“The Double Outcast Gets Saved!”
Luke 17:11-19
A friend of mine from back in Virginia recently told me that she and her pastor are going to begin hanging out at the local bar on Friday and Saturday nights.
They aren’t going there in order to get drunk…they’ll be drinking cokes… they are going there to connect with people who are isolated, lonely, perhaps addicted…and then tell them about Jesus and invite them to church.
I have a feeling that is the kind of thing Jesus would do if Jesus were to come to earth in the 21st Century.
I love how Neil Cole puts it: “If you want to win this world to Christ, you are going to have to sit in the smoking section. If the church isn’t willing to get its hands or lungs dirty, it won’t have a hearing.
The homes and hearts of people are open to the Gospel.
But it’s relationships that bring the Gospel home.”
God is the One Who seeks us out…
…like a woman searching for a lost coin…
…like a shepherd who leaves the ninety nine sheep in order to find the one which is lost.
In a similar way, we as Christ’s Body on this earth are to seek the lost as well.
We can’t just sit back and expect folks to come searching for us.
We are sent into the world, just as Jesus was sent into the world.
Author Howard Snyder is quoted as saying, “The Gospel says, ‘Go,” but so often our church buildings say, ‘Stay.’
The Gospel says, ‘Seek the lost,’ but our church buildings often say let the lost seek the church.”
What are we doing to seek the lost?
Certainly one thing we are doing is having this pumpkin patch—for the soul reason of attracting folks to our property in order to invite them to come be a part of this community where they will meet Christ.
And I am so impressed at how you all have taken on this responsibility so enthusiastically!!!
Another way we ‘Seek the Lost’ is by handing out invitation cards and putting up door-hangers…and inviting those we meet to come worship God with us at Grace United Methodist Church.
But we can do much more.
And the more we do to “Seek the Lost,” the closer becomes our walk with God!
Because God is in the business of ‘Seeking the lost!”
In this morning’s Gospel Lesson Jesus meets up with some of the most despised, isolated and lost people of His time—lepers!!!
And Jesus’ encounter with the ten lepers caused those around Jesus to come face to face with their worst fears and deepest prejudices.
Does our relationship with Christ cause us to come face to face with our worst fears and deepest prejudices?
Does our relationship with Christ cause us to re-evaluate those fears?
In our day, “Hansen’s Disease” is the preferred name for the illness that used to be called “leprosy,” although in biblical times a variety of skin diseases were included under this term.
And the only form of disease prevention available in those days for leprosy was quarantine.
The leper was considered utterly unclean—physically and spiritually.
The leper couldn’t approach within fifty yards of any person including family members.
They were utterly isolated, marked by their clothing and hair, as well as by the requirement to cover their upper lip and cry “Unclean! Unclean!”
The leper was an outcast who, along with tax collectors and prostitutes and beggars, had no place in the religious community.
However, such outcastes were precisely the focus of Jesus’ ministry!!!
What kinds of folks are the focus of our ministry?
Bono of the Rock Band U2 is quoted as saying, “If Jesus were on earth you’d find Him in a gay bar in San Francisco.
These are the new lepers.
If you want to find where Jesus would be hanging out, it’ll always be with the lepers.”
Lepers were the outcasts!
They were totally ostracized from society.
Just imagine the anguish and heartbreak of the leper—being completely cut off from family, friends, society, and presumably—God!
Imagine the mental and emotional pain!
Who are the lepers in our community?
Who are the outcasts?
Who are the ostracized?
I’m sure we can think of many.
There are those who are outcasts in schools and on playgrounds because they can’t quit fit-in with the other children.
There are those who are outcast and ostracized because they suffer from mental disabilities.
There are those who are ostracized and isolated because they are poor and possibly homeless.
In the book A Generation Alone, one of the authors worked extensively with Vietnam vets, recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder…
…which is a condition resulting from a stressful incident beyond the normal functioning range of human experience…
…like combat, terrorism, genocide, torture, rape, violence, or long-term less extreme incidents.
Entire generations of soldiers show similar signs of post-traumatic stress disorder.
The author writes about college students he works with who show many of the same post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms.
He explains that such high percentages of young people have endured traumas of abandonment due to divorce, psychological or sexual abuse as children, rape as young women, overexposure to media violence and sexual exploitation that it appears we’ve bred a post-traumatic stress disorder generation.
The author says, “I can find no other explanation for the widespread problems with stability, self-image, feelings of emptiness, depression, suicidal thinking, fear of the future, and lack of hope among the young.”
He goes on to write that, “Abandonment is the fundamental component of these generational disorders…the young have been abandoned by parents, loved ones, teachers, political leaders, even the culture itself.
No one is really ‘there’ for them now….more than any of their predecessors, they have been since birth a generation alone.”
