Alienated by my condition

2 Kings 5 : 1 - 3, 7 - 15

Luke 17 : 11 - 19

Illnesses and diseases have always occupied humanity’s thoughts. Clear example of this is the number of TV programmes that focus on medical illness and hospital situations.

I have on my bookshelf at home a copy of a medical handbook for medics from the First World War. It was passed down from my father’s father to him and then to me. It would appear that hot bitumen was the cure for many and sore and some of the concoctions that you were made to drink would make you want to die anyway! A broken bone lands you up looking like a mummy – all bandaged from head to toe! It makes for fascinating reading and all I can say is that I am very glad that I was not in that war needing treatment and that I am thankful that medicine has made great strides since then.

Disease and illness have always occupied humanity’s thinking. Perhaps it is a reminder of our mortality. We also realize that the human body is always prone to disease, much of it as the result of our own excesses and abuse.

Both scriptures read to us this morning inform us about the effects of illness; in these cases regarding leprosy. Our scriptures, and various other texts, give find detailed information about various diseases and each culture’s way of handling these illnesses.

Let us consider this passage before us. In both the OT and NT passages the focus is on leprosy. It is a disease which destroys nerve function and thus leaves a damaged flesh for those living with it have lost a great deal of normal sensation. It is a chronic infectious disease of the peripheral nerves and mucosa of the upper respiratory tract; skin lesions are the primary external symptom (see “leprosy”). What is often translated in the scriptures as leprosy was in fact not always leprosy but sometimes a condition known as Tzaraath. This is a frightening condition in that the patient may actually lose a bodily limb. Hence the fears of these diseases in the scriptures and the symbol of being unclean.

When Jesus arrives on the scene travelling to Jerusalem through region between Samaria and Glailee He comes upon some of these people who have been ostracised by the community because of their disease. They must have heard about this Jesus who was not afraid of lepers. Traditionally lepers had to walk around with a bell and ring it when anyone came to close to them so that the people could move out the way. No-one wanted to come close to these unclean people because you could be declared unclean yourself!

But that must have hear the stories about this Jesus who ignored the bells and embraced lepers. The healings must have been known to them.

So when they heard He was coming through they sensed an opportunity for healing.

Can you imagine the scene? They had been treated with disdain and held at a distance because they had this disease. They had to show themselves to the priests but if they still had any pink spots or sores they were declared unclean and had to go and live far away outside the city wall in the filth that surround the town.

Cities were surrounded by high walls (even before some South African suburbs did this!) for protection from their enemies. All the refuse of the city was thrown a little way outside the walls. The sewer system also ran in open channels to the outside of the city. And it was to living here – outside the walls – that they were banished.

Most had forgotten what it was to be touched by another human being. Many continued to get worse because of the circumstances under which they lived.

Now this opportunity presents itself to them and they cry out: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us”.

Jesus chooses to show mercy and tells them to go and do the normal thing of presenting themselves to the priests so that they can be declared clean. What Jesus does at the outset is make them re-discover their human dignity by removing the stigma of disease.

1. JESUS REMOVES THE STIGMA OF DISEASE

Even today disease carries a stigma. When we speak of someone with HIV/AIDS we make judgements about their lifestyle, sometimes without even knowing them. We speak of people living with HIV/AIDS as statistics, and forget that they are real people. When we speak about people who suffer from depression we say things like, “need a head doctor”. And so we comfortably treat people like lepers were treated in the OT.

Jesus has come to remove the fear and stigma of disease and restores dignity to those who suffer. In fact, He comes specifically to those who are ill.

2. SUFFERING UNITES PEOPLE

Is it not amazing that this Samaritan was found among a number of Jews. The Samaritan was an outcast and yet, in the midst of a shared ailment, he found company with those who considered themselves superior.

Is it not true today that the same occurs. When people are ill, in the midst of war or trauma, all differences of creed and colour are quickly forgotten.

At another level this reminds us that we all suffer, some just hide it very well. No person is immune to illness and struggle. Some of us have just learned the art of covering up so well because we are afraid of what others might say. And yet, when the truth is revealed, we discover that we are all the same.

I recall well when we discovered Flavia’s tumour. We did not know much about brain tumours (acoustic neuroma is what it is called in her case) at this stage of our lives. And then, as we spoke about her tumour, we discovered that there were many people with similar conditions. Somehow it made it a little easier to know that we were not alone.

But I also discovered that some people do not want to even speak about it. They choose the route of denial instead, but so never actually find the healing that there is in finding others who care for you and support you.

Let us learn how to be honest with our selves that we may remove all the stigmas that society raises.

3. THE MAN IS HEALED COMPLETELY, NOT JUST OF A PHYSICAL AILMENT

Why is it that only one responds? All the others seem almost ungrateful for what Jesus has done for them.

