VBS sermon

Luke 17:11

“Out Castes”

            Starting tomorrow, we are embarking on four days of VBS.  This year’s theme is Weird Animals and each day the children will learn about a unique or weird animal.  They will then watch a video about a child that is struggling with issues:  such as autism, leukemia, bullying, and extreme anxiety.  Through the story telling time, the children will then hear a story from the Bible about people that also did not fit into society for one reason or another and then they will hear the good news that God reaches out to them to create a community where they are welcomed. 

            So tomorrow we start with the story of the ten lepers.  This scripture passage usually focuses on gratitude and stewardship, the one leper that comes back and says thank you is the tithe that we are Biblically encouraged to return to God. 

            But before the healing occurs, and before the gratitude of the one takes place, there is the life of the ten lepers.  What must it have been like for them?  If someone came down with this disease, they were considered religiously unclean.  Having leprosy separated you from God’s love, at least in the eyes of the religious leaders.  So, first, you discover you have the disease, then you have to deal with the spiritual impact that you are told you are unclean, then you have to deal with the separation that occurs from your community, your family, and your friends, and your work, your livelihood. 

            By the time Jesus encounters these ten lepers, they have been through physical, spiritual, and emotional distress.  Everything they have known about life, about family, about community has been taken away from them.  They are shunned, shut out, and are feeling extremely lost, lonely, and broken. 

            How does this relate to our lives today?  I remember years ago, I was working as a substitute teacher and the children were at recess.  The kids were playing basketball and two boys were not being allowed to play.  The only reason I could see, for them to be left out, was that they were Indian.  They looked different and the others pushed them away.  I was only a sub, but I stepped in and told the children that either everyone played or the game was over.  But even when the children allow others to play, they can pick and choose who is on which team and who they pass the ball to.  There are so many ways to leave others out.  Most of our schools are working hard to help the children be inclusive of everyone.  We hear so much these days about bullying and how we need to help our children understand what it means to be a bully and how to respond if they are being bullied. 

            We may not have leprosy in our modern society, but we sure do have ways in which people are disconnected from community, family, and God.  I could give you a grocery list – such as mental illness, alcoholism, drug abuse, homosexuality, immigration issues such as being undocumented, language barriers, and so on.  We are making great strides towards greater inclusivity in many ways as well, in the last thirty years, we are more educated and understanding of people with Aids.  I still remember when this disease first starting making the news and how horribly people were being treated because there was this incredible fear that came along with it. 

            And so, as we guide the children through ways in which they may feel left out in school or help them talk about other children that they can see being left out, we will encourage them to remember:

That even when they are left out – Jesus loves them. 

            Lepers were sent out of the community, depending on how sick the person was, they could have also been rather disfigured from the disease.  Perhaps it was out of pure desperation that they came to Jesus, but somehow, even on the fringes of society, word of Jesus and his healing powers had been shared.  They had nothing to lose and everything to gain by coming to Jesus and asking to be cleansed.  The passage does share that they did not come close, they kept their distance, they knew their station in life and reached out from afar.  And Jesus does not ignore them.  He does not say – you are not worthy, you don’t belong, you are not like the rest of us.  He sends them to the priest to be cleansed. 

            One of the commentaries I looked at discussed the difference between being healed and being cleansed.  Leprosy was considered more than just a disease, you were spiritually unclean.  So part of the healing process involved being made spiritually clean.  In some scripture stories, Jesus heals people.  In this story, he sends them off to be made clean.  Even before they arrive to the priest, they are healed.  This challenges the whole religious structure of how one is able to come before God. 

            Who is allowed to approach God?  And in what state of spiritual cleanliness do we need to be in to worship?  Last week I attended Mass and was not allowed to take communion.  I had not gone through the right steps to be spiritually prepared and clean to embrace God through this specific sacrament.  I was allowed to worship, to be present, but I was not a complete part of this community.  The Presbyterian church has been wrestling with the question of who is and is not allowed to be part of our full community of faith.  And we are seeking to be a place of full inclusion, that all are to be welcomed to worship and to full leadership of the church.  We are seeking to break down the walls that have been telling people you are only clean to this degree but not to full inclusion. 

            Jesus engages people to full inclusion.  The lepers never made it to the priest, they were healed along the way.  They did not need the rituals of cleanliness to be re-engaged in God’s sacred presence.  A lot of people did not appreciate this form of grace and so they did not participate in the new community of God’s love.  They stayed set and firm in their religious practices.  But the hunger for a spiritual connection to God grew by leaps and bounds and more and more people were drawn to this man Jesus as he met people were they were in life and showed them the sacred outside of the Temple and outside of the rites and rituals of what it has meant to be religious.  Jesus begins the redefinition of what it means to be a person of God.  As the early church formed and grew, they questioned over and over again about what it meant to be included and what kept people out.  Paul wrote letter after letter scolding, nurturing, guiding these early churches to not reinstate the way religion had been done but rather to be a community of faith that embraced grace, community, and God’s love at the very core of its being. 

            The Presbyterian church is trying to get back to the core basics of what it means to be a faith community, not a church, but a faith community.  Our denomination has created a movement called 1001 worshipping communities and is encouraging us to look out into our communities to see who has been disenfranchised from the community of faith and to find a creative way to engage people in the life of faith.  My prayer is, that VBS this week is one way in which we bring the love of God to the children of our community in a way that is welcoming, nurturing, and filled with God’s love.  Amen.