Nasty Conventions

Tuesday, June 5, 2007 -- Week of Proper 4
(Boniface, Archbishop of Mainz, Missionary to Germany and Martyr, 754)


Today's Readings for the Daily Office (p. 968)
Psalms 45 (morning) 47, 48 (evening)
Deuteronomy 12:1-12
2 Corinthians 6:3-13 (14 - 7:1)
Luke 17:11-19


Jesus was remarkably open an compassionate, especially when we account for the religious values and conventional beliefs of his culture.

Conventional beliefs are powerful. It is the stuff that "everybody knows." We all are given an array of conventional beliefs as we grow up. These are the metaphors that shape our understanding of how the world works.

In Jesus day "everybody knows" that people who are terribly sick must be suffering for some wrong that they or their ancestors did. Sickness was a sign of brokenness and wrong. It was a consequence of un-wholeness, or un-holiness. Therefore, people who were ill were also morally corrupt in some way. If one is unclean, that person is entirely outside of the life of the community -- that person cannot join in worship, business, social or family relationships. The unclean carry a complete stigma as outcasts.

The moral and religious code was driven largely by an ethic of purity. God's people are called to purity. Only those who were ritually pure could enter into worship in the synagogue or Temple. To be religiously observant, to be a holy person, was to keep oneself pure by observing all of the statutes and practices that separate us from the profane and defiled.

As Jesus enters a village there are ten lepers. (The word "leprosy" was used not only for what we call leprosy -- Hansen's disease -- but also an assortment of skin diseases.) They know how things work. They keep their ritual distance from Jesus and his fellow travelers. They are unclean in every sense of the word -- physically, morally, spiritually. They have heard of Jesus' ministry of healing, and they ask him for mercy, compassion.

"Go and show yourselves to the priests," he tells them. The Torah provides for a process of certifying that one who has been ill with leprosy may be determined to be clean. The priests are charged with inspecting the person's condition, and following the process outlined in scripture, may declare them clean. If the priests' inspection determines that the person is clean, that person may be restored fully to community, worship, society and family.

It is a sign of hope and faith that all ten lepers obeyed Jesus' word and turned to make the trip to the priests. The first step toward healing is often to claim that you are healed and to act accordingly. Sometimes claiming and living out your wholeness enables wholeness.

As they make their movement toward the priests, the ten lepers discover that they are indeed healed. Then the twist. Only the heretic Samaritan has the grace to turn back to offer Jesus appropriate thanks. Only the ultimate outsider, foreigner, wrong-believer acknowledges the source of his healing.

This is the kind of story that would have been disgusting to most proper people of Jesus' day. He shouldn't have been messing around with lepers, especially if some were Samaritans. How uncouth -- and dare I say -- tacky. (It is often said that Episcopalians hate tacky worse than sin.) How tasteless and crude. Good people just don't associate with such things and don't go near such people. He should have ignored them, and turned the other way, like the priest and the scribe of that tacky story about the so-called "good Samaritan." Everybody knows this is not the way proper people behave.

Lowell
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"Morning Reflections" is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html

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The Rev. Lowell Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, AR

The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

See our Web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

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