That is not the case really. Certainly they could have come and thanked Him but Jesus saw beyond the physical ailment of this one who returned. You see he was a Samaritan. It was different for him. All the others could go to the priest, be declared clean, and go back to their normal existence.

But this man returns because even though he is no longer a leper he is still a Samaritan – an outsider. He must still live with a society’s prejudice and stigmatization.

He needs Jesus to do far more than just heal his skin disease. He needs to be completely restored so that he has value and his worth is recognized.

It is to this outsider that Jesus says : “Get up and go on your way. Your faith has made you whole”. This man needed to be restored to being a person of value and this is what Jesus does for him.

4. WE TOO NEED TO BE WHOLE

What is it that you carry in your body, heart or mind that needs this touch. Are you unable to sense the love that God has for you. Are you afraid to deal with any illness you may have because it will make you vulnerable? Are you scared what others will think?

Well it is the Christ who loves you and wants you to be whole, even as He made the Samaritan a whole person, who calls you today to come and allow His touch to restore you.

Call out to the one who makes a difference.

Perhaps you know this already and do not need to receive God’s healing right now but you have not treated others with the respect that Jesus offers them. Now is the time to seek to look people in the eye and offer them dignity as Jesus did. Let us encourage all people to be whole and be restored to a dignified relationship with God themselves and their communities.

AMEN.

The nature of faith - simple trust

Habakkuk 1 : 1 - 4 and 2 : 1 - 4

Luke 17 : 5 - 10

I think that I have shared with you before that one of my hobbies, if you can call it a hobby, is that I collect pens. All kinds of pens, old and new used and never used but of different kinds.

This hobby began for me, I remember well, when I was very young. Not so long ago now - at least 10 years - I was about 9 and Mr. Chong, at his corner store at the bus terminal in Wetton, had just received a consignment of these very smart multicoloured pens that not only was colourful on the outside, but actually wrote in all three colours, Blue red and green. It was a Chinese import I think! Even in those days! And the moment I saw it I just knew… I just knew…. I had to have one. It cost 12p or one shilling and tuppence. I did not really get pocket money and I thought my parents would consider it a bit of an undulgence, so I never asked but I began saving the cents that I would get from an old man up the road every time I went to the shop for him for his cigarettes. It took a while however because he only really asked me about once a week. Every time I went I would see the stock of these pens running lower and I would ask him to keep me one and he would say he couldn’t because he had to sell them to get his money back. And then eventually I had it. I really had it….. 12 p. One shilling and tuppence and I ran down to the circle and into the shop and guess what? It was all sold out! I have been collecting pens ever since mainly I think to try and make up for that disappointment.

With Jesus having spoken so much about faith, and especially as one of the critical ingredients of life in relationship with God, it was only a matter of time, say most commentators, before they, thinking in terms that they were used to, would ask him to increase their faith. Like us I suppose they were often frustrated by their own inability to be and do what was right, and they ascribed this to a shortage in terms of amount, of this particular commodity called faith. If they could only get more then they would be able to be and do all that they believed God wanted them to be. They were like us, I think, products of their generation. A society in which if you wanted something you had to pay for it and if you didn’t have enough of whatever it took to pay whatever it cost then you had save a little longer or find some more. (Extend you bond!)

Jesus goes on to use two powerful images to try and show them that this line of thinking that reduces faith to a commodity to be possessed or accumulated, and reduces God to a celestial shop owner who only dispenses His love and power and life and blessing and healing when we have enough faith to pay for it, is fundamentally flawed. He was trying to straighten out their thinking a bit! The challenge for us this week is to see where our own thinking needs to be straightened out a bit as well. So how did he answer their question?

1. Faith is not a matter of quantity of anything to be possessed but a quality of

life to be lived in every situation.

Their initial question had to do as I have said with this notion that God was the shopkeeper and if you wanted to be blessed, or do the stuff that we are called to do as Christians in our ministry to the world successfully, then you had to have a certain amount of whatever – struggle to define it – positive belief – self persuasion – that would allow God to do what you want or need. The only problem is “How much is enough?” Well we don’t know really, but some would say that if you try and fail, then you don’t have enough. I guess that’s how the disciples/Apostles were feeling. Do we have enough to afford the transaction? Jesus goes on to say that if they have as much as (The smallest thing he could think of!) a mustard seed it would be possible to achieve the greatest feat that they could think of! (Moving a mountain)

You see it’s not a matter of how much, but simply the presence of something very precious that really matters. A quality of life that brings life to any relationship – Simple Trust - in God. And its living that quality of life consistently, that really matters. Applying that quality of life to every part of our lives that’s what really matters. Not trying to accumulate enough in our account so that we can get God to do what we want Him to.

