On October 13, the last Sunday I
was with you before taking yet another medical leave, the Gospel text was the
story of the ten lepers. You remember the story – ten lepers, people isolated
from community and enduring a horrible and at times disfiguring disease,
approach Jesus asking for mercy and release from this plague. Jesus heals them
without fanfare, telling them simply to go show themselves to the priest, who
could declare them “clean” (leprosy was also a disease that made one
liturgically unclean). As they go on their way, they find that they are,
indeed, healed of their disease. Nine continue on their way, but one turns back
toward Jesus, falls to his knees in a posture of worship, and begins thanking Jesus
– for making him clean, for taking away the physical and spiritual pain, for
giving him his life back.
Preachers will tell you that they
often came up with just the right sermon on Sunday night, hours after worship.
It is in that residual reflection in which the Holy Spirit finds a way to keep
working in our hearts – usually this post-sermon is the one meant especially
for the pastor’s heart. Such was the case with me and the story of the ten
lepers, the story of the one leper who returned to give thanks.
I write this on the eve of my
second (and final!) mastectomy in four months. Though I have tried to maintain
a positive attitude through this ordeal, and been mostly successful, it has been
wearing me pretty thin. Though this particular surgery is prophylactic, I
consider it my last “treatment” for this nagging threat (or reality) of breast
cancer. After these months of emotional and physical travails, I am eager to
put it behind me and not look back – just like the nine lepers did when they
were finally declared healed. Let’s be done, already! I’ve put in my time! I
can understand how, in their exhaustion of having fought the pain and neglect
and isolation of their disease, they would be wrapped up only in their relief,
and forget to acknowledge their savior.
And yet, it is the one former leper
who turns back to offer his gratitude to whom Jesus says, “Your faith has made
you whole.” Wholeness – it is something beyond healing. Healing happens on the
outside. Bodies heal. Wholeness, though, has to do with the heart, the soul.
Wholeness happens when we recognize that we have experienced God. Wholeness
happens when, tempting as it may be to continue down the road of health and
never look back, we instead do like the one leper, and find a way to turn toward
God and say, “Thank you.”
By the time you read this, I will
be two weeks post surgery, and hopefully experiencing speedy bodily healing.
But I have been seeking wholeness for some time already, and I will continue it
now by saying to God and to all of you: thank you. Thank you for showing me the
love of Christ, for encouraging me to think more deeply about life and faith,
for allowing me to be vulnerable with you, for loving me through a terrifically
difficult – while also very joyful – year. Thank you, people of Bethlehem and
St. Martin, and thank God for you.
God’s
Peace,
Pastor Johanna
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