A Sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Ruth 1:1-19a
Psalm 113
2 Timothy 2:3-15
Luke 17:11-19

"Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die--there will I be buried...." Beautiful, powerful, and familiar words. It is perhaps the clearest biblical example of committed love between two people. So we frequently hear this passage read at weddings. Interesting that marriage uses as it's model the love and commitment between two women.

How shocking to think that the established norm of marriage could learn something from a relationship between two women. For our culture it may even be more shocking to think that marriage might learn something from a love that probably didn't include genital sex. Sex isn't the issue here. Love is. But even so, it's an unusual kind of love: One woman says "Get lost" and the other responds, "No way."

In that instance, the interaction is not unlike the one in our Gospel lesson today. The dialog between Naomi & Ruth, goes something like this: "For your own good, because I love you, Go home to your family and lead a normal life." The response? "I love you. I'll stay." And the dialog between Jesus & the Samaritan leper: "For your own good, because I love you, Go to the priest and be declared clean." The response? "I love you. I'll stay." Seems like the message is that when the boss says "go and be normal," those who choose to be different and stay get a good deal and the boss's commendation.

There is a tension here between obedience & relationship. between law & love, Most often, perhaps even nine times of ten, there is no conflict: obedience best serves the relationship and the rules sustain the love. But now and again, especially where foreigners -- those who are different -- are involved, the obedience and law might get in the way of a loving relationship.

The Bible is quick to remind us that anything that separates us from God is liable to fall into the category of sin. Sometimes even the law that God gave us might separate us from God. The most common biblical words for "sin"-- both the Hebrew "chattaah/chattath" and the Greek "hamartia"-- literally mean "to miss the mark." But just what is the mark for which we are aiming? Is it literal obedience to what we hear, like the nine who went the Temple? Or might it be time to listen to the foreigners ? -- those with a different perspective -- who might see more clearly than we God's true will for us.

As Paul reminds us in today's second reading, the word of God will not be chained, not even it seems, by God's own previous commands. Now certainly God's commands are not to be ignored -- but Jesus seems to be telling us to go beyond them: To obey and also to return to God with our thanks and praise. Jesus asks more of us even when that "going beyond" obedience threatens us (as it did Ruth) with famine and homelessness or (as the Apostle Paul suggests to Timothy) brings us to "share in suffering."

Note that all ten lepers did originally obey Jesus' command to "Go" because they were cleansed only as they went on their way toward the priest. The leprosy went away only after they began to obey Jesus. Yet Jesus seems pleased with the one who rather than choosing perfect, literal obedience, returns, praising God. Notice that, just as Naomi didn't voice any displeasure with Orpah's returning home, there is no condemnation of the lepers who didn't return. Instead Jesus asks a question: "Where are the other nine?"

Let your imagination play with that one for a little. If you were healed, and had done what the healer asked, what would you do next? I'd probably celebrate somehow. Perhaps they, too, are praising God in their own way. Maybe each cleansed man returned to the place where he experienced God most in order to praise God.

For normal Jewish males (and the Greek text here does not choose a generic word for "man" but a gender specific word) that place would usually be the Temple. Most likely the other guys are at the Temple, praising God. Or perhaps they went to their homes to celebrate. They did what was expected. But not the Samaritan. Granted, the Samaritan wouldn't have been welcome in the Jerusalem Temple, but Samaritans follow the same Law, and he'd have had a priest of his own tradition to go to to be declared clean.

Instead, like another more famous Good Samaritan, he has interrupted the expected action for something more important. And like yet another biblical Samaritan -- the Woman at the Well-- the foreigner has recognized what the normal folk have missed: That God is in Jesus. One doesn't have to go to the Jerusalem temple or to the Samaritans' own holy mountain, God can be praised by falling at Jesus's feet. And in doing so he receives a greater gift -- he is "made well"

All ten lepers are "made clean" but only the Samaritan who returns is "made well" "Made well" means also "made whole" -- the basic meaning is "to save." Ten were cleaned of their disease; one was made whole and saved. The Samaritan has received the greater gift.

This is good news for those who are seeking healing. Not everyone is "made clean" -- not every disease gets "fixed," but everyone has the possibility of being saved and made whole.

The Samaritan's praising God and returning to thank Jesus are evidence of the faith that makes people well -- that brings wholeness and salvation. "Thanks and praise" -- that's the way to wholeness. We are saved by thanks and praise rather than strict obedience to the details of the law. The Samaritan leper gave thanks to Jesus. He knew where to turn to give thanks and praise. And he was saved and made whole.

But what about us? Where do we turn to celebrate our good gifts? Where do we find God? Where do we give thanks? Is it in our modern equivalent of the Jerusalem Temple -- the Established Church? If so, that's good: That's what we're told to do; there we can be cleansed like the nine literalist lepers. For most, it's the normal, acceptable, relatively easy way to praise God. But some -- especially some of us who feel like foreigners in the established church -- some of us may choose a more difficult and foreign path: not simple obedience, but establishing a living relationship with God. This is a dangerous and sometimes painful path. It is what Jesus means when he says "Take up your cross and follow me."

It means looking closely at what we are told to do. It means looking closely at our cultural expectations. It means listening carefully to God. It may mean questioning authority and tradition. It means putting God's love first, even before a literalist sense of God's law, just as Jesus did with the Sabbath laws. It may at times look like disobedience. It is hearing God's law and taking a step beyond it. Because "The word of God is not chained."

God's word and God's love refuse to be chained or put in a box defined by cultural expectations, whether those of our culture today or those of biblical times. Neither will God's word and God's love be chained by our cultural expectations about marriage, about gender, or about sexual orientation.

Today's readings suggest that God moves in mysterious ways and travels in foreign places and with people who are strangers to us. Are we able to turn from our familiar expectations and our safe little worlds? to turn to Jesus and pick up our cross, saying to God:

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