Lectionary 28 C
The Rev. Donna M. Wright
St. Matthew’s Kellers Lutheran Church
October 9, 2016
Grace, mercy and peace to you from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen
Some borders are easy to cross. Going to and from Canada is pretty easy
(although it used to be even easier – a few years ago, you didn’t even need a passport
for travel to Canada). Other borders are more difficult. Passport needed, plus a visa.
Long lines to see an official. Large signs in a strange language, strange alphabet.
Some borders have armed guards and razor wire. Even land mines. No one wants to
cross those borders.
In our skit we met Naaman, a Syrian military officer who led his country’s
army to victory against the Israelites. He was rich, important. Also a leper. He
crossed the Israelite border to seek healing from the great Israelite prophet, Elisha –
Naaman expected to be given a task of importance, some quest that would require his
valiant efforts, his mighty intellect, his skill and bravado. He was offended when told
to wash 7 times in the Jordan River. Such a little command. Hardly worth the trouble
of a slave, let alone a mighty commander of a victorious army. Elisha’s little
command left Naaman nothing to boast about. When he was healed, he could boast
only of the power of God. That was when he crossed another border: the border of
religion. Naaman claimed as his God the God of Israel, whose power had crossed
borders to heal him, to bring him back into society.
Lepers by tradition have lived outside the borders of regular society, nonleprous society. Lepers have always wanted nothing more than to be restored to their
communities; to go back inside the borders where the healthy people lived. Because
they were not allowed to, they formed their own community – a fellowship of
outsiders. In the gospel, a little community of 10 lepers, 10 outsiders, begs Jesus for
mercy – to restore them to wholeness, to restore them to community. For if and when
one is healed of leprosy, one is able to rejoin the community, to be on the inside
again. To relate to family and friends. To touch and hug. To sit on same stool, to
hold the same handle of the water bucket. Little joys, but only to be found inside
borders that were far removed from these 10 lepers.
Jesus used his healing power to cleanse the 10 lepers of their impurities. He
restored them to their communities: the 9 Jews to their community, by having them
go to the priest, who could certify them as fit to re-enter healthy society; the 1
Samaritan to his community, by receiving his thanks and sending him on to his home.
The outsiders were restored; they were able to cross the border back to their
communities.
At its best, the church is a community of outsiders. We have our own
fellowship – a fellowship of sinners. We are outside God’s law. We have nothing to
boast of – for even our best acts are contaminated with sin. We need someone to
cross the border and bring us mercy, healing, wholeness, restoration. As Jesus did for
the lepers, so God in Christ does for us: crosses the border, to restore and save us, to
pull us back in the community, God’s community. As God crossed the border of
death, to raise Jesus from the dead ~ because our God will cross any border for us.
Even though we are sinners.
Being pure, being without sin is not required by the God of Christianity. Jesus
himself healed lepers – the most impure, the most unclean of his day. And he healed
a leper who was a Samaritan – the most reviled religion to the observant Jews,
because Samaritans once had been Jews. Samaritans were impure, unclean,
considered worse sinners than others. Jesus broke the bounds of the purity laws in
today’s gospel. In fact, throughout the gospels, every time anyone tried to impose a
purity law, Jesus broke it. The money-changers in the temple were there to keep the
impure Roman money from contaminating the hands of the Jewish priests – Jesus
took a whip to those money-changers. The woman with the flow of blood was
considered unclean, impure, sinful – Jesus healed her and told her that her faith had
made her well. Jesus’ disciples harvested grain and Jesus healed people on the
Sabbath. What about the woman taken in adultery? The purity law required her
death, but Jesus challenged the crowd, allowing only the one who was without any sin
to throw the first stone – and no one met that qualification. These are not the acts of
someone who is concerned with purity!
The law-abiders who opposed Jesus had a point. It is not fair that God in Jesus
Christ gives grace to all; it is not fair that God shows love to the deserving and the
undeserving, the faithful and the faithless, the law-abiding and the law-breaking – it
is not fair, but God cannot deny God’s self. God is gracious to all. God crosses
borders and pulls in the foreigner and the outsider, those who acknowledge the depth
of their own sins and those who point their fingers at others, claiming that they are
worse sinners. Before God, our borders are worthless. Insignificant. God is able to
fly over the airspace we claim as sovereign at will – and God does so for the purpose
of restoring all sinners to God’s community. So that none will be able to boast of
their own works, their own efforts, their own success at being pure – but so we
sinners can boast only of God’s grace, God’s faithfulness, God’s love. These baby
girls, Anna, Charleigh, and Scarlett, have done nothing to earn God’s grace – yet in
baptism God claims them as God’s own beloved children. There will be no border
they can cross that will take them away from God’s love – that is what baptism
means. For them and for all of us.
Amen