The Tenth Leper

The first thing the nine lepers did when they realized their good fortune was to go see a good intellectual property lawyer. They had a story to tell, and they intended to make the most of it. The lawyer quickly lined them up with good management at a talent agency, who booked them on the morning news shows, and started shopping their story around with potential publishers, being careful, of course, to protect the rights to the movie version, should things progress that far. The story of nine lepers miraculously healed by a controversial preacher had a lot of appeal in those days. You could sell a lot of books with such a story. But a book was only the beginning of the spin you could get with these guys. In time there might even be action figures.

Their agent had individual contracts with each of the nine, but was careful to keep them together as a group, which added to their appeal. And this proved to be a wildly successful strategy. They were kind of like a boy band of their era, and they had a dramatized (and greatly ornamented) version of the story of their healing that they took on the road, that included terrific lighting effects, and music by a first-rate band. Ticket sales were strong.

In this dramatized version of their story, the detail of a tenth leper had been eliminated, since it only complicated the telling, and since, as their lawyer had repeatedly confirmed, the tenth leper never obtained either counsel or representation for himself, and had done absolutely nothing to protect his rights. For all intents and purposes, it was as if the story of being healed of leprosy was not his to share, and as far as the public knew there was no tenth leper at all. When the dramatized production of the story ended its long run on the road, the nine lepers developed a reputation as motivational speakers – still traveling mostly as a group, and publishing new books, like “Life after Leprosy,” and “The Miracle-Driven Life.”

In all this, Jesus was hardly mentioned, and almost never by name. He had no representation either, and as we all know, it would take an astonishingly long time for any books about him to get published. He was highly ineffective at monetizing what was, actually, considerable notoriety at the time. And you’d be surprised at how easy it was to tell the story of nine changed lives without emphasizing the one who did the changing. In the telling of the nine lepers, Jesus was referred to only as a nameless, mysterious robed figure upon whom the lepers happened to stumble in their quest for wholeness, the gaze of whose eyes, and the slight lifting of whose hand provided the trigger for a transformation that the nine lepers routinely described as coming from within themselves.

Eventually all nine of them would retire to the Mediterranean coast as wealthy men. And it was a surprise, at that late stage of their lives, to open the paper one morning and find a long, somewhat rambling, op-ed piece by their old acquaintance, the tenth leper, whose existence they had actually begun to forget about, so compelling had they found their own re-telling of the story over all these years. But whose re-appearance late in life posed no threat, their lawyer assured them, since he was still without counsel or representation. It seemed that he simply wanted to make sure that his version of the story was preserved for posterity.

This is what his op-ed piece said:

"Years ago, I have forgotten how many now, I suffered horribly with leprosy, and had been confined, as lepers still so often are today, to a camp on the outskirts of town where I lived with my fellow lepers as an outcast, with no hope for the future. But one day my life changed when, in the company of the nine other lepers whose story you have very likely read about or heard, I came across a man who healed us all, and made us whole. That man had a name, and his name was Jesus of Nazareth.

"Living, as we do, in an age when religion is important, and the lives of all men are governed by the edicts of religion one way or another, I experienced my transformation from sickness and despair to wholeness and health in religious terms, especially since, at the time, Jesus instructed all ten of us to go and show ourselves to the priests. Clearly what had happened to me had come from God. And soon I would discover that the Man who made it happen was, indeed, the Son of God. On the day of my healing I raised my voice to the praises of God, and I have not stopped singing those praises since then. I fell at the feet of Jesus that day in gratitude and awe, and my life has been lived at his feet, so to speak, every day since then.

"My companions that day have become rich and famous, and I do not begrudge them their wealth or their fame. I neither need nor want a share of what they have gained by telling a version of the story of our healing that leaves unidentified the most important person in the story: the person who did the healing, the living Son of God, the Lord of Life and the Savior of the world, the Messiah, the Christ. But that person has a Name that is above every other Name, and that needs to be spoken, needs to be heard, needs to be praised to the heavens. His Name is Jesus!