A little bit like the lepers of Jesus day, wouldn’t you say?
Our generation longs for deep connection yet often settles for shallow ways of relating.
Hey, after all, any friend is often thought to be better than none.
Why else is peer pressure so dangerously successful?
In the wake of such high rates of divorce, neglect, and abuse emerging generations long for connection, yet have been programmed for aloneness.
And aloneness goes deeper than just being alone.
Aloneness comes from longing for people to see you and know you yet still feeling isolated and alone on the inside—even with lots of people around you.
If we don’t help connect people into the community of Christ, then we have failed in the full ministry of reconciliation—of restoring authentic relationship—that the Lord has entrusted to us.
People are searching for relationship…but so many are looking for love in all the wrong places.
A relationship with Jesus is the only relationship which will truly satisfy.
And as the video we watched earlier reminds us—we are to be the arms—the very Body of Christ!!!
Are we building relationships with those who are alone?
In our Gospel Lesson for this morning we read about the healing of ten lepers, and at least one of them was a Samaritan.
We know that the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans.
Why was a Samaritan leper able to hang out with Jewish lepers?
Here we see an example of a great law of life.
A common illness had broken down the racial and national barriers.
In the common tragedy of leprosy they had forgotten they were Jews and Samaritans and remembered only that they were people in need.
If a flood surges over a piece of country and the wild animals congregate for safety on some little bit of higher ground, you will find standing peacefully together animals that are natural enemies and at any other time would do their best to kill each other.
Surely one of the things which should draw people together is their common need for God.
Jesus meets and heals the ten lepers.
On their way to show themselves to the priests (who could vouch for their health, so they could return to society), only one came back to thank Jesus, and he was a Samaritan.
What is most remarkable to me is that after asking, “Where are the other nine?” Jesus told the man, “Your faith has made you well.”
Really?
But ten were made well, though nine of them showed no evidence of faith.
How can Jesus say to this one (a Samaritan at that!), “Your faith has made you well?”
Is the clue that “has made you well” can be translated “has saved you, rescued you, made you whole?”
Jesus seems to have told the man, in effect, “The other nine may no longer have leprosy, but you have been made whole—physically and spiritually healed—because you have faith, faith that you have shown by your gratitude.”
The other nine had been healed.
This man was whole!
And there is a big difference!!!
We live in a world of wounded folks who long to be made whole!!!
And wholeness doesn’t always have to include being miraculously cured of an illness.
When I was an Associate Pastor in Macon, Georgia Jeanne and I got involved with a local homeless shelter for indigent people living with HIV and AIDS.
When I initially called the director of the shelter and introduced myself as a pastor who was interested in getting involved with the shelter, the director was a bit leery.
He was afraid that I wanted to go in there, and hit the folks over the head with the Bible—telling them that they are all going to hell.
I assured him that my wife and I felt called by God to befriend the folks at the shelter and try and get our church involved.
And possibly through these new relationships our church could grow and learn from the folks at the shelter and maybe we could be of some assistance to them.
So we started out by going to the shelter and eating lunch with the residents every Friday at noon.
The church I was serving began to collect canned goods and toiletries for the food pantry at the shelter, and we began to bond with many of the clients.
Eventually, some of the members expressed an interest in coming to the church.
So a man from the church, who had also become involved at the shelter, would drive the church van each Sunday morning to the shelter and pick up a half dozen or so folks who, not only were living with HIV and AIDS but were also a different color from every other person in that congregation, and bring them to Sunday school and church.
That was a great time.
I grew so much in my Christian faith through reaching out too and becoming friends those neat folks.
I also was able to watch members of the congregation move closer to Jesus as they began to be Christ to the least of these!
Some of the folks at the shelter used to call me up at all hours asking for rides to the store, or money for food.
I’ll never forget the day when about a dozen of my friends from the shelter stood up in front of church, repented of their sins, professed their faith in Christ and joined Forest Hills United Methodist Church…
…a church in a white upper middle class area—made up of white upper middle class people!
They hadn’t been healed of their disease, but they had been loved into the Kingdom of God—they had been made whole!!!
Many of us had also become whole through our “seeking [and loving] of the lost.”
I think it would be awful hard to be a completely joy-filled Christian…one who is experiencing Jesus’ promise of life to the full…
…unless one was doing all one could to fulfill the great commission Jesus made to all Christians of every age and time which is: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
What a reason to live!
What a reason to rejoice!
What a reason to get out of bed in the morning!!!
We come together as a community of faith to worship God together, to lift one another up, and to learn about God…
…we are also called to go out into the world in order to “seek and save the lost.”
There is nothing more rewarding nor fulfilling in life.
What are you doing to love others into God’s Kingdom?
Surely, when you are engaged in ministry, you see God working all around you as lives (including your own) are continually being transformed!
