Sermon - Luke 18 - Wrong side of the Tracks

The Wrong Side of the Tracks

            Shortly after college, I taught middle school for a few years down in Fl.  My school was on the other side of the tracks, it was on the wrong side of the tracks.  It really shocked me, that indeed, just crossing railroad tracks can take you into a whole different world.  These tracks happen to be for the Tropicana Orange Juice Company.  The town was pretty much divided into two, the middle class families and retirees that could afford to live near the beach and those that were laborers, factory workers, perhaps the housekeepers for the numerous beach resorts, or the landscapers for the fancy beach homes.  But the type of homes drastically changed as you crossed over the tracks. 

            The school where I taught had a full time police officer trained in gang intervention, there was a heavy gang presence, and incredible diversity.  I was actually pretty impressed how my students seem to get together no matter what color of their skin.  But, there was still one insult, if you really wanted to hit below the belt, you would call someone a Haitian.  Even on the wrong side of the tracks, there was a wrong side of the tracks. 

            I attended a church on the right side of the tracks, with families that sought to nurture and encourage their children to grow into strong and healthy adults.  These were two different worlds.  As I walked back and forth between these two worlds, I knew I had a lot to be thankful for.  But then, I hear this passage today, and I wonder if my thankfulness is appropriate.   My thankfulness was based on my good fortune against someone else’s bad fortune. 

            There was a Pharisee and a Tax Collector, both go to the temple to pray.  The Pharisee begins by giving thanks to God that he is not like other people.  That he is not like: thieves, rogues, so far that sounds like something I can identify with.  I thank you God that I am not involved in some sort of embezzlement, or white collar crime.  But then he compares himself to another person present at the temple also in prayer.  Yes, being a tax collector was not a good occupation,  Being a tax collector was to be in relationship with Rome, often taking a little bit of extra money from the people for themselves.  They were not well liked.  For the Pharisee, the tax collector was on the wrong side of the tracks, a different world than himself, and he was thankful that he was not like him. 

            Last week, we had a story of Jesus healing 10 lepers and one out of the 10 comes back to say Thank You.  The story focused on thankfulness.  Today’s parable also involves giving God thanksgiving, but this type of thankfulness seems to be rejected by Jesus.  How is it that we can say thank you to God?  The leper was thankful that he was healed, that God had heard his cry for mercy and had responded.  The tax collector is thankful because of his good standing in life.  He is thankful because of who he is, in comparison to who others are.  His sense of security in God’s presence is about his lifestyle, his religious choices, his actions, while the tax collector stands and asks for mercy. 

            What is it that really separates the Pharisee from the tax collector?  They both gather in the same place to offer prayer to the same God?  And yet, they are separated, they are a world apart.  The Pharisee does not want to engage the tax collector, his only acknowledgement of his existence is that he is glad he is not like him.  Behind his words, is there something deeper?  Is there fear of the other?  Is there a lack of understanding that God could also love the tax collector? 

            We often separate ourselves from the other out of fear.  And sometimes that fear is well warranted.  Sometimes being on the wrong side of the tracks can be life threatening.  The way we separate people can be based on economics, skin color, language, cultural practices, and behavior.  What if, instead of separating ourselves from the other we begin to find ways to begin to build relationships?  What if we take intentional steps to safely cross to the imaginary other side of the tracks and instead of comparing ourselves from another as different, we see both selves as children of God?  What if we ask God to give us the courage to build bridges of understanding instead of just being thankful we are not like the other. 

            We are in the season of Thanksgiving, we come to God and we are thankful.  I asked earlier, is there a right and a wrong way to be thankful?  And I guess, it all depends on how we frame our thankfulness.  As a person of faith, we give thanks to God for everything, for the blessings that we have received, but we also are called into discipleship, into service, into the presence of others.  What I learned from teaching on the wrong side of the tracks is that I am truly thankful that I was not born as a crack baby, but by having such a child in my class, I learned not to judge this child because he had no control of the choices his parents made.  I learned that I could be present to these children and seek to provide them a safe place at least within my classroom because that might have been the only safe place they had in their lives.  I learned that life is not fair, and even education cannot bridge the gap of inequality. 

            There is a ministry in Camden, NJ that was not afraid to go to the wrong side of the tracks and connect with these young people that their only future was to be involved in gangs, and drugs, and stealing.  The founder of Urban Promise could have stood at a distance and said:  Lord, I am thankful that I am not a youth in Camden, NJ but instead he said, Lord, bring me to Camden and guide me as I bring hope to this place of hopelessness.  Urban Promise has grown over the years and now has its only school where the youth of Camden are actually graduating from high school and going on to college.   A future they never would have had if someone had stood and said, I am thankful I am not like them. 

            Next time we find ourselves a little afraid of another, or glad we are not like another, perhaps God is calling us into a ministry with that person, not a ministry to that person, but a ministry with that person.  We will never know, unless we cross the bridge and begin building the relationships. 

            What if that Pharisee had embraced the tax collector?  What if, like Jesus, they went and had a meal together?  Jesus is not afraid of the other, he is not afraid of the outcaste, he is not afraid of the sick, he is not afraid of the wrong side of the tracks.  Rather, it seems those are the places he goes, and it is there that he finds people hungering for God’s love, hungering to be seen, to be noticed, to be made whole.  Jesus was blessed by God to bring that blessing to others.  There really was no one that he would keep away or deny.  As we continue into this season of thankfulness, let us too seek to be welcoming and loving, extending ourselves as agents of hope to the world around us.  Amen.    

           

            

Sermon: One out of Ten Luke 17

            This fall, the scripture readings have revolved around being lost and being found.  From a lost sheep, a lost coin, to a lost brother, we had celebrating once the lost were found.  We also had stories of lost people, a rich man and a poor man, both of whom were lost in their own way.  Today, we have ten more people that are lost, lost to society due to leprosy.  As we have journeyed through these passages, I have viewed them through the lens of what it means to be self-focused versus being community focused, transitioning from population me to population all. 