"I have had many years to reflect upon the impact of Jesus in my life, and on the effects of his healing in my life. And because my companions’ story has been so publicly told, I have had the opportunity to reflect on the differences between their response to their healing and mine, and to wonder if these differences matter. 

"Jesus was not the first person we had called upon for healing. Other itinerant preachers had passed through town. As lepers, we were accustomed to keeping our distance, and we knew how the game was played. We knew how to get close enough to cry out, but not so close that we’d cause trouble or anxiety. We had cried out to supposed wonder-workers before, but to no avail. And we had no reason, especially, to expect that this one was different. But when you are a leper you are desperate, and you will try anything.

"As it happened we almost did not realize it. We turned away from him, having received his blessing, and as we went, we found ourselves restored to health. And in those moments, as Jesus was telling us to go and show ourselves to the priests, I felt an unmistakable call, an urge to turn and run to him, a need to go to him that was born of gratitude that seemed to be welling up from a deep spring somewhere within me, as though the healing had also unlocked the depth of this spring. I did not perceive what I did that day as a choice, but I see now that it was, since I was the only one of the ten of us who chose that path. And it is a choice for which I will be forever grateful. And it is a choice that you may face too, in a way, even though you do not see it that way yet.

"So often we approach religion as consumers, which is to say that we approach religion or a religious leader wondering only what we will get and how much it will cost us. That is certainly the way I approached Jesus on the road at the outskirts of town all those years ago; just as my fellow lepers and I had approached others before him. We cried out for mercy, and if we had any hope at all, I suppose that we expected that if mercy was to be given, then it would come with a price that we would have to pay. We had no idea how we might have paid that price, but, as I say, we were desperate men, looking for anyone who could help us.

"As it happened we got the best deal imaginable. Jesus healed us. And the healing, and the new life that came with it, came without charge or expectation on Jesus’ part. We were free to go our way without so much as a thank you, which is precisely what my nine friends of old did. They got what they wanted from Jesus for a bargain and they moved on with their lives without him. I have come to see how their response to the Lord was shaped by the attitude of consumerism, as so much of our lives is. And they went on to turn their story into a consumer product as well, which has made them rich.

"I can’t explain why I turned around that day to return to Jesus and give him my praise and to give him my life, as it would turn out. I don’t know why I didn’t continue on with the others, and remain a part of their story, become a part of their fame, and share a part in their wealth. I only know that choosing to turn around and go to Jesus was the best thing I ever did in my life. I did not perceive that day that I had a choice to be, on the one hand a consumer of his grace, of his love, of his religion; or on the other hand to become a disciple of his. I only know where my footsteps led me.

"I cannot speak for the others, for whom it has been otherwise, but the story of my healing cannot be told without naming Jesus and proclaiming who he is. For my healing did not come from within myself; it did not stem from some unknown source inside my body, or even in my soul. My healing came from one place, from one Man: my healing came from Jesus. It was the work of his mercy in my life, and it has brought with it into my life the means of grace and the hope of glory (to coin a phrase). Ever since that marvelous day I have been keenly aware in my life of the transforming love of God, who does not desert the hopeless and the sick, the lost and the powerless, but gives us victory over the things that steal our hope, make us sick, cause us to lose our way, and rob us of our power.

"How do you respond to such love? If you are consumer, living in a consumer culture, one way to respond is to take what you can at the lowest price possible, and then to move on to the next thing, once you have gotten what you were looking for. But another way to respond to the transforming love of God is to fall at his feet and worship him. And then to follow those feet wherever they lead you. In my life as a follower of Jesus, those feet have led me to bedsides of many other lepers, and to the homes and the villages of the poor, and to congregations of outcasts on the edges of towns everywhere. And when I meet with these people, I tell them my story. But the most important part of my story is not, in fact, the part where I am made clean and whole. The most important part is when I run to Jesus, his praises on my lips, and fall at his feet. For it was in the running to him that my life was saved, not in the healing of my leprosy, strange though that may seem to hear.

