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Sermons at St. John’s Presbyterian Church Lepers, Gays and Dirt Floors Transcribed from the sermon preached October 14, 2007 The
Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor St. John’s Presbyterian Church 2727 College Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94705 Telephone 510-845-6830 Fax 510-845-6837 office@stjohns.presbychurch.net http://www.stjohns.presbychurch.net Every
so often I hear someone ridiculing an athlete for giving thanks to God for a
good performance, as if God was a fan of his team and decided to give them the
win. According to such theology, it
would seem God was not a fan of the bears or their freshman quarterback
yesterday. Poor guy. Poor team. Still,
I would hope that gifted people would feel gifted, as if they have been given a
gift, and be thankful. Gratitude should
be the sentiment we feel when we have been given abilities and the opportunity
to take advantage of them. Long
before the book Zen and the art of archery, athletes, musicians, and
mathematicians have known there is a point at which discipline and hard work
become freedom and we simply reveal beauty, we tap into the source and it flows
out of us. The feeling that follows is
gratitude: Gratitude for the opportunity to be right where we are, doing what
we are doing. Even
more beautiful is the truth that those moments, that sense of gratitude is not
saved only for professional athletes or musicians, but shows up in an infinite
variety of ways in day-to-day life of ordinary people. Television
and capitalism combine to help keep us feeling short on luxury, success and
power. Somebody else always has the
next best thing and we are taught to want it, that we are somehow less without
it. And there are all sorts of reasons
why we should have it, whatever it is, whether it is a bigger car or a bigger
church – we are taught to want more. When
I first went to Guatemala I naturally assumed that the Kekchi Indians I worked
with desired the same things I did.
There was a yacht club up river and rich kids from the city would come
down in ski boats. Gorgeous yachts
would come up river, having sailed from the East Coast of the US. With their boats and yachts tied up, people
sat around at the bar, looking cute or rich or both. I have to admit to being envious as I putted up in my little canoe
to spend some of my $200 a month stipend on the only cold drinks for fifty
miles. The
Kekchi would paddle up to the bar, often a father with his young son, waiting
in their boat for the owner to come out to buy fish. Before I knew them I would try to guess their thoughts and
feelings. Clearly this was a different
world from theirs. They would sit
timidly off, observing the wealthy and pompous customers. Being a good American, I naturally thought I
would like to trade places with the yacht owner. I assumed they did too. But
as the months came and went I started to get to know both the yachters and the
Kekchi. Most of the yachters were
lonely expatriates with secrets and longings both current and past. Certainly
they had their moments of happiness there at the bar, telling stories of
beautiful ports and the freedom of the open sea. And they had a fleeting community there, complete with gossip,
dangerous liaisons and shady business deals.
But most of them were still too busy wanting more to be very grateful
for what they had. They were still burdened with the leprosy of lust and envy. About
9 months into my service I went into the highlands to the Kekchi capitol of
Coban to study Kekchi. The teacher told
me the Creation story of the Kekchi.
The river where I taught was far from Coban, and it was so hot that the
women didn’t wear the hand woven top that kept the story alive. So, when I went back to the river I taught
the Kekchi children the story. Then I
asked them to make their own story, to create their own image of the Garden of
Eden. It was an amazing and rare moment for me as the children were very
candid, so I decided to push a little further.
I asked them what they wanted.
If they could have anything at all in the world or do anything, what
would it be? “I would have a good plot
of land one said.” “I would be a
fisherman and catch lots of fish,” said another. "I would have healthy, fat children another chimed
in." "Si", said another,
"and we would eat plenty of meat." I was certain one of them would
say they wanted a yacht. Not one. What
is most important to you, I asked. They
started blurting things out: pineapple, maize, to work, to work the earth. I
wasn’t much of a churchgoer at the time. I visited the yacht club more than any
sanctuary, but one Sunday morning, in crisis over my plan to court a woman and
then run, I drove my boat over to worship with the Kekchi. They were Catholic but other than the
crucifix you couldn’t tell it by entering the church. It was a twenty by twenty foot thatched roof hut with a dirt
floor and logs split down the middle for pews.
Dogs, chickens and children roamed freely. The priest came down river once a year or so to administer
baptisms and communion. But the lay
folks knew how to be the church. When
I arrived they shared the universal church member response for a long absent
friend: they were exceptionally welcoming in a smug kind of way. The women were especially good at giving me
the look, like, “What took you so long?”
Or, “Maybe he is not altogether lost.”
But I appreciated their welcome nonetheless, because I had doubts
myself, and wondered whether I should take my leprous soul within rock throwing
distance of the holy. After
I got over the cognitive dissonance of dogs and chickens in worship, I was
struck by the gratitude of my friends. They gave thanks for who they were, who
they were with, and what they had.
