Ben's Sermon from last Sunday

Sermon preached on Sunday, October 13, 2007

Some of you might have heard the rumours around town. Some of the students at the Episcopal Chaplaincy have seen me. Once a week, my Catholic friend who teaches theology and I go to the gym and lift weights for Jesus.

So even the Chaplain has fallen prey to the obsession with the body beautiful. If my friend and I try to explain in theological terms what our trips to the gym are all about, we say we’re making a sacrifice – a sacrifice of time and effort, not to mention money, to stay fitter and healthier. Sacrifice is about giving something up, so as to attain a higher reward. Sacrifice means giving up time, making extra effort, giving money. So at the gym I am making a sacrifice. No pain, no gain, right?

Who says that no-one makes any sacrifices these days? And I don’t just mean those brave souls sacrificing their lives as soldiers or fire-fighters. Going to the gym is one type of sacrifice that most of you probably do. In fact, we make great displays of this particular sacrifice. Hemenway Gym has large windows looking out, I guess so the people on the treadmills or exercise bikes have something to look at – but also so as to show off their hard work to those outside the glass. This is a public display of the sacrifices we make of our time, our effort, and our money, for the benefit of the body.

But if we are willing to do this for the sake of our physical health, why are we so reluctant to make sacrifices for our spiritual health? “No pain, no gain,” is just as good a slogan for our spiritual life, surely? We have to give things up, to make sacrifices, for the benefit of our spirit.

True, our spiritual health is not so easy to display. Most Episcopalians could think of nothing worse than saying our prayers in front of a big window overlooking Harvard Yard! But in today’s readings we heard that our spirits are just as important as our bodies.

In today’s gospel, Jesus tells the leper who’s come to thank him for healing this horrible skin disease, “your faith has made you well.” Faith – in other words, the life of the spirit, his life with God – has made him well. Think about it. Most of us, when we are sick, just want our bodies to get better and don’t give a second thought about how miserable our spirits are. Most of us, when we go to the gym, don’t give a second thought about our spirits – even though often our spirits are often raised by doing it. But this leper’s spiritual wellbeing was just as important to Jesus as his physical health. When people are sick we say that their spirits are low for a reason, because our bodies and spirits are so interconnected. Think how debilitating leprosy must be to your spirit. So when the leper returns to say thank you – when he shows Jesus gratitude for what he’s been given – then Jesus knows that his spirit has been restored just as much as his body.

Ten lepers were healed by Jesus, of course, but only one of them realized what this gift really meant. Only one of the lepers realized that he had been given new life, new spiritual as well as physical life. “Jesus, Master,” all ten of the lepers cry, “have mercy on us.” And Jesus does have mercy: he sends them off to see a priest, and they are healed of their leprosy in a way they could never have dreamed possible. Jesus gives them a gift, the gift of physical health, but he also offers them the gift of spiritual health. How many of us forget that we’ve received not just gifts of health and of intellect, but also spiritual gifts? How quickly nine of the lepers forget the gift they’re given; and how many of us do likewise?

Our example here is the leper who came and gave thanks to Jesus – a Samaritan leper, an outcast two times over, by virtue of being a leper among an outcast people. Of the ten who were healed, you might have thought he was the one who’d give thanks the least to a Jewish rabbi like Jesus. This leper gave twice, in fact: once by giving money to the priest, according to the law of Moses, and once by giving thanks to Jesus. The double outcast gives a gift two times over. The Samaritan leper realizes not just that his physical condition has been healed, but that he has received new life in Jesus, the life of the spirit, the life of faith. He embodies what St Paul tells us in his second letter to Timothy: “If we have died with [Christ]” – died to the old life of sin, and put on the gift of new life – then “we shall also live with him.”

God’s overflowing generosity created us, and even more generously redeemed us through Jesus his Son, and that generosity is what gives us our purpose… Our purpose is to act like gifts, to be gifts to one another. Our purpose, like the Samaritan leper, is to realize that life is God’s gift of live, and of new life in Jesus, and to live like it. I often say to people, “I am God’s gift to the world!” They don’t seem to understand that I am speaking a vital theological truth. The fact is each one of us is God’s gift to the world, God’s gift to one another. So let’s live like we’re God’s gift to the world and say thank you.

There are practical ways in which we can live as a gift, can live as a big thank you to God. The Israelite slave girl in our Old Testament lesson gave us an example. This girl makes a very small appearance in three short verses of Scripture (2 Kgs 5:2-4). She is a captive in the house of the commander of the Syrian army, Naaman, a seemingly insignificant person in the service of a “mighty warrior.” She is not in a position where you’d have thought she’d live life as a gift, and yet she gives the gift of good news to Naaman’s wife. Because this girl knows there is a “prophet who is in Samaria,” Naaman ends up going to the prophet and being cured of his leprosy. One small word from one small person, small in the grand scheme of things, can end up having massive results. Living life as a gift can bring healing to others. So, for you or me, saying an encouraging word to someone who is feeling low, or visiting who’s lonely or sick, can be the opportunity for God to work. The Israelite girl shows us that there are plenty of ways to give to others from what little we have and to be giving abundantly.

We make sacrifices for our bodies, which help us live active lives. But how much more could we make sacrifices for our spirit, and truly fulfil our purpose as gifts of God? No pain, no gain, right?