Pentecost 20

Pentecost 20 (Luke 17:11-19) Where are they?
The question Jesus asked of the ten lepers is very similar to the first question God asked humanity.
That first question is recorded in the book of Genesis. Adam and Eve had chosen separation from God. In that separation they had attempted to hide from God. God asked them: where are you?
Now, God knew where Adam and Eve were and why they were hiding. Jesus also knew where the other nine lepers were and why they had not paused to give thanks. The question helps to reveal the human condition. The long record of Biblical history records an amazing and counter intuitive observation about the human condition.
Human beings have separated from God. In that separation people are lost. Most religions and many philosophies speak of humanity’s search for God. The Bible very uniquely speaks of humanity’s separation from God and our refusal to be found by God.
This, of course, is the reason the co-eternal Son of God became a particular human being at a particular point in time and at a particular place. He came to seek the lost who do not want to be found.
There is an ironic and somewhat cynical statement: no good deed goes unpunished. This statement could describe the life and even more- the death of Jesus Christ. Jesus came into the world with the one single desire to seek the lost and to find the lost. It was the one thing people did not want from God.
People who believed in God wanted all sorts of things from God. They mostly wanted to avoid God’s wrath and obtain God’s favor. Many people divided God according to their wants, desires and demands. And so there was a god of war for soldiers, a god of romance for those who sought romance, and a deity for every possible need or desire.
These deities were simply a superstitious expression of the human will to power. This is the root cause of original sin. God offered love and holiness to humanity. People chose knowledge and power.
God offered himself as a constant and reliable friend. People chose to create substitute deities for ourselves that reflected our fear and our demand. The Bible teaches that people do not seek God. We do not seek God for who he is. We do not value God for who he is. God is unconditional love.
Humanity seeks to define God according to our needs and desires in order to meet our needs and desires. We seek the gifts we believe God can give us. We do not seek or value the giver of the gifts.
Preeminently, people seek to define God in the categories of knowledge and power. We demand that if God is real then he must accept our definition of reality and readjust the universe to our will. We redefine unconditional love as indulgence and insist that if God has love then God must yield to our desires.
The record of scripture is that as soon as the One God revealed Himself through the patriarchs and prophets, people began to redefine God. God revealed himself as a loving father. People told stories of a wrathful judge.
God revealed himself as the bridegroom who seeks the love of his bride. People created a religion of rewards and punishments based on a system of credits and debits.
God revealed himself in the name: I am. People rejected the reality of God whenever they did not receive the material gifts and blessings they valued most. Very crassly worded people tell God: if you give me what I want I will believe in you. If you fail to give me what I want I will not believe in you.
God sent his only begotten son into the world to seek the lost, find the lost, and restore the lost. Most people took the benefits Christ offered but ignored the invitation. They wanted the gifts but not the giver.
The long record of human history from God’s perspective is not humanity’s search for God but rather God’s search for a lost and rebellious humanity, a people who stubbornly refuse to be found.
God calls people into a relationship of faith grounded in love and formed by holiness. People ask: what’s in it for me? Why should I have to adjust my schedule, my priorities my way of living?
God calls across time- where are you? Jesus echoes this call when he asks of the lepers: where are they?
Of the ten, only one- a foreigner who knew nothing of the God of Abraham, Moses and the prophets, only one came to give thanks. Only one thought to glorify God. And only that one received the completion of his healing.
The nine others were still healed of their leprosy. What made their healing incomplete was their lack of faith in the one who healed them. They wanted the healing but not the healer. It is the healer, God himself in the person of Jesus Christ, who completes the healing.
God completes the healing as we receive the gift he offers. The gift is Jesus Christ.
The glory of God is not in the healing or in the miracles Jesus performed. The glory of God is in the relationship that Jesus offers us and makes possible. The relationship is the realty.
Jesus healed those ten lepers of the most horrible and fearful disease known to the people of his time. He told them to present themselves to the priests so the priest could examine them and certify the healing. Only that certification would allow them to return to their families and jobs.
Jesus also waited. He waited patiently for the ten lepers to make a real choice to complete their healing and to enter into wholeness.
Only one, a Samaritan whom the people of Israel despised, made that real choice. Only one of the ten chose to embrace the healer, give thanks to God, and glorify God.
Jesus still waits. He waits for us to come to him who offers himself to us. He waits for us to say: thank you. Thank you for living for me. Thank you for dying for me. Thank you for pouring yourself out to me daily, hourly.
Jesus waits for us to make a real choice to glorify God by receiving the love and the holiness God offers us in a new life and in a new way of living. Jesus is the way. Jesus is the only way to receive and experience this new life and this new way of living.
The new life is a life of wholeness. The new way of living is holiness. Wholeness and holiness are not perfection. We grow. We transform. We learn something new about God, other people, ourselves every day. We unlearn even more.
The Samaritan had to unlearn his fear and hatred of the Jews. He had to unlearn his contempt for the religion of Israel. He had to take a step forward into the understanding that faith is trust in a person not loyalty to an ethnic group, a political system, or a religious structure. The Samaritan had to make a real choice to allow God to be God regardless of everything he had learned to expect of God and to demand from God.
In Jesus Christ, God gives us that opportunity to make that real choice. Let God be God. Let God be the One who is, the “I am” who is eternally self existent as one God in three persons. Let God offer himself to us and find us in the co-eternal Beloved, Jesus Christ.
The Bible teaches that God the Father created all people by the power of God the Holy Spirit to be the beloved companions and friends of God the Son, Jesus Christ.
In Eden, the pre incarnate Son asked humanity: where are you? I am here for you. Why have you chosen to separate from me?
In his public ministry, the incarnate Son asked: where are they? I am standing right here. I am the one who has come to seek you out, to find you, to heal you. Why have you chosen to walk away from me at the very moment of divine grace?
Jesus calls to us and to all the world today: where are you? I am here in the blessed sacrament of the altar. I wait for you. I offer myself to you in the fullness of unconditional love, eternal love, infinite love. I am here for you in your joys and in your sorrows. I will never leave you or forsake you. I will never turn you away.
The Holy Spirit calls to us and to all people and says: come. Come and receive the blessing. Let all who thirst for meaning and purpose come. Let all who are burdened by life come. Let all who yearn to know that they are loved with an everlasting love come.
Jesus says: I am here. I am here for them. Where are they?