“It all begins with a realization that despite all the bad stuff in the world or my life, nothing can separate me from God’s love for me, that god knows my every need and desire, that I can accept that I am accepted and that God wills me nothing but good, and that as long as I keep trusting, he will work out all things according to His best purpose for me and in my life. (Rom 8:28-29)”

2. Faith is trust in the assurance that God is for us in all things!

The first simple basic area of trust it seems is to accept that we do not have to earn either God’s love or His care or concern, or His power at work undertaking for us in every area of our lives.

If we continually view God’s love for us and His activity in our lives as being conditional on how much we are able to believe, then our lives become a distorted tangle of doubt and fear and uncertainty of whether we are doing/believing enough and “How much is enough - anyway?” This tends to produce a sense of continual failure, just like the beginning of my hobby, because we can’t ever do enough because we are not perfect. And just as soon as we think we’ve done enough something else gets in the way and we have to start all over again.

“Lord I believe, help my unbelief”

Much better we just accept the truth that it doesn’t depend on what we do but that the life of faith and even faith itself, the ability to trust, is God’s gift to us! We don’t earn anything in the life of faith or deserve it. It’s God’s gift to us. That’s grace! He blesses us just because He loves us!

ILLUSTRATION Dennis the Menace and Mrs Wilson

That is the place that the writer Habakkuk gets to in his journey with God in trying to understand what God is saying to his People in the midst of the mess of exile and devastation that surrounded them. He complained that God was silent and aloof. Then he hears that the just shall live by faith, and he asks what is this faith? We have his answer in the famous passage from Chap- 3:17-18

Though the fig tree does not blossom
And there are no grapes on the vine
Though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food
Though there are no sheep n the pen
And no cattle in the stalls
Yet will I rejoice in the Lord
I will be joyful to God my Saviour.

Then what is our part ?

3. All we can do is to trust and serve/obey him in loving service.

I suppose that like me whenever that parable is read you feel tired and confused. It seems to suggest a life of slave-like servitude in terms of Christian duty, and then at the end after we have done everything we can it’s still not good enough for God who demands even more. What kind of God is this, we ask, who sets us up for a fall and then withholds His blessing when we do? That’s the kind of scenario that the language used in our translation conjures up - and especially the word “duty.” It seems to contradict everything we’ve said so far this year in terms of the life of faith being based on relationship and not duty or religious activity.

And of course that’s true. The purpose of the parable becomes distorted if we approach it in this way. Its true purpose is to set us free from the false belief that faith is a commodity that we need to have “enough of” to warrant or earn God’s blessing, (And by implication God has to bless when we have done enough That He is in our debt). It almost forces us to face up to the fact that we can’t, so that it can introduce us to the far more wonderful truth that we don’t have to! All we can bring to the party is the realization that we are unworthy recipients of God’s grace, called to share it with the world around us with the same abundant freedom with which it was and is given to us. We are servants of this love and power.

And in answer to the question when would we have done enough of this kind of loving and serving to deserve to sit back and say “that’s it, now I can wait for heaven. I have done enough?” The answer is never. And I am so glad that it is because I want to be a servant of this love and power making a difference for God in this world and in people’s lives till I die! It’s the most exciting part of the whole deal, the most exciting thing I have ever experienced, and best of all it doesn’t depend on me.

I don’t have to do the hard part. God does! Remember all I do is trust that He is at work, and play my part as a servant to allow what he is doing to become a reality n the lives of the people that I serve. It’s great!

Cliff Richard was on one of his first SA tours in the mid 70’s when Uri Geller was sharing his mind power techniques with people and teaspoons were being bent after his shows by people employing his techniques at home and at parties. When asked by one interviewer what he thought of this whole phenomenon Cliff seemed rather unimpressed and answered, “Sure its quite a thing I suppose but I don’t understand how people can get so excited about bending teaspoons, when Christ makes the power to turn a person from being an utter rogue (British) to a saint available to His Church. Now that’s worth getting excited about.

What Jesus was trying to show them and us is that a life of faith is essentially a life of trust that God who is at work in all things, is at work in al those things of our daily lives, not because we have deserved it or earned it by anything that we do, but just because He loves us and cares about us. We can trust Him to work out everything according to His purpose. In this freedom, we are called to reach out and share this good news with those around us and help them to make this awesome discovery for themselves as well.

Lord increase our faith so that we can discover the unsurmountable joy of being faithful servants!

Amen

God's information and formation: the need for wisdom and knowledge

Deuteronomoy 30 : 15 - 20

1 Corinthians 2 : 1 - 16

Have you heard the story of the visiting evangelist? He went to a church to preach and decided he wanted to begin the message with a really strong point that would get everyone’s attention. And so he began the sermon by saying, “Every member of this church is going to die!” It got everyone’s attention and they seemed a little spell bound, all except on man at the back whose face lit up with a smile. He made the statement again, a little more firmly. The man’s smile spread across his face. Finally he was shouting, “Every member of this church IS going to die!” and the man crossed his arms and even seemed to laugh a little. At the end of the service the evangelist stood at the door and shook hands with the congregation. Eventually the man who was smiling broadly arrived at the door. The evangelist asked him why he smiled when most people seemed to be more serious about such a statement, to which he replied, “I am not a member of this church”.