            Ten lepers, completely lost to society, caste away, thrown away, outcastes.  They must live away from others, in this passage it describes the place as between Samaria and Galilee.  It’s a border region, and some commentators point out that this is a dangerous place.  Border regions were not protected in the same way as the fortified cities and towns.  Wars often took place on the borders, since these are weak places politically. 

            So, here Jesus is, in a weak place, in a dangerous place, in a place that is neither Galilee or Samaria and he is approached by those that no one wants.  People that due to their leprosy, no longer belong to Samaria or Galilee.  They know their place and don’t even approach Jesus.  Rather, they keep their distance and call out to him:  Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. 

            As people caste away, stricken with a disease where they have no hope of recovering, they cry out for the possibility.  Maybe, just maybe, this one named Jesus, just might be able to help them.  And so Jesus tells them to go and show themselves to the priests.  This connects back to the laws and rituals of Moses, it is the priests that have the authority to offer cleansing to those that are unclean.  But along the way, the lepers are healed.  They are healed.  This is different than the rites and rituals associated with being made clean.  They are healed, their leprosy is gone, their isolation is over, they are no longer outcastes.  They can go home and return to their lives, and reconnect with their family, friends and community. 

            But one, one out of the ten, takes the time to return to Jesus to thank him.   He returns to say thank you, not because he was raised with good manners, not because he is obligated to do so, he returns because he completely knows to the core of his spirit, that he was lost and now he is found.  His healing touched him deeply, it is not something to be taken for granted, he cannot just go back to his normal life, he has to stay connected to the one that brought him this healing. 

            Every once in a while, we hear this heart touching stories of people that connect over time due to organ donations or bone marrow transplants.  Recently there was a story of a mom that had lost her son, but his heart was given to someone in need.  A few years later, the mom was connected to the person that received her son’s heart, and she was able to hear it beat.  These families were connected by tragic life events, and now they share a bond that out of death comes life.  The leper understood this, he knew that out of death, Jesus brought him new life and he had to express his gratitude. 

            The cleansing of the ten lepers is a story of healing, it is a story of transformation, it is a story of gratitude, it is a story of being lost and being found.  I love the hymn:  God of the Sparrow, How does the creature say Awe, How does the creature say Praise.  We turn around from what we are doing, we remember the one that has healed us, the one that meets us where we are and transforms us, we take a moment to be present to the awesome, the divine, the sacred, and we say thanks. 

            How do we do this in our ever so busy lives?  Is it setting aside Sunday morning as a time to gather in worship?  We could be on our way, we could be out and about instead of gathered here in this place, but we gather, we have stopped, we have come, and this is the time to give thanks.  We give thanks by singing praises to God, by offering ourselves in prayer, by seeking to connect our soul to the scripture and the sacred time that we set aside here in this place. 

            Ten lepers were healed but only one returned to give thanks.  Each of us have been touched by God in different ways.  Each of us may feel healed in different ways.  Perhaps we are still struggling with feeling healed, whether it be physically, emotionally, or spiritually.  We gather seeking that word from God that will meet us where we are, seeking something that will give us the spiritual connection that we need to make it through the next week.  The lepers came to Jesus, they did not say heal us of our leprosy, rather they cried out – have mercy upon us.  Jesus, Master, have mercy upon us.  And God’s mercy flows out, and still flows out today in a multitude of ways.  Can we name it?  Can we feel it in our own lives?  Answered prayers, a moment of much needed peace, laughter with a friend, hugs from a grandchild, an old grudge forgotten, an apology given, a moment of pain named allowing healing to begin.  And when that moment occurs, to we name it as a God moment?  Do we say a silent or even an out loud, Thank You?  How do we express our gratitude to God? 

            Ten lepers were healed but only one returned to say thank you, one out of ten, these do not seem like good odds do they?  One out of ten.  At another level, this story reinforces the Biblical tradition of the tithe.  The people that heard this story, would know that one tenth of their harvest, or one tenth of their livestock’s offspring, were to be given to the priests.  Since the days the people entered into the Promised Land, they were to set aside the first fruits of the land and ground and present them to the priests as a form of thanksgiving, as a form of praise to God as a way to remember to be thankful for what God had given them. 

            Returning to God a portion of what one has received was a part of the people’s faith practice, it was a part of life, it was what they did.  So, when one out of the ten lepers came back to give thanks, Jesus is showing that this rich tradition of his Jewish heritage is still an important piece of what it is to practice one’s faith.  Tithing is an extremely challenging spiritual practice.  When we see it as this story, one out of ten does not seem like very much, but when we translate it to our income, one out of every ten dollars starts to add up.  But when we think about how we give back to God, not because we were taught to, not because we are obligated to, but when we start giving purely from our heart, because we are able to name and explain and celebrate the ways in which God has touched our lives, perhaps it becomes less challenging. 

            As we enter into the Stewardship season of the church, I want to invite us to think about the ways in which we say thank you to God.  We offer ourselves in worship and study, we give of our time in service, we dedicate a portion of our treasure for God’s work in the world.  We often think of stewardship season as how are we going to pay the bills for next year.  This year, I want us to think about Stewardship season as how do we respond to the mercy of God in our lives by saying Thank You and then to ask the question – is this church through this congregation, living out God’s mercy either through our own spiritual growth or through our mission outreach to the greater community around us?  If we can say yes, then we can celebrate that our gifts to God’s ministry are indeed bringing forth God’s love in this world.  If we cannot name God’s mercy at work through us, then we must spend time discerning how, together, as the body of Christ, can live more fully into God’s purpose.