Jesus Was NOT a Nice Guy sermon series – Sermon #1 – No More Mr. Nice Guy

SCRIPTURE – Mark 9:14-29
When they came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them. As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him. “What are you arguing with them about?” he asked. A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.” “You unbelieving generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.” So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth. Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?” “From childhood,” he answered. “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.” Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, “He’s dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up. After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.”

SERMON
Jesus Was NOT a Nice Guy sermon series
Sermon #1 – No More Mr. Nice Guy
Feb. 26, 2012

There are some things that Jesus says that are really meaningful, that deserve to memorized and repeated and treasured. “Love thy neighbor.” “Come to me, all you who are weary.” “I am the light of the world.” Those are all touching, moving statements. But have you ever seen a wall-hanging or crocheted pillow that says, “You faithless generation!” It’s funny how there are certain things Jesus said and did that we conveniently forget because they don’t necessarily fit our image of who Jesus is. It’s easy to ignore the harsher stuff he says when we can and sing “What A Friend We Have in Jesus” and hear stories about him welcoming the little children. That’s the good Jesus. We want the good Jesus.

But just because we ignore the more difficult passages doesn’t mean they just go away. We either have to go through the Bible with pruning shears, cutting out the parts we don’t like, or we have to accept the whole thing as God’s word and then try to make sense of it. But what do you do when the Jesus of scripture acts and speaks in ways that make him seem – dare I say it? – like a jerk.

This is not a modern dilemma. Believers have struggled with this since the beginning. One group of folks tried to solve the ragged edges of Jesus’ humanity by saying that Jesus wasn’t really human. The Docetists said the body of Jesus was just an illusion and he never really walked on the earth or was crucified, so we can discount all those times when he acted thoroughly human. Let’s just focus on his divinity, they said, and forget all that other messy stuff.

That would be great if I could do the same thing in my own life. Let’s hold onto the beautiful, the joyous, the sublime, and just ignore the messy, the failures, the anxiety. But we all know that’s not a choice, is it? We don’t get to pick and choose what we want to experience in life. Bills still have to be paid, diseases still have to be treated, conflicts still have to be dealt with. We can’t stop being human. So if that’s true, then I need to know my Savior was human, as well. I need to know that when I experience fear or frustration or anxiety, Jesus knows what I’m going through because he went through it, too. He’s either my Savior in every moment of my life – even the less glamorous ones – or he’s not my Savior at all.

But in order for me to accept Jesus that way, I have to be willing to take him at his best and his worst. I have to be willing to accept him in all his humanity as well as in all his glory. I have to be willing to face those passages where Jesus comes across as impatient or harsh and figure out what that means for me as one of his followers. Can Jesus still be our Savior even when he’s not being a nice guy? That’s the question we’re going to wrestle with during Lent. We’re going to take a look at some of the passages in the gospels where Jesus comes across as less-than-Savior-like and see what we can learn from them. My hope is that we will get a more complete picture of Jesus, so that as we struggle through our own moments of glaring humanness, we can know we’re not alone.

The danger in going down this path, though, is that our image of Jesus may be altered, and you may not want that. It may be a lot easier to maintain our squeaky-clean image of Jesus, the meek and mild man who healed and said comforting things and taught important lessons and selflessly died, the guy with perfect teeth and flowing blond locks, the Jesus who turned the other cheek and smiled even as they were driving nails through is hands. After all, that Jesus is a lot easier to manage.

But there’s a problem with that Jesus. Andrew Greeley says it this way: “Once you domesticate Jesus, he isn’t there anymore. The domestic Jesus may be an interesting fellow, a good friend, a loyal companion, a helpful business associate, a guarantor of the justice of your wars. But one thing he is certainly not: the Jesus of the New Testament.” After all, if Jesus were merely loving, compassionate, kind – if Jesus were only a nice guy – why did both the Jews and the Romans feel compelled to murder him? If we fail to look at the darker sides of Jesus, then we’re not getting the whole picture.

So we’ll start this morning on our Lenten journey with Jesus as he starts the same journey. We pick up in Mark’s gospel where we left off last week, as Jesus is coming down the mountain from the Transfiguration, setting his sights on Jerusalem and the events of Holy Week. You would think after such an amazing, supernatural experience like the Transfiguration, Jesus would ease back into his ministry, take a little time to decompress after such an event.

