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. 

Faith As Mustard Seed

A Reflection and Poem for XVII Pentecost C Proper 22                          St. Andrew’s Church, Nags Head, N.C.

October 6, 2019                                                                                         Thomas E Wilson, Supply

Faith As Mustard Seed

Lamentations 1:1-6                     Psalm 137         2 Timothy 1:1-14              Luke 17:5-10

I promised you last week that I would spend some time talking about Stewardship, yet all of my reflections and poems have to do with Stewardship. Again, Stewardship is not just about how much money we send to the church but about all of life. Today I want to talk about the Stewardship of grievances. How do we faithfully deal with grievances and hurts?

Last week in the reflection for that Sunday, the Hebrew Testament lesson predicted the fall of Jerusalem and the Hebrew Testament lessons for today from Lamentations and Psalm 137 have to do with the grievances of the people after the fall and destruction of Jerusalem, the Temple and the way of life they knew as they went into the bondage and exile to Babylon. 

The song of the 137^th Psalm speaks of the bitterness of life by the Waters of Babylon, where they sat down and wept, hanging their harps for singing to God on the branches of the trees. They longed for the day when the Daughters of Babylon would be made to pay and suffer for what had happened to the children of Judah as the Babylonian children would be slaughtered before their mother’s eyes. I left out the 9^th verse of the Psalm on the bulletin because the10:30 is a “family service” and I did not think it would be helpful to our smaller children to carry that horrific image with them as they left the church.

The Gospel Lesson from Luke picks up in the 5^th verse after the disciples asked if they are to forgive someone who has hurt them seven times a day and seven times asks for forgiveness. The seven times imagery calls forth the idea of completeness but that is held in tension with Proverbs 24:16, “For though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again, but the wicked stumble when calamity strikes.”  The disciples, in their lives before Jesus, had all been taught that seven is the magic number. You are allowed seven times, and that is it. It was a little like baseball’s three strikes and after that you are out. Jesus just ups the number from seven to forty-nine. When Matthew remembers this story, he remembers Jesus upping it to seventy times seven or 490. The disciples tell Jesus that they are going to have a lot more faith if they are to keep forgiving at that rate, for they already knew some folk they could never forgive once, much less 490 times. 

 Jesus says that if you have the faith of a mustard seed, the weight of a one, one hundredth of one percent of an ounce, you could do what you think was impossible. He was telling them that with mere human power forgiveness is very difficult but with God’s Spirit. all things are possible. 


Let me share some thoughts from Roman Catholic Priest Father Carl J. Arico of Contemplative Outreach Ltd., when he asks us to reflect on Alexander Pope’s aphorism “to err is human to forgive divine.”

When I conduct a workshop I like to have the participants do a little exercise. I divide them into 4 sections and ask them to repeat after me.  

Section one is asked to say “to err is human’ Section four is asked to say “to forgive is divine”

 Then I ask section 2 to say “I don’t know how to do it” And section 3 says “I don’t want to do it”.

 I then say that there is no way of joining the wisdom of sections 1 and 4 without seriously dealing with section 2 and definitely with section 3...

 There is no leaping from to err is human - over to forgive is divine.

Let me give you an example from our own bodies. We breathe in and oxygen goes deep into our lungs and through the lungs, in the capillaries and through the entire blood system bringing life and fullness. The blood cleans the body of the garbage of carbon dioxide and then when you exhale the body is freed from that poison. But suppose you only breathe shallowly, so there is not enough oxygen to do the work of cleaning out the poison and the poison stays within you. 


The word that the Bible uses for Spirit is, in the Greek “pneuma” or Hebrew “ruach”. These are also the same words, in both of the Biblical languages, used for breath and wind. It is the breath of God that is blown into the lungs of Adam to bring the breath of life; it is the breath of the Risen Lord that brings the Holy Spirit to the disciples in the locked room, it is the wind of the Spirit that blows the apostles out of the Upper Room into the world at Pentecost. 

My prayers revolve around prayer during meditation and contemplation; breathing in deeply of God’s graceful spirit flowing through me, renewing my soul and then breathing out cleansing all those anxieties and distractions which gather around like monkeys in a tree, breathing out to set them free.  What happens if I decide to hold on to fear? I forget to breathe deeply of God’s peace. Or, if I decide to hold on to a grudge, or long for revenge? Resentments are not so easily chased out of the trees of my mind because I do not want to let them go. I do not want to let them go until the person who I think hurt me, or hurt the people I love, will beg for forgiveness. I console myself by seeing them twist slowly in the wind until they get their comeuppance, which I masquerade with the veneer of justice to cover the desire for revenge  I will choose to not breathe deeply of God’s Spirit and all the poison remains in me.


The problem is that when I am in this mindset, I rationalize that forgiveness is dependent, if I think the offender deserved forgiveness when they asked, which I could grant or withhold as I saw fit. But real forgiveness is not for their good but for mine. Every minute of every day the poisons build up, one drop at a time, titrating in a unholy cocktail mixture of resentment rather than hope, bitterness rather than love, separation rather than union, the past instead of the present, withholding rather than giving, being bound rather than free. All this takes a wheelbarrow full of energy to maintain the barriers of my pride instead of the openness of my heart.


Jesus tells us that all it takes is a one one hundredths of one percent of trust that all will be redeemed. Dame Julian of Norwich in the14^th Century had a vision:

 “And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God.

In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second that God loves it. And the third, that God keeps it.” 

If I can look at my enemy and see her or him in that small ball that God made, loves and keeps, then I can send my self-centeredness out to lunch and turn them over to God. If they will hurt someone else, out of love I must work to stop them. If what they are doing is unjust, I must defend the vulnerable person. If they hurt me as an accident, then I need to grow up and acknowledge that accidents happen in this broken world. If they hurt me out of ignorance, I must lovingly teach them. If they hurt me out of the pain in themselves I, out of love for them, try to bring healing to them. If all they did is to hurt my pride, I need to remind myself that I am not the center of the universe, and that the position of savior of the universe has already been taken by someone with a better resume than mine.


Voltaire use to make fun of God by saying; “God forgives; that’s his job.” Yet, through what we see in the experience of Jesus; that does seem close to the truth, as God is faithful to God’s very self. We in the image of God , maybe it is our job to forgive. When he was being nailed to a cross, Jesus cried out, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” When I use my .01 percent of mustard seed of faith to turn an enemy over to God’s love, I live into being a follower of Jesus. As Dame Julian wrote; “The greatest honor we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love.”


So how goes it with you in your stewardship of dealing with the hurts and grievances of the past? It always helps to add a mustard topping to that hot dog.



Faith As Mustard Seed

He pondered; “How big was a mustard seed?

.01 percent of an ounce didn’t seem too much

compared when all the other weights as such,

like a resentment around a remembered deed

done unto him, so many decades of years ago

when another thoughtless child or adult said,

something that he took as a slur when read

in the light of his own self- doubt as a blow.

How much weight did the wanting revenge

pull on soul, refusing to overlook or forgive,

for it’s one more thing his ego won’t outlive,

unless giving Spirit permission to transcend?

“Let it go”, he heard the voice, "to be set free.

Breathe out past, for poisons aren’t for thee.”