CHURCH OF THE ASCENSION AND SAINT AGNES
  • Welcome
    • Newcomers >
      • Letter to Inquirers
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • How to Find Us
    • Childcare
  • Who We Are
    • Our Beliefs >
      • Statements of Mission, Vision, Beliefs & Value
      • What is an Anglo-Catholic?
      • Apolitical or Supra Political?
    • Our History
    • Our Leadership >
      • Parish Staff
      • Vestry
  • Worship
    • About our Worship >
      • Attending Mass
      • Music
  • Formation
    • About Formation
    • Adult Formation >
      • Adult Theology Upcoming
      • Adult Theology Archive >
        • Knowing Christ
    • Sermons
  • Connect
    • Contact us
    • Rector's Weekly Letter
    • Pastoral Care >
      • Pastoral Offices >
        • Reconciliation (Confession)
      • Prayer Requests
    • Stewardship >
      • Stewardship Letter
      • Givelify Instructions
      • Planned Giving
      • Endowment Fund
  • Calendar
  • Baptism
  • Outreach
  • Feasibility Study

Your Faith has Saved You

10/10/2022

 
Your Faith Has Saved You
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost year C
Luke 17:11-19

Try to place yourself in this scene.
Ten persons with leprosy are approaching.
Your reaction? 
A mix of fear and compassion?  A touch of repulsion, if we’re honest?

This is Jesus’ last journey to Jerusalem, to the Cross.
This episode, this encounter, if I may offer a lens from the outset, 
announces the love poured forth at the Cross.

Ten pained, physically deformed persons are the first to greet Jesus 
as he enters this village somewhere between Samaria and Galilee.
The hospitality committee!
Why do they keep a distance, however, as they call out?
Because persons with leprosy were ostracized--by Law.
After a long description in Leviticus 13 of “defiling skin diseases”, 
the following is declared in verses 45 and 46:
The person who has the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes 
and let the hair of his head be dishevelled; 
and he shall cover his upper lip 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.
Ostracized.
Leprosy is contagious
--and was considered a manifestation of sin and divine malediction.
Thankfully, since then, our theology has been deepened, nuanced, refined!

They cry for mercy, not explicitly for healing,
suggesting no sense of entitlement.
They simply want relief—in whatever form this Master might give it.
An important disposition of heart in our relationship with God...

Jesus, of course, responds, but, surprisingly, does not come close.

He had previously come close and, without hesitation, touched a leper: 
Luke 5:12. 
Why the distance here?!?
Who more than these persons yearn to be touched?
Who more than Jesus knows their need for touch?
Perhaps it is that each healing is unique, uniquely personal.
Apparently, here, no need for conversation or gesture. 

To their cry of distress and trust in His mercy,
Jesus says: Go and show yourselves to the priests.
Not terribly reassuring nor seemingly merciful.
The priests are not exactly bastions of mercy. 
Enforcers of the law that makes of these persons outcasts!

These persons will offer a compelling testimony.
But there is more, discovered in considering that Jesus gives an order: 
Go…to the priests.
An order is an invitation to obedience.
Love for God always entails obedience.
Why? Because God is, shall we say, really big (!), i.e. really intelligent. 
Obedience, which leads to following, 
entails acquiescence of the mind to and trust of the heart in someone bigger.
In giving an order, Jesus invites a deeper opening of mind and heart.
Jesus invites profound cooperation
—which, by the way, expresses Jesus’ great trust in them.

They obey, and on the way, are healed. 
That they be healed on the way, and not in the presence of the priests, 
is significant.
It seems to reveal that more important than their important testimony, 
is the gift to them of deeper opening of mind and heart.
There is indeed more than health and dignity restored.
There is divine intimacy.
This is about conversion not simply about healing.

Now, interestingly, 
we only really see this in the person in whom we might least expect it.
—which testifies amazingly to the power and gratuitousness of divine love.
The ten lepers were “buddies” for a time. 
After their healing, however, that which they have in common gone,
a previous social distinction re-emerges.
They are no longer ten leprous buddies, but nine Jews and one Samaritan.
The latter remains a social outcast—no longer because of his physical leprosy  but because of his “spiritual leprosy”. 
As Samaritan, he is an outcast. 
However, Jesus reveals that, in Him, these distinctions 
don’t really mean anything: “neither Jew or Greek (or Samaritan!)…”
This one, “furthest” in a sense, enters most intimately into relationship.

Now, Jesus gives one “condition” for healing and conversion,
        a condition not determined by our social distinctions.
Willingness. 
A prerequisite to and already an expression of love.
The “outcast” seems to have been the most willing
and receives the gift most deeply. 

Jesus closes the encounter by saying,
“Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
Jesus is the one who makes well, but there is always willing cooperation.
Saint Augustine (+430) tells us, 
“God who created you without you, will not save you without you.”Even though a gift, by faith, we willingly cooperate.

Let us “get up and go”,
knowing that, as we journey by Jesus, with Jesus and in Jesus, 
“if we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.” 
(second reading: II Timothy 2:13)

You belong to Him and He holds you tightly.
We have no reason to fear and every reason to hope.


Comments are closed.

    Archives

    March 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    November 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    February 2012

    RSS Feed

✜ Contact ✜
Church of the Ascension and Saint Agnes
1215 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Parish Office:
1219 Massachusetts Avenue, NW,
​Washington, DC 20005
(202) 347-8161
Email
​​✜ Social Media ✜
​Facebook
Twitter
YouTube

Newsletter
​

✜ Resources ✜
About Us
Directions
Giving

  • Welcome
    • Newcomers >
      • Letter to Inquirers
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • How to Find Us
    • Childcare
  • Who We Are
    • Our Beliefs >
      • Statements of Mission, Vision, Beliefs & Value
      • What is an Anglo-Catholic?
      • Apolitical or Supra Political?
    • Our History
    • Our Leadership >
      • Parish Staff
      • Vestry
  • Worship
    • About our Worship >
      • Attending Mass
      • Music
  • Formation
    • About Formation
    • Adult Formation >
      • Adult Theology Upcoming
      • Adult Theology Archive >
        • Knowing Christ
    • Sermons
  • Connect
    • Contact us
    • Rector's Weekly Letter
    • Pastoral Care >
      • Pastoral Offices >
        • Reconciliation (Confession)
      • Prayer Requests
    • Stewardship >
      • Stewardship Letter
      • Givelify Instructions
      • Planned Giving
      • Endowment Fund
  • Calendar
  • Baptism
  • Outreach
  • Feasibility Study