Amidst all their hardships, and there were many, they were grateful for
the blessings they had been given. They
wanted safety, and freedom from intrusion of the greedy and violent. They wanted health, fish, pineapple and
corn, but they didn’t want to be anyone else.
They were content to be who and where they were. Someone
once said, instead of being thankful when their cups runneth over, too many
people pray for a bigger cup. We
make progress or are healed of some malady, and off we are toward the next
goal, without every taking time to stop and give thanks. If there is one thing that is crazy in our
culture, it is the speed with which we jump from one thing to the next, always
anxious to meet our next goal. We fill
our lives with so much stuff, with so much work that then stopping to praise
God and give thanks seems like a waste of time. It is not productive.
What am I going to get out of it?
How will worship maximize my profit?
How will it get me prepared to achieve my next goal? Certainly
there are preachers in America this morning telling people following Jesus will
increase your profit and help you meet your goals, hopes and dreams. Certainly that can be the case. But that is putting the cart before the
horse, as if Godly appearance and acts were a means to financial gain. The question to ask is, what is God’s goal,
God’s hopes and dreams for me? Paul writing to Timothy says, “Godliness with
contentment is great gain…Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love,
endurance and gentleness. Fight the
good fight of the faith.” Maybe
the other nine lepers kept going to the temple, to start anew the journey their
disease had truncated, the journey to be accepted and included among the holy
and clean. The book of Leviticus spends two chapters instructing
priests how to diagnose skin disease, how to pronounce lepers ritually unclean,
how to perform rites of purification if the leper is healed. Leviticus 13:45-46
instructs the conduct of lepers: The one "who has the disease shall wear
torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his
lip and cry, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the
disease; he is unclean; he shall dwell alone in a habitation outside the
camp." Often,
when a leper was recognized or heard yelling out “Unclean,” others would throw
stones in fear. Perhaps now that they
had been healed they were continuing onto the temple to receive the ritual of
purification. They could then proceed
to follow and receive public acknowledgement for following the rest of the
law. Certainly we cannot blame them for
wanting to be accepted and successful in the eyes of the temple and the
community. Even healed of leprosy,
however, the Samaritan would have no chance of being accepted in the temple. We
ourselves may be tempted to say and act out all the right church things to show
that we deserve to be accepted, that we are clean. In his drive for success as a pastor, Ted Haggard, the founder of
the mega church in Colorado, took speed.
Meanwhile, he had a hidden relationship with a male prostitute for three
years. Now he has been ordered to stay
fifty yards away from any straight Christian and scream out “I’m gay,” when he
comes near. I am stretching this a bit:
he was merely fired and kicked out of the church. Hip
Hop, like the bible, uses the term Ho for anyone who sells himself for money,
fame or fortune. Haggard not only paid
a prostitute, he prostituted himself, sold himself cheap to his idea of fame
and fortune in the church, using and demeaning himself and others in the
process. This more than his sexual
orientation, is his sin or his disease.
Maybe, as we discover that homosexuality, like leprosy, is not
contagious as the culture of the bible once thought is was, we will stop
ostracizing gays and lesbians from the church. But
as we learn that homosexuality is not a disease but in most cases comes with a
born propensity, the analogy only works so far. So lets try this; born a Samaritan or gay, nevertheless receiving
a gracious, healing from leprosy or aids, yet still not welcome in the temple
or church, they go back to find Jesus, out on the border between the welcome
and unwelcome, and cry out in praise and thanks to God. I
don’t report this story of Haggard and use this analogy to narrow this sermon
down to those who are gay or those with aids.
For each of us - whether we are Jew or Samaritan, gay or straight,
whether we own a yacht or have a dirt floor, Guatemalan or Citizens of the USA
- we all fall short, we all sell ourselves short of the love and glory of
God. We long to be made healthy and
whole. All
the worldly and church rituals and laws will not make us whole. Worldly success and wealth will not make us
whole and can easily tear us apart and turn us toward evil, toward envy,
strife, malicious talk, suspicions and friction and rob us of truth. We are not accepted into membership because
we are ritually clean, or because we have passed all the cultural and religious
tests. We are cleansed by the grace of
Jesus. We are made whole by faith. And faith is not something that only points
to the future, but also to the present tense.
Have faith that right now Jesus has compassion and mercy on us. Right now you are being healed and made
whole. Right now we have reason to stop
and drop before him to give thanks and praise.
There is no other place we ought to be, no other thing we ought to be
doing than resting and giving thanks in the love of God. |