Sermon for October 9

Pentecost 18-C

10-9-22 St. John’s

 

Luke 17:11-19; 2 Kings 5:1-3,7-15

 

The readings that have been put together in the lectionary for today have a theme, that for me is just like the theme for Gilligan’s Island. Remember Gilligan’s Island? We have people who were complete opposites, thrown together by fate. The only thing they had in common was this desperate situation they were in, they all wanted to be rescued from it.

 

First we have Naaman, in the 2 Kings reading and all his household and the people who orbit around him. He’s a very important person –  the commander of the king’s army in Aram, kingdom to Israel. Not only that but we find out that he was also friends with the king, and he enjoyed the king’s loyalty.  A wealthy, and very powerful man who had reached the heights achievement in his world. Also he was loved and respected by people – his wife and all his servants, they called him father we learn and seemed genuinely to care for his well-being and looked out for him, tried to help him in his distress.

 

Because, of course, he was a sick man. He was cursed with this terrible disease called leprosy, which was a word with lot of different but which in his day was the dread disease, like cancer used to be, but much worse because it thought to be very contagious.

 

But Naaman’s leprosy was hidden mostly, we don’t know why, maybe the disease hadn’t progressed that far, or he was able to keep it secret because he was so powerful. But he was still a leper, and there was no treatment, it was progressive and it was very contagious. He was in trouble.

 

Then we also have, in today’s NT reading a nameless beggar apparently in much worse shape than Naaman’s. He couldn’t work or support a family, would not have been employable. He had to be separated from the community in fact in that day leper required to shout out the words “unclean, unclean” to anyone who approached them so nobody else would catch what they had. They even had bells to ring we’re told to chase people away. His leprosy was out in the open. He had no community except the company of other lepers.

 

And just to add to the drama, the particular beggar in our story was a Samaritan So he was an outcast among outcasts, the lowest of the low among with nine other beggars.

 

So we have these two characters, separated by hundreds of years in history, but more important, separated as far apart buy their life circumstances. One who was surrounded by people who loved him and honored him, and one who was destitute and despised.

 

But yet they are thrown together in our imaginations by the only thing that really mattered.

 

That God loved them and healed them and the Greek and Hebrew this idea is expressed in various ways, words that are translated as restored, made clean, made well or even saved, as Jesus says to the Samaritan beggar, by their faith in the grace of God come to them through the prophet or through the Christ himself.

 

Each of them accepted this salvation offered to them by God, they believed in God’s grace, and they both praise God and give thanks for their healing. That’s why we know that they have been saved and why they are held up as examples of faith for us.

 

Because, let’s face it, we are all lepers in our own way. We all suffer from that deadly condition that we sometimes call sin, or even Original Sin, or sometimes just called it being human. Whether we are rich or poor; famous or unknown, and successful or despised; whether it’s mostly kept hidden from others like Naaman’s or hidden even from ourselves, or whether it’s out there in all its horror for everybody to see, like the Samaritan beggar’s. We all have it. Nick Lowe called it the Beast in Me.

 

Karl Jung called that our shadow self, and he said we have to acknowledge it. WE have to get to know it, shake hands with it, make friends with it, because otherwise it will take over our lives. Only God knows why, but this Sickness unto death I think Kierkegaard called it is part of who we are. And only by the grace of God are we ever made clean, made whole, restored or saved even though we are never really cured. At least, not in this lifetime. But if we can’t be cured, we can be healed. By the grace of God, like our two friends in scripture today.

 

So Gilligan’s Island was cancelled after three seasons, abruptly, and unexpectedly, and the characters were never rescued. How appropriate. So they’re out there – the specials don’t count. Still having to learn how to get along, and figure out how to survive together as different as they are and trusting that salvation is on its way and, and in fact, it’s already here.