I guess it is important to make sure of our facts and be clear about the message that we portray!

Today we will be focussing on education and thinking and praying for all those involved with education and especially those writing examinations.

I recall my formal education but I need to say that education is far more than just that which is formally received. Let us examine what the role of education is in our lives.

1. WHAT IS EDUCATION?

Definition range from teach and learning (see wikipedia), acquiring of knowledge to instruction and schooling.

John Locke wrote in 1690 in his Essay concerning human understanding that a child’s mind was blank (tabula rasa). Education was needed to inform this mind. He explained that there were three distinct methods to do this; firstly the development of a healthy body, secondly the formation of a virtuous character, and thirdly, the choice of an appropriate academic curriculum.
Common to all these various understandings and definitions is the common idea of a “leading out” or “raising up”. Education’s task is to lead us into new experiences and new ways of seeing and thinking.
In this way we can see that education was at the core of the ministry of Jesus because He was always leading people into new discoveries and experiences. Can you hear the words of Jesus, “Look” and “see” and. . . but I say to you”.

Education is not just formal knowledge but the discovery of being led into new truth.

2. HOW THEN CAN WE BE EDUCATED?

Firstly by putting ourselves at a place where we can be led into new discoveries, fresh ideas, about life, about God, about ourselves.

a. By reading – God’s word, good books, helpful articles.

Many faiths teach their followers to learn their sacred books by heart through rote learning. Some can recite large passages. This is not really education, even parrots can do that! Rote learning is not that which always educates and throwing out individual texts does not mean we have been led by God. But the more we immerse ourselves in God’s word and God’s world the more we are open to being led by God’s Spirit into discovering the nature of God and that leads us to following.

It is here that we receive much information that leads us to new understandings that can lead us into a deeper appreciation and joy of God.

b. By listening – to messages that encourage and teach, to other people’s experiences and understanding.

Again we are receiving knowledge that leads us into being wise in our relationships. It is in the sharing of our stories that we discover God’s amazing grace in action. A narrative approach to education is one which will inform and enrich us all.

c. By doing – our faith is an experiential faith.

It is in acting out our beliefs that we grow and are led into greater knowledge and wisdom about how to live in a meaningful relationship with God. As we receive all this knowledge about God we able to be wise as we live it in our daily lives. All the information about God, myself, other people, my relationships and the world are meaningless unless they form my life and allow me to “be led” to greater insight and new forms of behaviour.

Secondly, by allowing ourselves to be challenged into new ways of thinking. We live in a dynamic, not a static world. Imagine of the doctor who was treating you said, “I don’t like this new fancy anaesthetic thing. Just bite on this bandage while I cut you and then sew you up”.

It is in discovering new aspects of life that we are enriched and grow. Jesus was always leading his followers into discovering new information and they were then changed in their thinking and their living.

3. HOW DO WE BECOME WISE?

1. By gaining knowledge.

Knowledge that is just the accumulation of facts means nothing. I am not impressed with knowledge that does not lead to a life more fully lived.

Just last night I was privileged to hear our Minister of Education, Naledi Pandor, speak and convey an inspiring address. She has indicated that her department is working on developing an understanding among people that for every right that there is enshrined in the Bill of Rights, there is a responsibility. This leads us into new ways of living, and surely that is true education.

For all the knowledge we gain is useless unless it leads to wise decisions and lifestyle. There are many people who are very clever, but that intelligence is meaningless unless it empowers them and their communities to a greater purpose.

2. By living out that knowledge

Wisdom is the discovery of God and God’s ways through the process of education, formal and informal.

Wisdom is living by God’s truth in a way that both informs us and forms us.

I conclude with an article that I read about truth:

Truth is not obvious, but is there to be discovered. When Jesus says ‘you are the salt of the earth’ (Mt 5:13), he is suggesting that truth can act as a sharp preservative, and so far from being an optional extra, is an essential aspect of our life together. When I watch the evening television news, I always look out for the opening headlines, which will tell me what someone else thinks are the most important events of the day, translated into simple slogans. That is the ‘obvious’ approach. I may or may not agree with the selection, their order in priority, and the way they are summarized, but the process has to go on into more detail, more depth, with comparisons, contrasts, and even some analysis – if, that is, we are to be educated beyond the obvious.

William Barclay, the popular Scottish preacher, once remarked that ‘truth which is merely told is quick to be forgotten; truth which is discovered lasts a lifetime.’

Let us live lives that discover God’s truth which will educate us for a life more fully lived.

May our lives be filled with discovering and being led by God into a new and deeper understanding of life.

AMEN.