Where Are the ?

October 14, 2007     Proper 23 C

Jeremiah 19:1, 4-7             Psalm 66:1-12

2 Timothy 2:8-15         St. Luke 17:11-19

I wonder what happened to the nine lepers who did not go back to thank Jesus. Did their minds immediately turn to other needs, newer preoccupations, more urgent petitions? Did they just move on with their lives, now cured of leprosy but worried about something else? Did they remember how it was when they always kept a distance and ever longed for cleansing?

Maybe, if they had kept a journal of those days, they could have turned back the pages to forgotten times when they cried out for pity or begged for help. They might have remembered how they once thought their whole world would be charged with light if they could be healed with their skin as fresh as a child's. They could have compared their old feelings about their affliction and their new freedom, having now won their hearts' desire.

The "purity" laws in Leviticus 11-15 deal with boundaries. Leviticus 11 pertains to the mouth, an opening in the body through which  "approved" and "unapproved" foods cross the body boundary and enter the interior. Leviticus 12 concerns conception and childbirth, processes that cross the body boundary through the female body opening.

Leviticus 13 and 14 describe a repulsive, flaky or scaly condition affecting the skin, clothes, and walls: three kinds of boundaries. In each case the biblical text reflects the concern about whether or not the problem is deeper than the skin or, in other words, whether it has "pierced" the boundary. Finally, Leviticus 15 discusses male and female involuntary discharges or leaks escaping the body's boundaries through body openings difficult (impossible?) to control.

Anthropologists point out that a society concerned with maintaining safe and secure body boundaries is also concerned with safe and secure societal or geographical boundaries. Rules governing the physical body replicate rules governing the social or geographical body.

In this same historical period the purity laws of Leviticus 11-15 began to be rigidly enforced. Marriage laws protected the boundaries of society; purity laws protected the human body boundaries. One set of laws (purity) reflects and reinforces the other set of laws (marriage). And the reason for all these laws is to ensure thatIsrael would remain "holy as the Lord is holy," a recurring theme in Leviticus.

There are times when we seem to go through life the way some children go through birthday presents. We tear through the wrapping paper of our gifts, piling up the boxes as we move on to the next bright toy. Perhaps we shake an envelope without reading the message or knowing whom it is from. What's next? Is that all?

This perpetual flitting of our interest, this inability to rest in the gift, occurs also in matters of health. We might fret through a night, thinking the heartburn is heart attack, the cold sore is cancer, the next day is treacherous. In a matter of hours, the jeopardy may pass, and we forget the gift as we begin to brood over something else.

Why is it we charge through life so unaware of our million deliverances? Do we appreciate our rescues or healings even a tenth of the time? If we could count the fears, both small and large, that once hounded us, and then thank God for each dreaded outcome never met, we would reach no end to gratitude.

We will not take full possession of our lives until we learn to give thanks for them. We don't really own our legs or eyes, our hands and skin unless we're daily grateful.

It is striking that all ten lepers were healed. The grateful one got no more than the others did, except the assurance from the Lord, "Your faith has made you well." Nor did the other lepers lose what they had. There was no punitive miracle returning them to their leprous state.

There is much to meditate upon here. The gifts of God are without repentance; gratitude has no ulterior motivation, for example to secure further blessings. Ingratitude is perhaps the most common of all human failings.

We can see the fruit of ingratitude in the Church today. Not too many years ago Congregations were growing. Buildings needed to be expanded to accommodate the ever-increasing number of children in Church School, and the parents in the pews. But times have changed.

We really do live in a world that, as I spoke about briefly last week, seems to be driven by an entitlement attitude. People are no longer grateful. They are not thankful for what they have received. Rather they are eager for everything they can get because they believe they are entitled to it. Someone should do a sociological study on the entitlement attitude and ascertain just what it is that is the ground reason for their belief that you are "owed" anything and everything.

Today, we might ask, like Jesus did, "Where are??" and you can finish the sentence. Instead of swelling Congregations they are shrinking. Instead of growing Church Schools, they are dwindling. The situation I am describing fits Zion's, but it is not limited to Zion's. It is endemic.

Have we been lulled into laziness? Have we been apprehended by apathy? I know that we are all busy, but what is more important than expressing our gratitude to God for the gift of life? Are we hurrying through life trying to get all we can and as a result are so exhausted that we are really sleepwalking through life?

When we wake up from our sleepwalking, when we see the wonder of the smallest parts of our existence, we begin to live. It is then we know what it is like, with the tenth leper, to be saved. Then we will not have to ask where any of God's redeemed is. They will be together worshiping and praising God.