Living With the Eyes of the 10th Leper.

A Reflection for XVIII Pentecost                                          St. Andrew’s, Nags Head 

October 13, 2019                                                                   Thomas E Wilson, Supply 

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7                         Psalm 66:1-11            2 Timothy 2:8-15              Luke 17:11-19        Living With the Eyes of the 10th Leper 

I try to begin each day the same way. Before my feet touch the floor, I try to give thanks. I walk out into the predawn morning when the world is also just awakening and sounds of the changing of the guard whisper in the maritime forest where I live. The foxes, opossums, coyotes, feral cats and racoons are returning to their lairs and owls to their nests as the deer and morning birds are beginning to stir. It is the time before many people awaken, so the lights in their houses are few. We don’t have streetlights in my neighborhood so the only light we have are the stars, moon and flashlights to light our paths.  

Often I will walk on to the Beach, drawn by the pull of any body of water, be it lake, pond, river, ocean. Water is an ancient archetypal symbol of the unconscious; a place where you are invited to stop and meditate to go deeper, under the surface, and listen to what the numinous spirit might be trying to say to us when we are too busy to listen to God. In that silence, words, images and symbols come to the fore and take me to paths that bypass my ego.  

On that dark shore I will face due east to where the rising sun has yet to suggest Homer’s “rosy fingered dawn”.  But as I look east I also realize that it is a real long “wade in the water children” until the next landing which might be Casablanca in African Morocco. Last week I sang to myself the old African American Spiritual, Wade In The Water- “Children. God’s a gonna trouble the water.” Often I will be in awe and in speaking to God, I return to the sacred script and repeat the last line from the movie Casablanca, where Bogart turns to Claude Raines and says, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” 

I am a movie freak and much of my theology is influenced by films. The story of Casablanca follows what Joseph Campbell in his book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, calls a “monomyth”, the archetype of classic mythic hero saga story line of finding oneself. In these stories, “the cave you fear to enter is where you will find your treasure.” Rick, the Café owner has been broken from his past and is isolated even from himself. His recovery begins when he must enter the troubled waters to reintegrate the past into his present, having gratitude for the past, able let the past go and move on into a new present with hope for the future. 

I think one of the themes of the lessons for this Sunday is part of that classic mythic hero saga archetype which is our faith. Jeremiah in the Hebrew Testament lesson for today writes to the people in captive exile in Babylon, cut off from their past. He urges them to learn from the lessons of the past, claim it and then let it go to embrace a new present with hope for the future where they are now living. God has troubled the waters for them so they can wade in. Instead of living in the dead past they are urged to seek to work for the welfare of the community where they can live being stewards of a new present there with a hope for God’s future. The Babylonian Captivity is the cave they fear to enter, and it is where they find their treasure. It is in Babylon where they find what it means to be faithful God’s people in a strange land. In faith they can say, “I think this is the beginning of a new beautiful friendship with God.” 

The Psalmist for today sings of the past the captive people in Babylon have gone through and how they went through water and fire and then came out of the troubled waters into a new present of which they are stewards. Their response to all the caves they feared to enter is to encounter the treasure of the mission to sing “Praise the LORD all ye lands.” In faith they can say, “I think this is the beginning of a new beautiful friendship with God.” 

In the 2nd letter to Timothy, the Pauline writer tells of Paul’s hardship as he waded in the waters of following the Risen Christ. Paul integrated the difficult past with gratitude for all the hardships he has gone through so that he might be a joyful steward of the present with hope for the future. The cave he feared of following the Risen Lord, is where he found the treasure of life lived fully in thanksgiving. In faith the writer can say, “I think this is the beginning of a new beautiful friendship with God for you Timothy.” 

In the Gospel lesson from Luke, the editor of Luke has Jesus walking to Jerusalem through the border lands of Samaria and Galilee. Two things about border lands: 1) it is where you give up the past and prepare to enter an unfamiliar future, and 2) border lands are where people who do not really fit in are pushed into. The people in Galilee did not like, or trust, the people of Samaria and vice versa. This is the kind of place that Lepers from both sides of the border would be shuffled into. This is where Jesus must go through Samaria in order to get to Jerusalem. Galilee is his home base and he must leave his past, enter the area of Samaria where he is seen as an outsider, wading in the water of people wanting to stay in their old past. Jesus tries to bring a new present into the lives of people he meets, and he moves to an unknown and uncertain, future in Jerusalem. Jesus is entering the outskirts of the cave any sane person would fear to enter, but it will be where he finds his greatest treasure, his reason for ministry. 

Jesus sees himself as a steward of God gifts to help people into a new present. The mixed bag of ten Galilean and Samaritan Lepers approach him as he is entering the village. I envision them running out of their hovels in the gullies away from the village and since they, in their disease, will not be allowed to enter the village, they call out to him. Pleading for mercy before he goes away into the village where there is not mercy available. 

Jesus doesn’t do any religious mumbo-jumbo, but he looks upon the Lepers with his mercy and in his vision, he sees that they are healed. Jesus’ vision changes their reality and they only need a Priest’s certification in order to get back into their lives they had before the disease struck them. They rush off, eager to embrace the past. Except, one leper, a Samaritan, seeing that he is already being healed stops in order to give thanks. That is what stewardship is –stopping and giving thanks for all that we received and saying in essence “I think this is the beginning of a deeper beautiful friendship with you Jesus.” 

The other nine lepers are just eager to go back to the past as if nothing had ever happened to them. They do not want to wade in the water of a new life. They saw the Jesus experience as like a public utility where you turn on a switch without thinking enough to enter a relationship with it in real life. Jesus suggests that while all ten lepers were relieved of their disease, it is only the 10th leper’s faith had been made whole. Not only is his skin healed from leprosy, but his eyes have been made whole seeing the new reality of God’s presence in this world. The Samaritan Leper who feared entering the cave of meeting Jesus, finds his treasure of being whole. He has been able to integrate the past, embrace the present and have hope for the future. Being a Steward is living with the eyes of the 10th Leper. 

The theme of the lessons is also the theme of this time in St. Andrew’s Church. The past is gone, and we are grateful for what we have been able to integrate it, as it is the time to wade deeper into the water of the present with hope for the future. I know you did not want to enter the cave of a search, but my prayer is that process will bring you the treasure of a deeper faith and vision for this church. Your new Rector, it is hoped, will not promise a return to the past but ask you to integrate it into the new future together. It will take people with a vision. We need to pray for the vestry and the search committee and the congregation who all need to have the vision to claim the past, wade with courage into the present and hope, and work, and give, in faith for the future of God’s vision for the future. 

Our prayer is there will soon be a day when you are able to say to her or him; “Louise (or Louis) (or whomever), I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” 

Living With The Eyes of the 10th Leper 

Climbing out of bed, looking as she slept, 

realizing that there was nothing he'd done 

that could have earned him this prize won, 

yet she was, in his life, as a treasured gift. 

Walking predawn, dark beach lit by stars, 

looking due east toward rising sun way, 

imagining the tide washing issues away, 

so he could place thanks, healing by God's 

hands, emptying out love beyond measure 

so that each day was filled with gratitude,  

where life wasn't empty, but newly viewed, 

FULL of abundant time, talent and treasure. 

Heaven was not reserved for life afterwards 

but a full life now, lived as Christ's stewards.