But his disciples won’t let that happen. As soon as Jesus arrives at the foot of the mountain, he finds his disciples in an argument with the teachers of the law. It seems a man has brought his sick boy to the disciples to be healed, but despite all their efforts, they couldn’t do it. And what’s worse, rather than trying again, they get caught up in a fight with the teachers, who were probably ridiculing them for their failure. So here’s the scene Jesus sees when he arrives: the teachers, making fun of the disciples for not healing the boy; the disciples, trying to defend themselves because they didn’t heal the boy; and the boy, sitting there, still sick.

Let’s pause there for a moment to see if we can understand where Jesus is mentally at this point. The disciples have been with Jesus for a few years now, so they have heard his teaching and seen him in action. Just a few chapters before this in Mark, Jesus called the disciples to him and gave them the authority to drive out unclean spirits. In a sense, he empowered them to do what he had been doing. He’s told them over and over again about the importance of building a spiritual foundation in their lives through prayer in order to live out their faith. If anybody should understand clearly how to follow Jesus, it would be the disciples.

And yet, as he sets his path toward the cross, the first thing Jesus has to deal with is another failure of faith from his followers. So – as I read it – he loses his cool. “You faithless generation, how much longer must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you?” Or as it’s translated in The Message, “What a generation! No sense of God! How many times do I have to go over these things?” Jesus is verbally throwing his hands up. He’s frustrated. He’s exasperated. And he shows it. Is this our Savior? How do you respond to his behavior here?

I say, “Good!” It’s nice to know I’m not the only one. For me, this story is proof that Jesus had a bit of a temper and wasn’t above having his buttons pushed by the disciples. Does that make Jesus any less of a Savior in my eyes? No. But it does make him more human to me. For this brief moment, I see myself in him.

I believe there’s more to Jesus’ anger here. Yes, he’s angry at the disciples, but why? We get a hint of that at the end of the passage when the disciples pull Jesus aside and say, “Hey, boss, what happened back there? You drove out the demon. Why couldn’t we?” And Jesus says, “This kind can only come out through prayer,” with the implication being, of course, that the disciples forgot about the role of prayer in their ministry.

When she was little, our daughter Molly liked to go into my closet and put on one of my dress shirts, wrap a tie around her neck, slip her little feet into my dress shoes and then announce to us that she was going to give a sermon. Then she’d speak for about five seconds and say something more meaningful than I could in 15 minutes. “God loves you, Amen.” Now, was she prepared to deliver a full-blown homily on eschatology or the Messianic secret? Of course not. She was like a little boy with a plastic toolset trying to build a wooden deck. Neither of them could actually do what they were pretending to do. They were only play-acting.

As were the disciples. Sure, they knew the right words to say and the hand motions to make and when to close their eyes and scrunch up their brows during a healing. Anyone could do that. But in order for them to be effective, it took more than play-acting. They had to be connected to God, tapped into their power source, through a life of prayer. Jesus didn’t pray at the healing because he didn’t need to; his life was a prayer. And he upbraids the disciples because they knew this, they’d seen it and heard it over and over again, and yet they still thought they could get by without their faith. At the end of this passage, Jesus in effect says to them, “If you were doing what you’re supposed to be doing, this wouldn’t have happened.”

As we move into Lent, we’ve been told what we are to do. We’ve been told about the importance of prayer and self-examination and confession. We know the importance of being honest with ourselves and with God about the places in our lives where we need forgiveness, where we need to repent and change direction in our thoughts and actions. And, like the father in this story, we often live lives that are a mixed bag of faith, a combination of belief and unbelief. What can we do during Lent so that are lives testify more to belief in God than unbelief? How will we live in a way that sets us apart from those who don’t know Jesus? We are looking forward to the joy of Easter, and yet if we don’t do the work of Lent, what will it really mean? We want the miracle of the resurrected Christ to change our lives, to transform us, to make us new, but if we don’t use this Lenten time to recognize how much we need a Savior in our lives, we’re just play-acting.

I really hope that Jesus would never respond to us with the same frustration as he responds to the disciples in this passage. But we know better than that, don’t we? Because all too often we are like the disciples – beset by failure, too ready to engage in arguments, undisciplined in their prayer life, more eager to learn techniques and quick fixes than to take the time to walk closely with God. And all the while, there are sick people around us who need help.

