: Job’s health disappears, his family dies, his crops fail…then four of his “friends” come to mourn with and “minister” to Job. They’re fine…until they open their mouths. Who can tell us what happens then?
For 30 chapters or so, they try to convince Job that all he need do is confess his sin, whatever it is, and God will restore to him his family and fortunes. But over and over again, he argues, I’m not guilty of anything! I have done nothing wrong! And he is right…but it does him no good for he discovers as well that those who suffer are socially shunned for their sickness and spiritually scolded for their sin.
In the mindset of the 1st Century good goin-to-church folk, the answer to my opening question would be an unqualified YES! Cleanliness is next to godliness… until Jesus steps in and muddies the waters.
These lepers, these ten lost souls have heard of Jesus. His reputation for healing the sick has reached even their wretched ears. So much so, that they are willing to risk the condemnation of their community by calling out to Christ, by daring to ask for help. Have mercy on us, they cry, and he does!
The Lord simply says, Go, show yourselves to the priest - that was the test for being declared clean and allowed back into society (in my case, it would have been my piano teacher, Mrs. Iverson!). So they go – and so it seems that somehow in some way their skin is made sound, their disease disappears, their awful ordeal comes to an end.
Can you even envision their joy? I know I can’t. I cannot imagine how it would feel to: live with the stigma of infector and offender – nor can I imagine the feeling of freedom that would flood our senses if suddenly those belittling brands were eliminated, eradicated, amputated from our lives.
Stephen Donaldson has written a Hobbit-like saga around a character called Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. When Thomas is diagnosed with leprosy, his wife gives in to fear, takes their son and moves far away. Depression sets in and makes him careless – resulting in the loss of half his right hand due to the disease. So Thomas learns that he must be diligent in checking his body for cuts and sores. The deadened tissue kills the nerves that can warn him of infection, and so lead to the loss of limbs.
Then Thomas has a terrible car accident. And, as if that’s not bad enough, he awakes to find himself in an alternate universe. Its inhabitants are fighting a losing battle against the forces of evil, yet they seem to think that somehow Thomas will lead them to victory. He doesn’t care about any of that. What concerns him is the startling fact that he seems to be rid of his disease – and that scares him. He cannot believe that something so devastating to his life could just disappear like that!
Yet this is exactly what happened to those ten poor souls existing on the edge of humanity. Suddenly the gates are opened wide, the barriers are broken down, the walls that have kept them out have crumbled to let them in: into their families and friends, their hobbies and homes, their places of work and places of worship. As the ten are healed, so are they restored to the lives that they had to give up - and off they go to embrace what was lost.
Says theologian Robert Capon in his book Parables of Grace:
The ten lepers are all dead people. Whether you are talking physically, spiritually, or socially, they are dead. They would love to get healed, which, in this context, means that they would love to...return back home to a “normal life.” That’s all that they, like most people, ever really asked for. Just a chance to “be like other people,” an opportunity to go back home, be like everyone else, to be normal.
Certainly there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be restored, reconnected, reinstated in life. But there is something very interesting to note here. The ten, we are told, discover that they have been made clean – in the Greek, the word means literally, cleansed or cured.
Yet take a look at the last verse in our lesson for today (19). Says Jesus to the one who stopped in his tracks, turned around, and returned to praise God for the gift he’d been given, Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well. The Greek word for being made well carries the meaning of being made whole, and saved.
The nine were blessed, restored to their loved ones, returned to their daily lives. The Samaritan, however, has had his world view changed. And what a view that is: from the pit of hell to the heights of heaven, from the desert of despair to the waters of life, from a hunger for acceptance to an embrace of love, from a night of fear to the dawn of hope.
I dare say that this Samaritan has what you and I long for and dream about: an extraordinary cleanliness that truly is next to godliness. It has nothing to do with the absence of sin or disease, nothing to do with our deeds or desires, nothing to do with our status or struggles…but everything to do with the Presence of One who makes all things new.
The nine were thankful to go back to their lives…the Samaritan, he who “got it” about God’s grace, set off on a brand new journey, accompanied by the One who has promised to be with us always. That is the good news for us today – you and I have been redeemed, reclaimed, resurrected from our dead ways of doing life, and set on a path of blessing and hope and joy. Be sure to live a life of thanks to God for such a priceless gift. Amen.