“Learning to feel again”
In my small Methodist church growing up, I became familiar with the question that Pastor Jeff asked every week, “has anyone told you today that you are the beloved? because you are. beloved sons and daughters of God.” This was an idea taken from the great theologian Henri Nouwen who explains that being beloved is being unique and precious in God’s name and that we are blessed. His ideas on belovedness came about primarily because of his work with people with developmental disabilities. He came to realize that everyone is the beloved, no matter what. God loves us each unconditionally, and there’s nothing we can do to change that. So, with that, know that all of you are beloved sons and daughters of God, and remind your loved ones of that as well.
People on the margins aren’t always considered to be beloved. For instance, people with Leprosy. A problem in Jesus’ day, and still a problem today. The World Health Organization estimates that there are 211,903 cases of leprosy in the world today. These people are still in 2010 considered to be outcasts and untouchables. Back in the time of Jesus, people with leprosy were considered unclean, and were cast out from everywhere. Not only were they physically disfigured but they were often considered spiritually deadly. Often times the lepers of those days would bond together and make the best of it. The only way back into society was if a priest declared them clean--this came from the law in Leviticus. They could then, and only then, rejoin society.
In the passage, we find Jesus on his way to Jerusalem in the area between Samaria and Galilee and he comes across ten lepers who call out to him, “have mercy on us!” Now, I don’t know about you, but many people today wouldn’t normally stay and hang out with these lepers. Often times we, when approached by those on the “margins” will turn the other direction, and ignore them. Even cast them out. Consider for a second the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980’s where affected people were considered to be unclean and many unaffected people were afraid of those with the disease. We avoided them, and even shunned them. Jesus doesn’t shun these people. Jesus takes the time to reach out to those people. Jesus knows that these people are children of God--they too, are beloved. He doesn’t care that they have a disease, he cares for them. As he sends them back to the priests, they are healed of their disease. At this time, nine of the ten lepers continue on to the priests. That one that stayed doesn’t continue on. He or She decides to turn around and praise God.
We know from the text that this one person isn’t just any person, it is a Samaritan. The other nine were not Samaritans, making this one significant. The Jews and the Samaritans didn’t have a good history. They didn’t get along very well. The samaritans were rarely portrayed in a positive light, so this is a complete shock. In Luke 9, we read about how when Jesus entered Samaria, they did not receive him and his message. They reject Jesus. For his one leper to praise God after the healing was a pretty big deal. Something is out of the ordinary here. However, we know that when Jesus is around, unordinary things don’t usually happen. Jesus was known for turning the tables and causing a stir.
The other nine lepers do as they are told. They did what was expected and go to the priests. But it is this one leper, this Samaritan who does the unexpected. He comes back to Jesus and feels something deeper and recognizes what Jesus is doing, and what Jesus has done for him and thanks him. He has “seen the light” and not only been healed physically but has been made whole, restored, and drawn back into relationship with God and humanity. It’s more than just a physical healing. In fact, when closely looking at the different translations of the text, Jesus says to the Samaritan (In the NRSV), “Your faith has made you well.” In The Message translation (a more modern paraphrase), the verse is translated as “your faith has healed and saved you.” The word that gets translated from the Greek into the English “healed” is sesoken, from the root sozo, can be translated as healed, made well, or saved. It’s not just a physical being made well and magical physical healing. it’s whole body. This person’s life has been changed, and they are able to function in society. This person is able tot both live completely and feel again.
Shane Claiborne, the author of The Irresistible Revolution and the founder oft he Simple Way in Philadelphia, describes himself as an “ordinary radical.” he truly lives out the gospel in ways that i could only imagine and is a firm believer in living out the gospel. When he was in college, Shane decided he wanted to find a “Christian,” which he defined as “someone else who might be asking, What if Jesus meant the stuff he said?” He came across Mother Teresa, who he described as a sassy contemporary radical. He and his friend decided to write her a letter that said the following:
Dear Mother Teresa, we don’t know if you give internships out there in Calcutta, but we would love to come check things out.
Time went by and no return letter came. So, Shane contacted a bunch of nuns and finally figured out a way to contact her. He spoke to a nun who gave him the number for mother teresa in Calcutta. Shane calls, and hears on the other line, “this is the Missionaries of charity. This is Mother Teresa.” Shane proceeded to explain that he wanted to come hang out with her for the summer. She said yes, and they went. Shane spent time in Calcutta working in an orphanage, homes for the Destitute and dying, and finally decided to spend some time in a leper colony outside of Calcutta. Shane lived with the lepers, who are still considered to be outcasts and untouchables, even now. People who don’t know how to say thank you because they have never needed to use language of gratitude.
Shane lived with these lepers, and took care of them, and confessed that he “saw a clearer glimpse of Jesus in this leper’s eyes than any stained-glass window could ever give him.” He watched how they came together to teach each other how to function and to say thank you.
In the book, Shane describes his experience: “I learned from the lepers that Leprosy is a disease of numbness. The contagion numbs the skin, and the nerves can no longer feel as the body wastes away. The way it is detected is by rubbing a feather across the skin, and if the person could not feel it, they were diagnosed with the illness. To treat it, we would dig out or dissect the scarred tissue until the person could feel again. As I left Calcutta, it occurred to me that I was returning to a land of lepers, a land of people who had forgotten how to laugh, to cry, a land haunted by numbness. Could we learn to feel again?”
Perhaps Shane is right. Maybe Jesus not only needs to heal us physically, but also heal our souls which have been numb to going on in the world. We keep hearing about disaster around us but we often would prefer to stay in our ivory towers and watch, and put money in the plate. But perhaps we should do as Mother Teresa said, “Calcuttas are everywhere if only we have eyes to see. Find your Calcutta.” Shane admits that his Calcutta is the United States, and he only learned that by understanding what it really means to feel and to feel the love of Jesus and to see the love of Jesus in the eyes of the lepers. And to understand that we need to learn to feel again. And it is through Jesus’ love and acceptance that we are able to do that. God loving us as God’s own helps us understand and feel and become less numb to what is going on. God works through us to become able to feel again.
Amen.
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