October 9, 2016

Helen Jacobi

Ordinary 28     2 Kings 5:1-15     Psalm 111     2 Timothy 2:8-25     Luke 17:11-19

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Mind the gap – as they say in London on the Tube. Distance. Gaps. Distance between people, places and ideas. In our tales from scripture today there is lots of distance and separation between the people and the places. Jesus is said to be walking in the region between Samaria and Galilee. Those two regions actually border each other so does Luke mean Jesus is in the no man’s land between the two regions and peoples who hated each other? Like a no man’s land between the trenches in WW1, or on either side of the wall between Israel and Palestine now. Distance.

Then ten lepers approach – they keep their distance as required to by law (Leviticus 13). Jesus does not approach them – he simply tells them to go and show themselves to the priest – meaning they have to be certified as healed and then be allowed to re enter the community. The distance remains until they have done that.

Luke’s audience for this story would have immediately leapt in their minds to the OT story we heard from the Book of Kings. Naaman, a Syrian general also has leprosy. He, however seems to allowed to be with his family and in society. He has in his household a slave girl, from Israel, captured in battle. She would have every reason to hate her master and keep her distance, but she chooses to intervene and suggests Naaman seek healing from Elisha the prophet. This requires letters of request and safe passage the king of Aram (Syria, including present day Aleppo) to the king of Israel. The king of Israel suspects a trap and wants to stay away from this problem but Elisha intervenes and asks for Naaman to be allowed to come. Elisha also keeps his distance and does not meet Naaman but issues instructions for him to wash in the Jordan. Naaman does not want to come down off his high horse, literally, and expects a much bigger show of magic from the prophet. Convinced in the end by his servants, again a class of people distant from him, he washes and is made clean.

In both these stories people have barriers up – barriers of class, race, expectation; they have physical distances of geography, and distance engenderd from fear of disease and fear of the other. In Naaman’s story the people who bridge the gaps, who reach out to close the distance, are the unnamed slave girl, Elisha the prophet, and the servants. If the girl had not urged her mistress to urge Naaman to try and get to Elisha, nothing would have happened. If the servants had not urged Naaman to swallow his pride and get in the river Jordan, nothing would have happened.

In the story of Jesus and the 10 lepers the distance between the lepers and Jesus, and the lepers and the rest of the people, is maintained until the story shifts and one of the lepers returns. We have the distance between Samaria and Galilee – both physically separate – and separated by their hatred of each other. We have the lepers standing away from the community. We have Jesus sending them to the priests – healed but with no sense of interaction or even compassion really. Then the story pivots and the distance collapses. “One of them turned back. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him.” Ah say the listeners of the story – ah say the readers – lovely. But wait, there is more “he was a Samaritan”. What – no! the barriers go up – a leper – and a Samaritan – he is the one? Where are the others Jesus asks? Is only the foreigner here (does Jesus say foreigner with a disparaging tone of voice? or a welcoming one?) Then the gap is closed, the barriers are down: “get up and go on your way; your faith has made you whole”.

All of the 10 were healed, the one who came back is made whole. One reached out with gratitude and thankfulness. he Samaritan, the foreigner was the only one to return to Jesus with gratitude. The Samaritans, the ones expected to be dishonest, or dangerous, and certainly disliked if not hated, by the people of Israel. The Samaritan returns to give thanks. To give thanks for healing, for clean skin, for freedom, for release from being an outcast. Gratitude for being able to reenter society, gratitude for a new future, new possibilities. And knowing all these things were beyond his control, but in the hands of God, he returns to give thanks. It is that sense of thankfulness which bridged the gap. Gratitude closed the gap between Samaritan and Jew, between outcast and rabbi; gratitude reached across the distance, the divide.

Distance, gaps, mind the gap. In a city like ours we walk and drive past hundreds if not thousands of strangers every day. Do you remember the scene in the old movie Crocodile Dundee when Dundee tries to shake hands with all the passersby as if he will see them all again? From outback Australia to New York; they all think he is crazy.

We live with distance every day – we cannot know all our neighbours in a city; but we also allow the pressure of life and the rush of the city, the traffic, to create distance between us. Life in apartments can be the loneliest even with other people through the wall right next to you. Hirini spoke last week of the racial divide that can be made worse by the politics of Donald Trump or Don Brash and his new group. We need leaders who break down the walls that divide us, not build them up.

On the worldwide scene the calamity that is Syria stems from multiple divisions and hatred. Our story from the book of Kings is set partly in the region of Aram which is part of modern day Syria and includes Aleppo, so much in the news. Division, hatred and distance still haunt the people. And we watching from afar feel powerless to do anything, except lament and say: God, why and how long? When we gather each week to worship we take a stand against distance and division and close the gap. We gather with strangers, people of many cultures, many social groupings, many walks of life – as Archbishop Tutu once said – with God’s rainbow people. And what do we do together? We give thanks. The central act of our worship is the eucharist. Eucharist means to give thanks – we call that part of the service “the great thanksgiving”. When the Samaritan leper returns to Jesus “he prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him” – the word for thank is eucharisteo – the same word used when Jesus gives thanks at the Last Supper over the bread and wine. When we offer our gifts of bread and wine at the eucharist we are giving thanks for the gifts of God in our lives and express our faith in God for our future.

Our act of giving thanks as Jesus did brings us close to God and close to each other. Our act of giving thanks is what makes us whole. Our act of giving thanks closes the gaps, shortens the distances, brings down the walls. It is quite radical – where else in our society in 2016 do we get to hang out with all sorts of people who we would not otherwise meet? A school maybe, a sports club or community group? Those groups tend to be more homogenous than church, especially a church like ours in the heart of the city. But before we congratulate ourselves too much and start to feel too cosy, remember what Jesus says to the leper who returns – get up and go on your way – he cannot stay and hang out with Jesus – he has to go and get on with life. And so it is with us. We gather, we give thanks, we experience community, closing the gaps and distance between us, and then we are sent out to be God’s people in the world. To find new places to give thanks and close gaps, modelling ourselves on the pattern we learn in our liturgy. Mind the gap. “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you whole.”