"And what I know from a lifetime of service as a disciple of Jesus, is that not every leper will be healed. All your problems do not vanish. Riches are not showered automatically upon the faithful. But new life is always found when you run to Jesus to worship him. It’s in the running to him that our lives are saved as we become true followers of his, and not merely consumers of his grace. And my prayer for all humanity is that everyone may find the power of God’s mercy – not as a consumer of it, but as a disciple of Jesus Christ. Because I have heard my nine companions for my entire life telling the story of how their miraculous healing (from within) brought them fame and riches, but I have no idea if they even realize that they have been saved by Jesus’ love.

"I am nothing but a disciple of Jesus, and that is all I ever need to be in order to inherit the whole earth, as he has taught me. All those years ago, when I first fell down at Jesus’ feet, he took me by the hand, and told me to get up and go on my way, for, he said, my faith had made me well. What I discovered was that my faith, like everything else, was a gift of God, that came not from within, but from the hand of the loving God who made the heavens and the earth, and who made me and you, too.

"God wants you to be well. God sent his Son into the world to save all people by the power of his love. God gave me the gift of faith and saved me by the power of his Son. Run to him, as I have every day of my life since that first day I met him, and be a follower of his, and rejoice!"

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

9 October 2016

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

Saint Christopher in Spain

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5)

A dilemma gripped me as I prepared to walk from Sevilla to Santiago de Compostela this summer along the Via de la Plata – the ancient route that Romans, Moors, Spaniards, and pilgrims have traveled for centuries. I estimated that it would take me about forty days of walking to cover the distance of just over a thousand kilometers (or 621 miles). I had carefully worked out (I thought) how much I needed to carry in my pack: just a little more than two changes of clothes (one for walking, and one to change into while the others were washed in the sink and dried in the sun); a pair of Tevas to wear when the hiking shoes came off; rain gear just in case; a corkscrew without question: a Kindle loaded with books to read during the down time. But the dilemma was posed by my walking partner, a priest from London, who assured me by email that he’d be bringing a Bible and a Prayer Book in order to pray the Daily Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer each day. Ugh!

I did not want to carry these books with me. I pray these Offices all the time here at home, aided greatly by the custom we have at Saint Mark’s of saying the Offices daily in church, but when I travel, my commitment to this discipline is not so good, especially if it involves carrying two books, that even in their lightweight version (both books bound together, printed on light, onionskin-like paper) weighs one pound, twelve ounces. Plus, I already had both books loaded onto my Kindle. But I knew that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to do the kind of flipping around, back and forth that is required in both books when you use these forms of prayer. The Kindle would be impractical. So, would I bring this brick of a book and carry it with me?

As I prepared to leave for Spain, this question nagged at me, as I tried to trim more weight from my backpack, to make the walking easier over such a long distance. Out of a sense of duty, and in order to avoid shame I decided to bring the book.

Once I began to walk, I regretted the decision almost immediately. My walking partner was much more committed to the practice of the Daily Office while traveling than I was. Oh, I began and ended my days with prayer. I spent hours of walking, dedicating my footsteps to people, worries, issues I wanted to pray about. I made it my habit to say the Angelus as each day’s walking began, and to punctuate each day with those prayers as the hours went on. With wide open space in front of me, and no one around to hear, I’d sing the Magnificat to the settings of various composers, bouncing back and forth from the treble and tenor lines, filling in the other parts in my head.

But the heat of southern Spain, and the weariness on arrival at the end of each day’s walking, and the preoccupation of washing my clothes, and planning the next day’s walk, and tending to meals, more often than not distracted me from praying the Daily Office. My prayer was internal and impromptu, and in no way stunted by my failure of discipline. I was praying more than usual, not less. And more freely, too, covering more ground, being (I hoped) more attentive to the Spirit, listening more than I was accustomed to. And going to Mass whenever I could.

My walking partner was much more regular in his practice of the Daily Office than I was, and quickly abandoned hope of saying the prayers together with me each day. He could often be found, book in hand, faithfully and silently reciting his psalms, when I was off procuring wine and cheese and chorizo for the evening meal.

But still the book was in my pack. And for a while I kept it up on the top, in the somewhat careful order I had of packing everything. The Bible-Prayer Book combo was one of the last things to go into the pack, making it about as accessible as my sunscreen. But eventually practicality won out over good intentions, and the red brick of a book migrated to the bottom of the rucksack, where on some days it wasn’t removed at all.

