Sermon: Human, very human.
Luke 17:11-19
The message I wish to share with you on this Thanksgiving Sunday is that we are human, not android. Sallie McFague said, “Spirituality is an exploration into what is involved in becoming human.” And today’s story from Luke, where ten are healed and one returns to offer thanks, is about a leper, the single, outstanding character in the story who is human, very human.
To begin with, I invite you to look at a story from the Gospel of Mark, which is slightly different from the story in Luke, yet it also tells the story of Jesus healing a leper. By the way, I am glad that you have already made two great story-telling projects with Nancy: The Mark project and the Luke project. That’s great!
Mark was written earlier than Luke, which means that Mark was closer to the original events and given less ‘editing’. The stories in Mark tell us more about the original Jesus and what actually happened. In Mark’s story of the healing of a leper, (the earlier version), we can see a most striking difference, in comparison to Luke’s story. In Mark, Jesus touches the leper. In Jesus’ time, touching a leper was illegal. The action of touching those who were considered religiously and socially “unclean” transgressed the law – it was not only offensive, it was a legal offense. Mark tells us, “A leper came to Jesus begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean.’ This story is striking and compelling. By law, Jesus’ touching of a leper would leave both of them - Jesus and the leper - outside the community, a focus of controversy.
Now it is interesting that, in Luke’s story, Jesus never touches the lepers. The author of this story wants to portray both Jesus and the lepers to be more legally-observant and safe. “When Jesus entered a village, Jesus was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.’ When he saw them he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went they were cleansed.” So, first, the lepers keep their distance and do not approach close to Jesus. Second, Jesus sees them but never comes close enough to touch. Third, he tells them immediately go to the Temple. All the characters in Luke’s story keep their distance. Healing occurs by word, not by touch. The diseases are cured but the social order is not challenged. Nobody in this story dismantles the deeply segregated lines of who’s clean and who’s not clean. Seeing Jesus conforming to the boundary controls of his time and keeping his distance from the lepers is unsettling, uncomfortable – especially if you recall the account from Mark.
Lepers are “unclean”. Tradition decrees: they shall always cover their upper lips and cry out, “unclean, unclean.” They shall remain unclean as long as they have the disease; they shall live alone; their dwelling shall be outside the camp. But, do you know why the lepers are supposed to be untouched, outcast, considered socially “dead”? The reason is not because the disease is contagious, disabling and potentially fatal - a threat to public health - the lepers in the Bible are not actually suffering from leprosy.
John Dominic Crossan, the most renowned “Historical Jesus” scholar of our time, finds out that translating the Hebrew word, sara’at or the Greek word lepra into the modern term “leprosy” is flat-out wrong. What we call leprosy is caused by Mycobacterium leprae, a bacillus discovered in 1868 by the Norwegian physician Gerhard Hansen. That disease was, in fact, known in New Testament times, but had a different name. The lepra in today’s stories, suffer from a rather repulsive scaly or flaking skin condition, like eczema or psoriasis. It has no power of contagion. Then, what was the matter? Why so much fuss over psoriasis?
What mattered was the pores, the orifices, the holes, the body openings of the sufferer’s skin! In ancient times, tiny Israel was constantly threatened by the dangers of being absorbed by more powerful empires and cultures. It always had to withstand imperial absorption on a political, military, cultural and religious level. So the care it took to protect the political and cultural unity of this minority group was intensely important. So the high emphasis on social-boundary protection was symbolized by an emphasis on bodily-boundary protection. In this symbolic connection, their care for the unity and purity of the physical body of their members takes precedence over the importance of other matters! So these specific skin conditions … the “porous", "multiple openings” … “when would-be orifices start to appear where no orifices are meant to be” … threaten the symbolic system of security, purity, integrity. Unpredictable, messy openings are considered dangerous. The fear centres on the inability to determine what is incoming, what is outgoing – the symbolic lack of control, integrity, that could break down the system!
In Luke’s story, Jesus is not quite the same as the Jesus in Mark’s story. He’s more like an android, than a truly human/divine presence. Possibly, “edited”, to make him a better fit to the legal system of his time.
Luke’s story almost sounds like a story about androids. Androids lack what is essential to make a human being, human. Androids simply perform their roles and look for and do what they are expected to do.
Luke’s story may have ended up as a bland android’s story. Jesus is far from the lepers, keeping his distance. The story doesn’t tell us what were the other nine lepers’ feeling or responses. It is really an un-feeling android story until the last leper returns after being healed. If, in the original story of Mark, Jesus “chooses” to touch the leper, this last leper in Luke’s story “chooses” to transgress the assigned distance, turns back, comes to Jesus, and falls on his face at Jesus’ feet. I think this is really the most beautiful, compelling moment in this story. This unexpected act of the last leper changes the whole story from being an androids’ story to one full of human possibilities.
He expresses gratitude. But “Jesus healed ten people but only one said thank you” is not all we can say about this great story. He doesn’t just express gratitude. What I invite you to see is he also creates a new space between the afflicted and the healer: now close, now intimate, now human, now touchable, now growing in grace. It is not just a space but also a time. It spills out a new possibility for a new world, a new future, enabling hope. This leper is not just a foreigner or a Samaritan. He beautifully demonstrates himself as being a human, who feels and who wants to create the space surrounding him to be more inclusive of him, more loving, more kind. He feels a difference, feels change, feels hope, feels the time - the new social order, new possibility dawning, opening. It is enabled when human beings spontaneously, joyfully find each other in gratitude, free of fear.
Spirituality is “an exploration into what is involved in becoming human”. We attempt to grow in sensitivity to self, to others, to the non-human creation and to God who is within and beyond the totality. We are not beings that are fixed into our time, our culture. We are fluid beings: we are able to look both inward and outward to anticipate, to hope, to determine what we want to be, and what we need to be - a dignified, true, powerful human being, being equal, being brave, being open, secured by faith in God’s liberating love for us. Because we are not an android, but human, we listen deeply, feel intensely, hope radically. Because we are not an android, but human, we question what we do, out of our love for ourselves and for the others who we care, asking “Is it what it always has to be this way?” Then we can choose to listen to what our heart tells us. “What does my heart tell me right now?” "What is possible?" In the depth of our humanity, we touch our questions, touch our strength, touch the time of change. It is a radical calling, looking for the “unexpected”. If we don’t look for the unexpected, we will miss it! It is an exciting journey to find our own definition to be human, very human. Let us rewrite a larger map of ourselves, our lives, and challenge our society to dismantle segregation of any kind, hierarchy of any kind. Our calling is always new, and always renewed. Thanks be to God.
%5EJ%202023.jpg)
