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The Rev. Laura Matarazzo
October 14, 2007 ---  The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Have you ever, in the normal course of a day, had an “aha” moment like this:  maybe you’re on the sideline of the soccer field on a crisp and sunny fall afternoon, or your hands are sunk in a sink of soapy dishes where you hear the warm laughter of your family in the next room, maybe you are walking rapidly to the train on a Friday afternoon, the weekend invitingly before you… have you ever experienced one of those fleeting moments when you are sharply aware that you are just fine and, more than that, blessed with abundance?  A moment when you know you have everything you need and you are all right.  Have you ever had a moment when you were completely aware of your own well-being? 

I ask, because these ten lepers are simply walking along a road, shuffling probably, maybe engaged in quiet conversation amongst themselves…doing their everyday thing…keeping the distance from everyone they pass that is required of them by the law.  Occasionally calling out, as is their custom, asking for alms, asking for mercy; maybe simply asking to be seen in a world where they are largely invisible.  And when he sees them, Jesus commands that they continue on their way, “Go and show yourselves to the priests,” he says.  It’s not unlikely that that’s where they were headed anyway because lepers were required by law to check in with the priests periodically; the priests would assess each leper’s condition and give them certification of cleanliness or send them back to the place that alienated them from the clean population.  Jesus was saying, more or less, “Carry on with what you were doing.” 

Only, “…as they went, they were made clean.”  As they went, they were made clean.  Each one of them, as they happened to look down at a hand or an arm or a foot, saw clear skin or reconstituted fingers; some might have felt a new sense of balance, or a more regular gait because their hips and legs and feet were being restored, “as they went.”  We can barely imagine that discovery of restoration—what must have been a wondrous recognition of healing.  And yet, only one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice and thanking Jesus.  A Samaritan, no less…the lowest on the “color line” of the day.  The Samaritan stopped in that miraculous moment and fell at Jesus’ feet. 

Back to our moments…I know they hardly compare with being cured of leprosy, but still, they are OUR moments.  In the course of our busy lives, are we aware of our blessedness?  Do we stop and give thanks to the one from whom all blessings flow?  Do we praise God for the awesome gifts that line our paths as we walk?  (The loving companions along our way; the beauty of our surroundings here in northern New Jersey; the security of a safe and comfortable destination)  My word, just the awesome reality that God sees us and all the ways we are weak and wounded and loves us along the way—that God’s grace precedes and follows us as we go!  When we are aware of our blessedness, do we turn and give thanks?  Are we the one? 

That’s the first question.  Now, let’s turn it around and see if we are another “one.”  Let’s take the other side of the road, at a safe distance from the lepers, certainly a role with which many of us more easily identify.   

From this angle, the question is the same:  Are we the one?  Will you be the one who sees across the distance that separates you from those in need?  Will you hear their cry—oftentimes a voiceless one--and respond with mercy and compassion?  Will you send them on their way, renewed and restored by your contact with them? 

What?  You cannot heal like Jesus Christ?  Yes, you can.  You know that you are Christ’s hands and feet and heart and mind on this earth.  That is who you are.  You can heal and restore and give life.  You can.  The question is, will you? 

I guess I am particularly moved by this perspective because I am reading Mountains Beyond Mountains , the amazing story of Dr. Paul Farmer, a man who, as the cover of the book says, “would cure the world.”  He has put himself beside and among the poorest of the poor in Haiti and he has saved thousands of them from the ravages of tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS.  Furthermore, he has taught them how to care for themselves.  He and they have built an entire complex of clinics and schools in the village of Cange, north of Port-au-Prince.  Early on, faced with disease-ridden huts, rampant infant and maternal mortality, and a completely non-responsive government, Farmer wondered how a just God could permit such great misery.  He was answered by a Haitian proverb popular among the people:  “Bondye konn bay, men li pa konn separe”—literally translated, “God gives but doesn’t share.”  This meant, to Farmer, “God gives us humans everything we need to flourish, but he’s not the one who’s supposed to divvy up the loot.  That charge is laid upon us.” 

Indeed, in our Old Testament reading is an affirmation of this very charge.  In exile, far from all that was familiar, separated from the roots that provided identity and stability, the people of Israel hear this from their God:  “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”  God has set us in communities and our health and well-being is not separate from health and well-being of those with whom we share creation.  They may be very far away, in what we now understand as our global community, or they may be very close by.   

I invite you to think about people who are in our midst, people whom we see in the course of our days as Jesus did the lepers.  There are countless undocumented persons serving us here in northern New Jersey, enhancing the quality of life in this place.  And yet we keep them at arm’s length—at a distance that we ourselves impose.  We know nothing about their families, their experience, their lives.  We seldom greet them as we encounter them daily.  We do not understand ourselves as related, as members of a common community.  We could.  We might.  Who knows what power we might yield, together, to promote the health and well-being of all, were we to acknowledge our relatedness? 

In his encounter with the leper, Jesus’ loving power heals the sick, yes, but an even greater power is unleashed when the one leper turns and gives thanks.  Now, in addition to being cleansed from illness, he is “made well” by his faith.  Wholeness calls for our participation.  Something happens in that “aha” moment of recognition, when you know that your life is a gift from God for which you are eternally grateful.  Somehow you know that this blessing, this wholeness, is not just for you.  Acknowledging God as the source of our wellbeing opens our hearts and minds to the needs of others and we are bound to help others along the way.  We are bound to show mercy, as we have been shown mercy; to give as we have been given to so generously; to love as we are loved. 

After all, the one to whom we might aspire, the one who turned and gave thanks to Jesus was a “foreigner.” 

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