Sunday 10th October:
Before I left Cambridge, on a visit to someone in hospital I went onto the ward and as you know very often the room has various occupants. The person I was visiting was having fairly minor surgery, but all the others were being treated for fairly major life threatening conditions. At first I wrongly assumed that they would all be having similar operations for similar conditions.
Imagine my surprise after hearing a young girl two beds away laughing and joking with another patient across the ward, to see her get out of bed with just one leg, the other having been amputated the week before. She was just 23.
Across from her was a lady in her late 60 who had just moved to Norfolk from the East end of London. She was coming to the conclusion of a huge long course of treatment which had involved major operations, radio therapy and Chemo therapy. It had not been an easy journey and she had had many setbacks, but she was looking forward to being back at her caravan near her Norfolk Home for her grand daughters 15th Brirthday.
It will not have been like it all the time, but the atmosphere on the ward was supportive, encouraging, and full of life and humour. They were all getting better, they were all going home, and the young girl even left while I was there to smiles and cheers from all the ward. She had to face a long ambulance journey back to home in Cornwall, but her smile and expectation of seeing her boyfriend would certainly carry her there.
Jesus healed 10 lepers in our gospel story for today, but did you notice an important comment?
Only one was made well.
Only one returned to give thanks, only one was made whole again and restored.
The skill of the surgeon or the consultant is beyond compare but they can only mend, or try to mend the broken body. They can try to remove or destroy the cancer cells that ravage the physical body. Sometimes they succeed; sometimes they do not manage it.
When they do not manage it they can only say we did all we could but it didn’t work. Believe me they feel as though they have failed. The skill of the doctor is to heal.
There is no doubting the heartache when the skill of the consultant meets its match!
Wholeness on the other hand is something slightly different. Being “made well” is a state of living, no matter how long the life may be.
I have had the privilege to know a number of people who were healed and made whole despite the skill of the surgeon meeting its match. You may have known people like this too. They make me feel so humble and full of gratitude that I have ever known them. Their life in every way becomes a source of true blessing, that goes beyond their own mortal lives. This is remarkable, and always something that causes thanks to well up in my heart.
You can go into any hospital, you can look around you wherever, and see the one out of ten people who are made well. The one out of ten that are whole again, after seeking healing.
The one out of ten who cause a blessing to fall wherever they go.
The one out of ten who have thankful hearts, which overflow and feed others.
The one out of ten who have managed to learn something of forgiveness and have met its challenge, while the rest of us may be still only at the stage of wishing we could, or hoping we might be able to.
The one out of ten who returns to find a broken relationship and makes it right again.
Our world is made a good deal better thanks to the one in ten people as we have seen.
“teach me my God and King, in all things thee to see!” (as reads the famous poem/hymn)
How wonderful to be able to reach this point. To be able to look on glass and see beyond it and not get hung up on our own reflection but to see the heavens and heavens possibilities beyond.
I know I get distracted by my own reflection all too often. The things that scare me, or the things that have scared me. The people I would like to but cannot yet forgive, and the sin that clings so closely, to use word from the letter to the Hebrews.
Our drudgery can be lifted, we in Christ can be given the spring in our step again. God reaches out to us on the road and touches us again and again
“For that which God doth touch and own Cannot for less be sold”
“Christ’s is the world in which we move and he meets us here, he moves with us, he crys with us and laughs with us. He makes a place in which we touch him and he touches us.
“Christ makes with his friends a touching place”
So we are left with the thought “what sort of friend am I?” can I be one in ten, or do I become again one of the nine others. Maybe this time we can be one in nine?
The Sermon..... for what it is worth!!!
Last week The Leader of the Synagogue was indignant, and the crowds ended up rejoicing at all the wonderful things he was doing.
This week we have moved on and hear a story which Jesus tells. A story we have turned into a sort of comment on society and the haves and have nots etc, though I now see this as a story about our attitude tro God not at all about our attitude on behaviour in society.
I am particularly struck by peoples unusual reactions to Jesus as I read the gospel accounts
Just a small survey:
On Monday I discovered that Legion bowed down before him, yet the crowds were afraid.
On Tuesday a woman could not bear the thought of a direct approach and so she sneaked a touch amongst a crowd of people. And then soon she felt fear.
Then we see the crowds laughing at Jesus because they just didn’t believe what he was saying.
On Wednesday I met people who were simply astounded at what Jesus had to say, but couldn’t take it in because they had seen him grow from a boy before them and they just thought “we have him taped”
Then I came across people who just couldn’t believe no matter what Jesus did so he had to use his friends to get the message across.
I was struck by all these reactions because tradition might suggest that Jesus was instantly likeable, that we would be immediately drawn to him, and that we would understand his message directly. We still today sometimes feel that if we read some words apparently spoken by Jesus we will warm to them and take them to heart.
A sort of cosy image of Jesus really goes out of the window when you read the stories…. I had just never noticed it especially before.
It is curious to ponder that Jesus could not minister to some people, so much so that he had to send disciples instead.
It has made me wonder if we honestly allow people to feel all these different reactions to Jesus today, and what would happen if we did. Do we expect everyone to react the same as ourselves? Do we recognise that even amongst us here there will be people who react differently.
Maybe there have been times we have simply been afraid of him. What is our reaction when we do not understand him? How many times have we wanted to drum him out of town?
It is also extremely interesting to think about the role his friends might have in making the message acceptable and clear. Perhaps we have seen the disciples as acting as mere assistants whereas when you read the gospel if they hadn’t gone out then the message would simply not have been sown. What does that teach us about the church today I wonder?
I have started to wonder what my reaction to Jesus might be under different circumstances. When I am feeling stressed and under a cloud I rather like to hear him saying to me “be calm”, but I know that at other times I may be fearful of what Christ might wish of me at other times. When I feel angry at what has happened I might even feel like making him the scapegoat.
One thing that is certain and that is our reaction, whether it be love or hate does not stop him loving.
Even when his friends rejected him, were fearful of being associated with him, even when they openly denied him, he was still there for them.
Perhaps you might think about your reaction too during this week, and when you hear a gospel story, notice what is happening?
Sermon From Sunday 5th September
to pick up a point from the gospel for today, “whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple”
Of course this plays straight into the modern way of thinking it could resonate with how we think and feel. We like setting standards, we thrive on targets.
Constantly been set goals and living with the same threat and promise of the child in the supermarket, …. “if you are a good boy, if you are a good girl….. then you can have……”
We have to be good enough……
When we feel and think like this it is not too far away from then saying…. They have to be good enough.
So to re read the gospel sentence maybe…. I have carried my cross so they should too.
I have sacrificed myself so they should too.
Look at what I have done….. that is good enough surely.
Do you see where this may lead?
So the scary bit comes in two places today… one might be the thought later that we should all sell our possessions and give everything to the poor…. Not the church…. The poor.
Second scary bit comes at the moment of crucifixion the moment we cannot turn back from… the moment after all the following all the effort… all the ups and downs of being a disciple
And we hear Jesus turning to someone we do not know, turning to someone we have despised perhaps, turning to an obvious bad man…. Call them what you like and hearing “Today you will be with me”
Let us all be very careful , as I have quoted before….
People do not see things as they are they see things as they are.
And this week I received in an e mail this quote worth considering:
WHEN YOU CHANGE THE WAY YOU LOOK AT THINGS,
THINGS YOU LOOK AT CHANGE