About two weeks into the walk, I decided that my packing had not been as strategically planned as I thought it had been, and I actually had some extra clothes – things intended for colder weather that I was clearly not going to need under the heat of the Spanish sun. I put together a little bundle of things and prepared to send them back to my hosts in Madrid, where I could pick them up at the end of my walk.

And as I was about to leave for the post office, I looked at the red brick of a book - the Word of God, and the prayers of the church, with its little ribbons hanging out. And oh, how I wanted to be rid of it! This was my chance to lighten my load. Books are heavy, and this one in particular. And it’s not like I was using it. And I had the Kindle if I really needed anything. But somehow, I could not bring myself to remove the book from my backpack and get rid of it. I knew that a significant part of me did not want to carry this thing with me, but some other insistent part of me couldn’t help but see the book as a symbol, the carrying of which was more important than its use.

I began to think of the weight of this book in my pack as something I needed to carry, and wanted to carry. I had noticed that in Spanish cathedrals you often find, on one of the transept walls, near the doors that are used for daily entry, an extremely large mural of Saint Christopher carrying the Christ-child across the river. 

Remember the legend that St. Christopher, on converting to Christian faith, sought to serve Christ, and was instructed by a hermit to assist people in the crossing of a dangerous river. One day, a little child came to the riverside in need of Christopher’s help. “Christopher lifted the child in his great arms, placed him on his shoulder, and started across, staff in hand. At every step the load grew more burdensome, and Christopher came near losing his balance in the rushing water. On reaching the other bank, he put the boy down, saying, ‘Child, thou hast put me in dire peril, and hast weighed so heavily on me that if I had borne the whole weight of the world upon my shoulders it could not have burdened me more heavily.’ The boy answered, ‘Wonder not, Christopher, for not only hast thou borne the whole world on thy shoulders, but Him who created the world.’”“[i]

And so, I began to identify with St. Christopher just a little bit, and to think of my book as a holy passenger that I could not forsake, and to see it as a matter, not only of honor, but of faith, to carry this little red book, weighing one pound twelve ounces, with me among the other things that were part of my load. Which at last brings me to the Gospel reading today, in which we hear the apostles beg of Jesus, “O Lord, increase our faith!” This is a sentiment, a request, a prayer, a desire, that it is difficult for us to adopt as our own, I suspect, for in our lives we wish for the increase of many things:

O Lord, increase my salary!

Increase my investment returns.

Increase the interest on my savings account. While you are at it, increase the savings therein!

Increase the value of my real estate.

Increase the time I get to spend with my children.

Increase the number of my vacation days.

Increase the number of my days on this earth, or the number of days I will have with the ones I love.

O Lord, increase my health, or my happiness, or Lord, at least increase my hair!

O Lord, increase the peace in this mad and warring world!

O Lord, increase the number of voters who agree with me!

Increase the people who come to church.

Increase the chances that the orchestra will be back on stage again soon!

Increase the education of our children, and the welfare of our nation.

Increase our security and our safety.

Increase the rain, O Lord, except when it rains too much, then increase the sunshine.

Increase the life of my cell phone battery, and the strength of my cellular signal.

O Lord, increase my memory as it starts to fail, and my strength, and my balance, and my independence as I grow older.

Increase the civility of public discourse, and the justice we seek in this land.

Increase equality between men and women, and among people of all colors and creeds

Increase the bees, who are struggling so.

Increase the flowers. O Lord, and the rainbows, and the days I get to spend at the beach.

Increase, O Lord, increase!

We have so much that we can easily ask God to increase. But to increase our faith? This is a difficult prayer. What would it mean to increase our faith?

I suspect that many of us imagine that if our faith was increased we’d be better at doing things like praying the Daily Office with great devotion, discipline, and regularity; marking our days with the prayers of the church, and coloring our lives with a piety that we imagine others, holier than we are, are possessed of.

But I wonder if perhaps, there is an answer to that hope (O Lord, increase our faith!) that is actually much simpler. Maybe it’s a question of finding the one thing we need to carry, amid all the other things we’d do better off to let go of, leave behind, and give up.