I think Jesus was ultimately frustrated because he really thought he was getting through to these guys. After almost three years together, he hoped that they were finally ready to carry on this ministry after he was gone. And yet, even as he approaches the cross, his disciples still don’t get it. Do we? I don’t know. We’re trying, aren’t we? This faith stuff is hard. It takes time and effort. As do most things of value. Our time is short, you know. Easter is coming. Will we be ready? Or will we just play-act our way through Lent? “What a generation! No sense of God!” I believe, Lord. Help my unbelief.

Who IS Jesus, Really?

In college, when it came time to register for classes for the next semester, we students would huddle together with the class list in front of us and compare notes on the different professors. What did we know about Prof. Smith or Prof. Jones? Was he nice? Was she a tough grader? Did he diligently take attendance? Does she accept incomplete assignments? We talked extensively about each professor even though we had never actually met them or taken her class. At the core of all of our questions was this: Will I like him? Will she like me?

That’s a little like how we come to know Jesus, isn’t it? None of us have ever actually met the man face-to-face. All we have to go on is personal testimony and circumstantial evidence. And yet, our questions are similar to what we wanted to know about our professors: Is Jesus nice? Is he a tough grader? Does he diligently take attendance on Sunday morning? Does he accept incomplete assignments? And, deep down, we have the same core questions: Do I like him? Does he like me?

Those are hard questions to answer when the most recent first-person account we have is a few thousand years old. The question, “Who is Jesus, really?” is one I’ve been wrestling with ever since I was introduced to him. Actually, I wasn’t literally introduced to him, or else this question wouldn’t be nearly as hard to answer. Instead, I was introduced to him through the pages of scripture, through sermons from a pastor and through the experiences of other people. That’s a quite nebulous way to start a relationship.

The journalist in me has never been quite satisfied with my level of knowledge about Jesus, so for Lent this year we’re going to spend some time getting to know Jesus on a more personal level. We’ll do this in two different forums. In our Sunday School series at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday mornings in Chalice Hall, we’ll get to know Jesus through the “I AM” statements he makes about himself in the gospel of John. Jesus isn’t much of a self-promoter; in fact, in most instances he tells people NOT to publicize anything about him. So when he does talk about himself, it’s worth listening. Your ministers will take turns exploring with you the different ways Jesus identifies himself.

In the sermons, we’ll take a completely different angle on getting to know our Savior. In our efforts to build a relationship with Jesus or to introduce others to him, we tend to emphasize the less controversial parts of his personality. It’s a lot easier to get to know “Jesus, meek and mild” than “Jesus, mean and wild.” So we don’t often hear about the stories where Jesus appears irascible, off-putting or even – gasp! – like a jerk.

But in Lent, we will. We’ll look at those stories and see what we can learn about Jesus. We’ll hear his harsh words and read about his divisive actions. We’ll wrestle with the fact that our Savior wasn’t always a nice guy and how that could impact what we believe about him. We’ll spend six weeks getting to know him all over again.

My hope is that by the time we get to Easter, we’ll have a fuller understanding of Jesus’ time on earth. The disclaimer I offer is that we can never fully know him, more than we can ever fully know any human being. In the end, there will still be much we don’t know about Jesus. But hopefully we will have a more complete picture of who this man was back then and who he continues to be for us now. At the end of these six weeks, will we like him more or less? Who knows? To be honest, I’m not even sure what to expect. But I hope the conclusions I draw about him are similar to the ones drawn about the lion Aslan in C.S. Lewis’ “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”: “Safe? Of course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

This Week’s Sermon – Glimpses of God

SCRIPTURE – Mark 9:2-10 – After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.
Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.) Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what “rising from the dead” meant.

SERMON
Glimpses of God
Mark 9:2-10
Feb. 19, 2012

I was a very inquisitive young lad growing up. I had this thirst for knowledge which was so strong that it could be annoying. I remember one time when my mom, stepfather, and I were driving around Washington D.C., I peppered him with all kinds of questions about the monuments and presidents and American history. Finally, he turned around and shouted, “Do you do anything besides ask questions?” And I said, “What’s wrong with questions?” At which point he jumped from the moving car.

This natural curiosity is probably what led me into my first career of journalism. I had questions, I wanted answers, and I expected that every question had an answer. Journalism was fulfilling for me because I was getting paid to ask questions and to search until I find the answers. That’s about the time I started getting seriously involved in church, and a whole new realm of question-asking was opened up to me, especially when it came to the Bible. Here were all these wonderful stories and characters and teachings, and they were just waiting to be studied and analyzed and questioned. I assumed the answers to all my questions about faith were in there, just waiting to be discovered.

That’s one of the things I enjoy most about preaching. I love taking a biblical passage and diving into it, swimming around in the context and the metaphors and the author’s mindset. And most of the Bible lends itself to this kind of investigation, which is called exegesis. I love exegeting a passage and then sharing the results with you in the sermon. I enjoy exploring the background and the meaning of the original languages and seeing what emerges from that process. Sometimes I even feel like I understand it!

But then, there are other passages in the Bible that drive the journalist in me crazy, because there are no answers to be discovered, and trying to perform exegesis is like trying to dig a hole to China with a plastic spoon. These passages teach me that not every word in scripture exists to provide an answer. I once spend a year leading a Bible study on the book of Revelation, and nothing will cure you of your desire to understand the Bible faster than studying Revelation! Our motto in that group was, “Ultimately, we just don’t know.”

Today’s scripture is one of those perplexing passages. It is a story that is meant to be experienced, not picked apart. We are witnessing worship, and worship is simply a time to be still in the presence of God, not critique and analyze. But the journalist in me has trouble with that. I’m not good with scriptures that don’t provide answers. I want to pin this down and put it under a microscope, capture whatever truth is has for me, not let this moment pass before I extract something useful from it. What does it mean that Jesus was transfigured? What really happened up on that mountain?

In that respects, I’m a lot like Peter. Thank God for Peter! Peter gives me someone in the Bible to whom I can really relate, because Peter’s faith is almost as mercurial and as imperfect as mine. Peter must have been a journalist at some point in his life, because he also has a strong curiosity. Remember, he’s the one who ventured out of the boat and tried to walk on water to meet Jesus. On this mountain top, an extraordinary event was unfolding, and Peter, who was the vice president in charge of doing something, had to do something. Peter is never at a loss for words, and even when he is at a loss for words, that doesn’t stop him from saying something.

Upon seeing the transfiguration and the appearance of Elijah and Moses, a spectacular sight which would render most people speechless, Peter pipes up and says, “It is good for us to be here. So let’s capture the moment by building some dwellings so we can stay here a little while longer.” Although Peter’s words feel like an interruption to this holy moment, I can’t say that I blame him. After all, Jesus has been predicting his death, and this will end up being the last trip up the mountain before Jesus and the disciples start their descent to Jerusalem. The next mountain they will climb will be Golgotha, so Peter wants to make this moment last as long as possible.

James and John and Peter are about to get a glimpse of something extraordinary. They’re going to get a sneak peek at the end of the book, where Jesus will be revealed in all his glory. In the Celtic tradition, these moments are called the “thin places,” experiences in which the veil between heaven and earth is made see-through for just a moment. In the Hebrew Scriptures it’s called the Shekinah, the radiance of God shining through into this dark world. I think about my wedding day, the birth of my children, the day of my ordination, my grandfather’s funeral. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13 that in this life we see God as if we are seeing through a glass dimly. Thin places are moments when God takes out the Windex, and for just a fleeting moment we see the world as God created it to be. These are divine moments, they are moments that defy classification or description, and they are simply breath-taking. And we don’t want to let them go.

Based on that knowledge, I think Peter’s response is perfectly human in both its eagerness and in its bone-headedness. Peter sees Jesus, Moses, and Elijah before him and says, “Wow, this is great! I’ve got an idea. Let’s capture the moment.” There’s a scene in the sitcom “Modern Family” where the very type-A personality Claire is trying to get her whole family together for a picture. They’re all dressed in matching white shirts and Claire has organized the picture down to every lock of hair and hand placement. But as each picture is taken, inevitably somebody is blinking, or looking the wrong way, or putting up bunny ears over someone else. Finally, Claire gives up her efforts to control things, the family starts slinging mud on their white shirts, and they end up with a messy, funny, fully authentic family photo. Like Claire, Peter tries to control and organize this holy moment, but God’s voice doesn’t come out of the cloud and say, “You all go stand by that tree so I can take your picture.” The voice says, “Listen to him!” In other words, don’t worry so much about preserving the moment that you miss the moment.

We all do this, don’t we? Our technological age invites this kind of behavior. Leigh and I honeymooned in Florida, and one day we went to the Universal Studios theme park. They had this great new ride there based on the Terminator movies. We stood in line for about an hour, and while waiting, I decided I wanted to videotape the entire ride so that we would remember it. So when we got into place I started the video camera and filmed the entire thing. And now, when I watch that videotape, do you know what I remember? I remember videotaping the ride, but I don’t remember the ride itself.

Like Peter, I wonder if we don’t get so concerned about keeping the moment from passing that we pass the moment. The story of the Transfiguration is meant to be enjoyed, to be wondered about, to be relished with delight rather than picked apart and meticulously interpreted. That same goes for all the precious moments in our lives where God breaks into the mundane and gives us a glimpse of the holy. I wrote about one of those moments in my newsletter column this week, a hospital visit I had with an elderly lady. Where have you seen God in your own lives? What are some thin places you have experienced?

What I’m encouraging is something that I myself have difficulty with: the acceptance and appreciation of the mysteries of life. Christianity is a revealed religion. We learn by what is revealed to us, not by what we think up or discover on our own. That’s what the voice from the cloud tells us: “This is my son, whom I love. Listen to him!” There are times in life where it’s appropriate to ask questions, but then there are other times, transcendent moments that defy explanation, when what we need to do is to listen to what God is saying to us through this experience.

I’m not denouncing the asking of questions and the seeking of explanations, but sometimes the limits of our human intellect demand that we stop seeking answers and instead honor the sacredness of the moment before us, abide in the thin place, bask in the Shekinah. Every once in awhile we are blessed to experience a moment, whether joyous or tragic, that is so God-filled that all we can do is simply be there. And I bet there are more of them than we think, if we have the eyes to see them. Because once we’ve been up the mountain, once we’ve experienced this kind of moment, we won’t come down the same. We begin to see glimpses of God everywhere. They may not be much; they may feel fleeting.
But those holy moments in God’s presence are enough to carry us through the valleys we have yet to walk.

We’re about to walk through one of those valleys, a period of time called Lent, when we take a step back and examine our lives. In doing so, we are made aware once again of our utter humanness, our glaring brokenness, and our desperate need for a Savior. As we prepare to start Lent on this coming Wednesday, let us take this sacred moment that God has given us simply to be in God’s presence.

Here’s my hope for us: Don’t work so hard to preserve the moment that you miss the moment, whether it’s with God or your family or in the act of worship. I believe there are moments all around us where God is being revealed to us, through grandmothers and grandchildren, through sunsets and snowfalls, through songs and prayers and scripture, through the simple act of breaking bread and pouring the cup. Please don’t miss them. Lord, it is good for us to be here! Stop, listen, enjoy, and give thanks.

This Week’s Sermon – The Untouchables

SCRIPTURE – Mark 1:40-45 – A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.
Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

SERMON
The Untouchables
Mark 1:40-45
Feb. 12, 2012

Did you know that of the 678 verses in Mark, 198 of them are about miracles. Go ahead, count ‘em! I’ll wait. That’s about 30 percent of the whole book devoted to miracles. There are 18 different miracle stories in Mark’s 16 chapters, and 13 of those are healings. Obviously, Mark was fascinated with this aspect of Jesus’ ministry. Of all the things he could report, and we have to imagine there was an endless supply of stories about Jesus, Mark chose to focus on the miracle stories.

But why this one? Remember, Mark is by far the shortest gospel, so we have to pay attention to every word and story choice. If it’s in there, it must mean something. We know that Jesus did a lot of healing in his ministry. He raised people from the dead, restored sight to the blind, made the lame walk. In fact, just a few verses prior to our story, Mark writes, “That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. The whole town gathered at the door and Jesus healed many who had various diseases.” If that’s true, if Jesus is as busy as Mark says he is, why single out this story? Is there something special here we’re supposed to see?

One of my favorite movies of all time is “The Untouchables.” Much of it was filmed in Chicago, where I used to serve, and I can still remember the first time I was in Union Station and walked past the staircase where they filmed the famous baby-carriage -pushed-down-the-stairs scene. I had stepped onto holy ground! I was tempted to find a stroller and push it down the stairs to see if I could recapture the moment, but I couldn’t find any babies will to participate.

