9 to 1

Luke 17:11-19

 

Standing in the old section of the Burwood Cemetery we were surrounded by the graves of young children, many of whom were under the age of 12. The two teenagers with us were intrigued as to why this was the case. We explained that 3 or more generations ago people died young of diseases we no longer see as fatal – measles, chicken pox, colds, appendicitis and more. Also those who lived didn’t enjoy the same preferred position in families as they do to day. Education above primary school was rare and the idea of a career of their choice simply not on the agenda.

 

For these two young men, this story was both foreign and outside of their experience. What they took for granted simply wasn’t available to those young people whose headstones dotted the immediate surrounds. It was for them, and possibly is for some of us, almost impossible to imagine a world different to theirs/our experience. As a result we can fall into the trap of taking what we have now as always being the way it was.

 

We take life, our life for granted and when something happens contrary we become anxious and angry that our expectations are not met. Our life has become narcissistic to the point that we cannot imagine it being any other way than it is now. If it is out of balance we seek to regain the life we are used to without being grateful when we do.

 

This little pericope of Jesus is not so much about gratitude but about the expectation of entitlement, taking life for granted. 10 people encounter Jesus. All 10 are sick and have an illness described here as leprosy. It may not have been leprosy in the strict definition, but because of a skin ailment their lives were out of balance. The normal life function of relationships, work and religious practice was not available to them. They were outcasts, marginalised by their illnesses and seeking to find a way to become participants, once again, in the normal activities of life.

 

They meet Jesus, and are healed. Jesus sends them on their way, 9 keep going, only one stops, turns around and says thanks. It is here that Jesus pronounces, ““Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” Now this raises some interesting questions. We are told that all are healed, but only this one is made well, what does that mean? Is gratitude evidence of something more than healng the physical illness? Is wellness different or deeper than the physical cleansing? Is faith more than simply wanting something good to happen, is it about depth, deep speaking unto deep, where we glean the truth that something more is at work here than physical healing?

 

Many years ago, when I attended AA, I used to notice that there were at least two groups of people at meetings, those for whom the joy of life had returned in soberiety and those who, while sober, still moaned about how difficult it was each day. The latter would stand at every meeting they attended and go on and on about how hard it was to be sober, the temptations, the difficulties and then lapse into a protracted sense of martyrdom for continuing to remain sober. Somehow we were to applaud their stoicism in the face of great strife.

 

An old AA man would say, “Any one can get sober, only a few master sobriety.” A very wise statement reflected in our story today. Any one can get healed, only a few master the art of living well. The Samaritan begins the journey by stopping, turning around and recognising the hope he has received.

 

The other 9 took it all for granted. Life went on with their ego self at the centre of all things; the only difference was they no longer had the skin disease. Had anything really changed for them? Were they convinced that this was their right and finally all had returned to the way it always was before they got sick?

 

The Samaritan’s faith made him well. Jesus distinguishes between the 9 and the 1 by recognising the 1’s faith, a faith that was only activated when he stopped, took stock, turned around and recognised the source of his healing. Faith here refers to a conviction that results in reflection and metanoia, a complete about face or change in direction. The 9 were healed by God’s grace; the 1 was made well by his awareness of the mystery lying at the centre of his experience of Jesus.

 

Wellness is more than healing, and sometimes, is present when there is no healing. People are well when they recognise the joy and hope of life in the midst of illness, tragedy and loss. People are well when they retain their balance and embrace challenges, opportunities and possibilities despite the lack of healing or closure. People are well when they are able to grasp the mystery of creation in all things they encounter.

 

This is a story about great hope hidden in the everyday we take for granted. Like the 9, we are so busy going on, we miss the gems staring us in the face. As my father would say if we couldn’t see or find something; “If it had been a snake it would have bitten you”. In other words we miss the bleeding obvious in search of the more we not ready to receive. The 9 were excited to be normal that they forget to receive fully what they had been given.

 

How easy it is for us to do this in our lives. Materially we live in a world full of extraordinary experiences we take for granted. We have possessions, experiences, opportunities people of past generations could never have imagined, yet we act as if that is the way it has always been. We expect the stuff we have without a thought of gratitude. We take for granted stuff people in 2/3’rds of the world have never had – fresh water, accommodation, regular meals, work and access to health services. We get upset when the Internet is down, winds blow over power poles and the freeway is blocked because we take it for granted we can get our way with life. We become one of the 9 and fail to recognise just how blessed we are.

 

Spiritually human beings have made themselves the centre of the Good News, more so, we as individuals have made ourselves the unique project of the incarnation and the resurrection. Somehow that story is all about us and we take it for granted that we have God on speed dial, that God only has eyes for us. Modern individualism makes us sure of our place in God’s plan that we get upset when things don’t go our way. Why has this happened? Why me? What have I done? We walk away with the 9 unaware that there is more at work here than meets the cursory glance. Spiritually we are challenged to stop, reflect and turn around, embracing the unknown just below the surface.

 

Until we do we will continue to walk in the footsteps of the 9. Amen. 

A Flawed Text

Luke 17:5-10

 

Last week we explored the importance of language and names, and the power inherent in both to embed ideas, common practices and standardised responses to situations and experiences.

 

Todays Gospel reading continues this idea, not so much in the reading itself, but in how we read it. Moreover, it challenges how we read the Bible itself and the impact we think it has on society and our lives. A close reading of the Bible may lead us to conclude what we thought we read, what we think it says, what we believe it gives us is in error.

 

As Christians we tend to read the Bible as Christians, moreover as post-enlightenment western rational Christians. This means we run the risk of reading back into the passages we open, the ideas and societal practices of a modern world into what is a localised, time specific ancient text replete with the ideas and practices of that age and place.

 

If we read the Bible as the literal word of God may interpret these difficult passages in such a way as they become normative, requiring obedience and acceptance as to such issues, placing us at odds with the modern sensibilities in areas as the place of women in the world and church, interfaith dialogue, gender equality and more.

 

If we read the Bible as a moral text designed to give rules for ethical and moral practice we will look for universal standards hidden within these difficult texts written for a particular time and place. They are not there.

 

If we read the Bible as a resource to empower our experience we may be challenge to compare our experience with what is written and come to an accommodation based on reason and practice, aware that this collection of texts speaks into our lives, not literally or morally, but as a flickering light in the dimness of our experience. As Paul writes, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

 

Today’s reading raises questions for modern Christians. The temptation with the lectionary reading is to talk about the question of faith in verses 5-6. This is a comfortable and relatively safe place to go. Rarely do you hear a sermon on the problematic passage that follows.

 

“The story assumes not only the acceptance of slavery, but an honour/shame social system in which honour is presumed to lie with the powerful while the subservient have no inherent dignity. This mindset now stands in stark contrast to the values expressed in documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [UDHR], which asserts the dignity and worth of each and every human person.

 

These are the liberal values of contemporary secular Western societies, although they are often attacked by both Western Neo-Conservatives as well as by Two-Thirds World leaders who resent Western cultural and political domination. They are not biblical values, even if many people see them as vaguely Christian in character. They have more to do with the spirit of the Enlightenment than with traditional religious views of humanity and society.”[1]

 

We are challenged by Luke to understand Jesus as a Jewish man of his time, drawing on the accepted moral and ethical practices that normalised society and, in this case, accepting these for what they were. Jesus does not challenge slavery and neither does Paul, but appeals to the relationship between master and slave as demonstrated in this story as being commendable and appropriate.

 

There is no reward for doing your duty, for doing what is expected of you within a master slave relationship. Now we could spend time reading back into this passage the idea of God as master and human beings as slaves who are simple required to obey God their master without any sense of reward or an option to do otherwise. If we did what does this say about the character of God and the value of human beings? Are we worthless slaves under oath to a master, if so what’s the point? None of this sits well with our modern understanding of the inherent dignity of each person deserving respect and right relations?

 

As we have seen on many occasions, passages from the Old and New Testament seem to sit contrary to what we perceive to be the message of love we are told sits beneath each. The truth is that the Bible is a flawed text insofar as it assumes and promotes such things as slavery, demon possession, ethnic cleansing, racial superiority, a three-tiered universe, and the subordination of women. The Bible does not fit neatly with our cultural assumptions, as this week's Gospel reminds us. The immense spiritual value of the Bible may lie more in its capacity to empower our human quest than its ability to (re)solve our immediate challenges.[2]

 

Here is the importance of the Bible. It is to be read as a light into the dimness of our experience, not as the definitive word of God, a moral or ethical text or a historical text. It is a text written in a particular time and place which if read mystically, that is read in conjunction with our spiritual and life experience, speaks truth into our lives. To reduce the Bible by reading any other way reduces both its worth and its impact. Just as when it was written and spoke clearly to the experience of those who read it, when it is read today without the pre-condition that it fits our ideas it enlightens our way in mysterious and often counterintuitive ways.

 

The Bible is a spiritual or mystical text, to be explored with open hearts and minds so that it speaks its truth to each of us in ways we can hear, see and feel.

 

The fact that the Bible is flawed and seems to advocate values at odds with modern sensibilities, for me, speaks to its authenticity as a mystical text. It reflects its time and place, the people who wrote it were modern people of their time and Jesus was indeed an ordinary Palestinian Jew caught up in the ethos of his time.  The fact that this text is at odds with the enlightened understanding of human dignity we live with today speaks of the movement of the resurrected Christ, the Spirit who has continued the project Jesus began. We are not to be people of a static reading of the Bible, but engaged human beings we progress that project through the broadening of the thought and teachings of Jesus.

 

The challenge maybe, for us today, to revisit how we listen and hear the Bible as it is read in church or at home, and to look for the mystical leading of the spirit, uncovering the truth to lighten our way in the dimness of our faith. Amen

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[1] Jenks

[2] Jenks