If life is a pilgrimage – a journey with God, to God – then you want to be careful about how you pack your rucksack, because the things you carry matter. And amid all the other things we want to carry, it is so easy to leave Jesus behind, on the far shore, considering that he is just too heavy and inconvenient to bring with us, and after all, what difference does he make?

I cannot say for sure, what difference it made to carry that little red book with me from the south of Spain all the way to the north for a span of forty-two days. But I can say without a doubt that I am glad I carried it, because it seems to have been a way that God increased my faith – helping me to find not only the strength, but the will, and the desire to carry something, that I had first thought I’d rather not have with me at all.

I have reflected for a while with a photo of one of those very large murals of St. Christopher – the one in Zamora Cathedral. And I notice that he has big calves, just like I do. And it’s hard to tell, but I think he has athletic tape around one of his toes, as I often did when walking in Spain. And he is carrying a wooden staff that he has just picked up in the woods somewhere, as I did. But he has no backpack strapped to his shoulders and his waist. He has only the Lord Jesus, resting on his shoulder, demanding his attention, and giving him (and the whole world around them) his blessing. 

And I think how glad I am that I carried that red book with me. And it makes me want to pray, O Lord, increase my faith!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

2 October 2016

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

[i] fr. Lives of the Saints, John J. Crawley & Co.

Don't Go to Hell

Here is the bad news from this morning’s Gospel: resurrection doesn’t fix everything, at least not the way it appears to on Easter cards or in movies about the life of Jesus. You know the image: a blinding light, maybe with the form of a blonde, blue-eyed man seeming to emerge from its center, hands outstretched. There may be a cave, angels, clouds from behind which the sun begins to break through. It looks really good. It looks like once that happens everything is taken care of. It looks like it answers every argument and opens every heart. The image may be a little short on detail but it really packs a wallop.

And yet here we are two thousand years later and we know that not every heart is open. And we know that not every argument has been won. And we mostly feel sure that we can’t make an entrance like that blonde Jesus does, with sunlight flashing from behind us and angels standing witness. That’s too bad, isn’t it? Oh for that power. Oh to be so decisive and cataclysmic and gleaming. It just feels like that’s what resurrection is supposed to mean, and I think many of us carry around a secret sense of disappointment when that doesn’t work for us.

While we are on the subject of disappointment: this morning’s Gospel from Luke contains what may be the only joke about the resurrection in all of scripture. It’s quite disturbing. At the end of the parable, when the rich man asks that Lazarus be sent from the dead to warn his rich brothers that they ought to change their ways, Father Abraham refuses. No, he says, even if someone were sent from beyond the grave to warn that basket of deplorables, they would refuse to believe. Their hearts aren’t going to open.

The joke, if we can call it that, is that Luke’s readers know that Jesus has come from beyond the grave, and that that fact has made all the difference in the world to them. If they are paying attention, though, they will be struggling with the fact that Jesus has not made a big difference to many of their friends and neighbors. They must hear this remark from Father Abraham as a nod to their own reality. Maybe they hear it as an ironic way of lessening the immense psychic strangeness of the post-resurrection world. How mysterious it must be to them to know that Jesus is with them in great power and glory, but that the kingdom hasn’t come in any straightforward way that solves all their problems.

Luke’s first readers must have known as we do that even in the world for which Jesus has died and in which he has been reborn, there are still vast chasms that separate us from one another. Let me put it more strongly: in this world that God so loved that he gave his only son, this world for whom Jesus lived and died and rose again, this world that God can’t resist—in this world, the vast chasms that separate us from one another are the absolute hallmark of our separation from God. And Luke’s parable is written with a kind of brutal realism that makes us feel the results of that separation.