In case you aren’t familiar with the film, Kevin Costner plays Elliott Ness, who goes on a Prohibition-fueled crusade against the evil gangster Al Capone, played by Robert DeNiro. Because Ness was so successful at thwarting Capone’s mob business and avoided several assassination attempts, he and his gang were called “The Untouchables,” people who were larger than life, who seemed to be above the natural pecking order. The not only upheld the law, they were the law. You don’t mess with “The Untouchables.”

Jesus is the Elliott Ness of our story today, a one-man crusade against evil. In the span of the first 45 verses of Mark, Jesus calls his supporting cast of disciples to help him, rebukes a demon, heals Simon’s mother-in-law, cures a whole crowd, preaches in Galilee, and then cleanses our leper, managing to mix in some downtime for prayer. Those who saw Jesus in action must have thought he was larger than life, that he was above the natural pecking order they knew, that he was the law. You don’t mess with Jesus.

But there’s another untouchable in this story, and he in no way bears a resemblance to Jesus or Elliott Ness or any other hero. The unnamed leper is untouchable for a completely different reason. We don’t know if the disease he had was actually leprosy or some other skin ailment, but we do know his disease would have been visible to others: discolored patches on the skin, hair falling out, rashes and infected folds on the skin.

We also know how people with skin diseases were treated in those days. The law in the book of Leviticus spends two whole chapters, 116 verses, detailing how to deal with leper, including the intense and lengthy purification rituals that must be endured for a cured leper to be considered clean. While they were sick, lepers were the scourge of society. Because leprosy was highly contagious, some people threw rocks at lepers to keep them at a distance. The leper had to announce his approach with the cry of “Unclean, unclean!” so people would know he was coming. By doing this, the leper was warning people not to come in contact with him, to stay away. The best way to deal with a leper was to not have to deal with a leper. You don’t mess with the untouchables.

But notice in our passage, we don’t hear the leper’s cry. He ignores the laws he is commanded to obey, not keeping his distance, not announcing his approach. He simply strides right up to Jesus, falls to his knees, and says what he knows to be true. “If you choose…you can make me clean.”
So there we have it. A meeting of the untouchables. Clean and unclean. Holy and unholy. Sacred and profane. Divinity and humanity. How will Jesus respond to this intrusion, this seemingly hopeless case? Verse 41 is an interesting little word study. In the translation we read this morning, it says Jesus was “moved with pity” by this man. But other translations vary widely, because the Greek word used here could either mean pity or anger. Some translations try to capture both sentiments, like the one that said Jesus look upon the man with “warm indignation.” Sounds like a dessert, doesn’t it?

I understand his pity. But why would Jesus look upon this man with anger? Jesus had just gotten away from a crowd of people wanting healing, so maybe he was angry to be confronted with yet another case. Maybe Jesus was upset that the leper didn’t follow protocol when approaching him. Maybe he was mad because the leper was putting Jesus in harm’s way by potentially contaminating him. Or maybe Jesus was angry because this man represented society’s unwillingness to touch those who most needed help.

So he does something about it. Back then, if you touched a leper, you were considered as unclean as the leper was, and you were treated the same way. If you reached out to them, you became one of them. By touching this man, Jesus was in effect putting himself alongside the leper, taking on the same humiliation and limitations the law placed on the leper. Jesus was willing to risk his own health, his own status, even his own life, for this man. And what happens when the divine in Jesus touches the humanity in the leper? Healing happens.

And it’s not just a physical healing. The leper wanted more than a change in skin texture. He wanted to be made whole, to be restored in society, to be welcomed back into the world as a human being, not an untouchable. Even though he still must undergo the ritual purification, which Jesus instructs him to do, Christ has taken his brokenness, his physical and spiritual incompleteness, and made him whole.

Let me look around here. No, I don’t see any lepers with us this morning. No ulcerating skin, no nodules with foul discharges, some loss of hair, but I’ll write that off as natural. Physically, we all look to be leprosy-free. Of course looks can be deceiving. What looks on the outside like a disfigured, disgusting leper could really be a decent human being yearning for a chance to be whole. And what looks on the outside like a normal, healthy person could be someone suffering from emotional or spiritual leprosy. We all have those discolored patches, the ones that omit a foulness that seeps into and infects the rest of our lives. There’s something in our life that keeps us from being whole before God. There’s someplace where we are incomplete. Broken relationships, hasty judgments about people, addictions, infidelities, pride, hatred, racism – all these things make us unclean, and we all suffer. Part of being human is admitting that we are less than perfect and that we need healing.

And that’s what we have been offered. Through his death and resurrection, through the gift of bread and cup, through the gathering of this body, Christ has reached out his hand to us and offered a healing touch. When Christ’s divinity meets our humanity, healing begins again. Regardless of the afflictions and the seriousness of the symptoms, each week at the table we are told over and over again, “I choose. Be made clean!”

The irony here is that the leper is made clean by a touch, when such a thing is usually thought to spread uncleanliness. At the church I served in seminary, when the time came for communion, people didn’t pass bread trays. They passed the bread. The picked up the loaf, tore off a piece and handed the loaf to the next person. So the cold germs from the person in the first row were shared with everyone else in their section. I don’t think that’s what is meant by “spreading the gospel.”

Reaching out makes us vulnerable. It puts us at risk. Jesus could have walked right by this person, ignored this need, not put his own freedom at risk. The man simply could have stayed sick. You don’t mess with the untouchables. And yet when Jesus looks at him, he gets angry at what he sees. And he does something about it.

Are there still untouchables today? I asked that question to the folks at the Sermon Talkback and we made this list: people with AIDS, child molesters, the homeless, Muslims, people of different races, Hispanic immigrants, the mentally and physically disabled. Each of us has our own list of untouchables. Who is it for you? Jesus shows us that behind the labels and stereotypes and our own fears are real human beings who are yearning for a chance to be whole. And it’s our job to show them the healing touch of Christ.

But in order to bring healing, we have to get involved. We can’t just walk by and ignore the need while people go on being sick. If they are going to experience God’s healing love, it will come through us, the hands and feet of Jesus. We live out what we have received from Christ, the one who came to earth to dwell among us, who dared to touch us untouchables, bringing us hope and love and healing. Pastor Will Willimon says, “Jesus got what we got so that we may get what he has.” We’ve got it, thank you Jesus. But now what? Do we not risk getting our hands dirty and just walk on by? That’s safer, you know. Cleaner. More convenient. Or do we reach out our hand, touch the untouchable, dare to make a difference in the life of someone this world has discarded? We’ve got what Jesus has given us – love, forgiveness, compassion, the resources to help. So what are we going to do with it?

What Makes Us Unique?

A few weeks ago, we had our annual Ministry Council retreat. For those who don’t know, the Ministry Council is the group formerly known as the Cabinet. At this retreat, we help all the Team Chairs get to know each other, learn more about their responsibilities, learn about their budgets, and ask questions. It’s always a great time of fellowship and formation.

This year, as a way of breaking the ice, I asked each person present to answer two questions: (1) What is something about Crestwood that you think makes us unique? and (2) What is something we as a church can do better? As the group mulled over those questions, I gave them a caveat to the first one. They were NOT allowed to say, “We are so friendly!” Realize that EVERY church in America thinks it’s friendly. When asked what they like about their church, you never hear anyone say, “Oh, I love how rude and crass we are. No one is welcome at our church!” So right away, I took that answer off the table (although a few non-conformers still said it). So, what did our group of leaders come up with? Here’s a list:

• People at Crestwood genuinely care for one another (awfully close to “we’re friendly” but I allowed it)
• We allow women to serve in leadership roles (several respondents mentioned this)
• We accept a variety of backgrounds and opinions
• There’s a strong focus on families
• We have an outstanding staff
• The members are diverse in their beliefs
• In spite of the diversity mentioned above, there is still a healthy respect for each other
• We are very active in local outreach opportunities
• There’s a great energy within the congregation
• We have a wonderful facility that we share with the community
• When one person came, the nursery was the biggest draw for her because of her young children
• We have an active Disciples Women’s Ministry
• Our Children, Worship and Wonder program is a blessing
• We have a large amount of programs and ministries that vary in diversity
• We have strong ties to our community, especially through our Mission Center
• We have strong relationships with Lexington Theological Seminary and Transylvania
• Crestwood has a number of retired ministers who are welcomed and who contribute

I really appreciated all of these wonderful responses. I think people captured the spirit of Crestwood in these answers. How about you? What would you say makes us unique?
So what about the second question? What did people say Crestwood could do better? Ah, you’ll have to wait for next week for that one. What do YOU think they said?