Let’s be clear: the rich man in this parable wasn’t just rich. He wasn’t a person who tried to follow his conscience but got cold feet at the prospect of giving everything to the poor. He wasn’t a person who tried, even tried ineffectually, to do something positive in the world. He wasn’t much concerned about the notion of “giving back” in thanksgiving for his blessings. This was a man who dressed to the nines and feasted richly every day with no thought at all for the poor man at his gate. The gate is an eloquent expression of his rigid focus on wealth. “Keep the poor away from me,” he seems to be saying, “because my life has nothing to do with theirs. My wellbeing is not only not dependent upon the wellbeing of others, it is directly opposed to the wellbeing of others. The only answer is to lock the gate.” We know him for his clothes, his food, and his desire to lock out the poor. Nothing else. Build a wall, he seems to want to suggest, and make Lazarus pay for it.

And when he dies, the vision of the afterlife we’re given for him is nothing but a grimmer image of his earthly existence. That same sense of separation and limitation become overpowering. That same sense that life is limited to material pleasure and fear of material suffering is still with him. There he is, face to face with ultimate reality, and he has learned nothing. We don’t hear anything about his personal regrets, just that he is now in physical agony. His desire is not to know God or repent of his sins, but to have some cool water, and of course he wants Lazarus to deliver it. He seems to think that the isolation could be bearable if only it were just a little more comfortable. If only there were servants and power. That worked for him on earth, so why not try it in the afterlife?

And that gate he used to keep out anyone who challenged his self-indulgent worldview has now become some kind of great, existential gap. It doesn’t open and close anymore. Its hinges are rusted shut. It stretches before him for eternity, and it seems to stretch back behind him, to his life on earth, with that same sense of eternal inevitability. No, there is absolutely no hope for this rich man or for his family or for his cronies. Suddenly it’s not just that he won’t change, it’s that he can’t change, and nobody like him can change, and there is nothing at all that can be done except to suffer in this world of his own making, a suffocating, hot, claustrophobic world in which all the doors are closed. Suddenly he is in a world in which even the resurrection is just a joke, even to Father Abraham.

Is this what the afterlife looks like? No. That’s not really what this story is trying to map out for us. Is the resurrection a joke? No, never, not in any way. This story is written by someone who is shot through with resurrection hope, for people who are shot through with resurrection hope, and it records in some way the truth of Jesus’s earthly ministry, which was founded on and steeped in and ultimately the cause of profound, glorious, resurrection hope.

And here’s what it does for us: it teaches us how to know heaven on earth by knowing what the road to hell looks like. It teaches us the power of the smallest act of charity, by showing us what a life without charity looks like. It teaches us what openness and humility can do, by showing us how arrogance and self-will can spiral out of control. This story, for all its grim inevitability, is a lesson in how to change. And how to change is pretty simple. Can’t commit right now to a life of evangelical poverty? Try giving something small away. Can’t love your neighbor? Try not ignoring your neighbor. Try admitting that your neighbor exists. Don’t shoot your neighbor or put your neighbor in jail on some slim pretext. Can’t drum up an abundant feeling of hope and charity? Try not embracing cynicism with your whole heart and soul, just for a few minutes.

It’s really simple. Just don’t go to hell. I mean it. What we do here on earth creates a reality for us. What we practice here on earth starts to shape the world that we live in for ourselves and for others. Our daily defensiveness and rigidity really are the building blocks of a vast chasm that separates us from all that is holy and all that is true. So don’t go to hell, just for today. Don’t give up on the world. Don’t turn your back on this aching, hungry, world.

Can’t make an entrance like that Easter Card Resurrection Jesus, with the light shining and the arms outstretched and the clouds parting? Don’t worry about it. Just come back a little from the ways you used to be dead. Look up from your anxiety about where we are headed and focus on where we are right now, where love and kindness are abundantly possible, and you are here because you want to hope, and you are surrounded by people who have all returned from graves of one kind or another. This is real. This is the kingdom of God in action. Whatever resurrection really looks like, it has your face and your energy level and your limitations, just for today, while you take small steps away from the grave, to open the gate that keeps you locked up in fear and arrogance. Resurrection looks like this community, this church full of open hearts and open hands and open faces. This moment.

Don’t go to hell. Don’t go to hell today. By the grace of God, stay here with us. Just nudge that gate open and stay with us. Don’t go to hell.

Preached by Mother Nora Johnson

25 September 2016

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia