"Health AND Wholeness"

Dave’s note: This sermon is one largely based on a sermon outlined and developed in a book called Homiletic, by David Buttrick, my preaching professor at Vanderbilt Divinity School. To Rev. Buttrick I will be always grateful for helping give me the tools needed to prepare a sermon. And though I may one day be able to put together a message as good as he does, if I’m ever able to preach even half as good as him, I will consider it an achievement.

Introduction. Several years ago, a Tennessee minister wrote an article in a church newsletter about a study which appeared in the Johns Hopkins

Medical Letter, "Health After 50." He noted the conclusion of the study–"that people who attend church live longer than people who do not"; as well as the reasons given by the study–that church-goers overall have wide social networks and low rates of depression, and by and large are non-smokers. But, the minister wrote in his article, "the study overlooked some of the most important reasons church attenders live longer." The minister stated his belief, though admittedly not documented, that such reasons include, first, the worship of God and desire to live in harmony with God’s will; second, prayer, including prayers of confession and forgiveness; and finally, an attitude of gratitude for life. He wrote that these things are what contribute to a longer, healthier, and more meaningful life for many church-goers. (Dr. Glen Stewart, The Tennessee Christian, November/December 1999, p. 2)

Move 1. Then we turn to the scene in our gospel today. It is the picture of un-health. Ten lepers, facing Jesus, but from a distance as per the Jewish

law regarding those with skin diseases. We see them lined up, waving their arms in raggedy clothes, shouting loudly "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!"

And we can understand. "There are times in everyone’s life when, at wits’ end, we cry out for help,…(when) the word ‘God’ shapes our lips or echoes inside our minds." (David Buttrick, Homiletic, 1987, p. 341)

"You’ve been to the doctor. He mutters something about a shadow on your (MRI). ‘Better not wait," he says, and schedules surgery for the next day. You leave his office in a strange daze. Inside yourself, you’re crying out, ‘God help me.’"

"Or maybe your marriage, which began in a bright blush of wonder, has slowly turned into a cold war across a kitchen table where you’re tossing words at each other like stones." And, suddenly, you ask, "O God, what’s gone wrong here?"

"Or someone you love is going to die. You don’t know how to talk about it, even to each other. You’re all tight inside, and afraid of what’s coming. You begin to (wonder) what it will be like walking around in an empty house: ‘Oh God, help me,’ you cry."

"Our lives are (often) shaped by agony. We’re human and there are human tragedies that come to us all. Then, when there’s nothing else to do, and, even if we don’t quite believe, we find ourselves saying a kind of prayer: ‘God, Oh, God.’ Like the desperate lepers all lined in a row, bawling at the top of their lungs, ‘Jesus, Master, have pity.’" (Buttrick, p. 342)

Move 2. "What does Jesus say? Of all things, he hands out a commandment, ‘Go!’ Well, that’s just like God....(We) come hustling up to God, full of our…troubles, and what do we get? A command: ‘Go,’…(‘Do,)’ ‘Serve.’"

Well-known preacher Tony Campolo tells the story of the time he helped lead a large, special morning prayer service. He arrived tired and unprepared after a long red-eye plane flight. He listened as the woman leading the service got up and told the gathered crowd about a prayer request from a medical missionary in Venezuela, a doctor who needed $5,000 to put an addition onto her facility to handle the huge number of poor and sick who were coming her way for help. Then, Campolo was asked by the leader to ask the Lord for the money needed by the missionary in Venezuela. "Will you lead us in prayer, Reverend Campolo?"

He wasn’t thinking clearly because of his lack of sleep, and before he could catch himself, he said, "No! But what I will do is take all the money I am carrying on me and put it on the altar. And I’m going to ask everyone else here to do the same….After we’ve put all the (money) we’re carrying on the altar, we’ll count it. Then I’ll ask God to write out a check for the difference."

Lucky for him, he was only carrying $2.25, and he put it on the altar.

He heard the leader say, uncomfortably, "We’ve all gotten the point, haven’t we?" to which he responded, "No! I don’t think we have. My $2.25 is on the altar. Now it’s your turn!" Then he watched as the leader and the other people at the service began coming up, some more enthusiastically than others, eventually laying down over $8,000. Campolo concluded the time by saying, "The audacity of asking God for $5,000, when He has already provided us with more than $8,000. We should not be asking God to supply our needs. He already has!" (Tony Campolo, Let Me Tell You a Story, 2000, pp. 153-54)

"We want God to give comfort, to patch up our souls," to make us feel good about who we are. But God doesn’t always do that. "Sometimes God’s answer is a hard command–‘Go,’ ‘Do.’" The lepers call to Jesus for help. What do they get? Jesus turns and says, "Go"–"Go and show yourselves to the priests." He gives a command. (Buttrick, p. 343)

Move 3. Well, the lepers do as they are told. They obey the word of Jesus, and, along the way to see the priests, are healed. Guess what? They are living their faith. They are obeying the word. (Buttrick)

People in our day and age aren’t too keen on this kind of obedience.

Though often willing to try anything out of desperation, most people don’t live regular life obediently. Most people resist doing as they are told, living as much as possible as individualists, bowing to no one, not even Jesus.

Moreover, those who do put their faith into action through obedience to Jesus’ commands, don’t always experience the miraculous. They are not always instantaneously healed. They may live longer lives, as the Johns Hopkins study suggests, but don’t always, even usually, come out like the healed lepers, clear of disease, injury or pain.

But people who live their faith, almost always are given meaning in life, purpose to existence, if not physical healing. Think of the person abused as a child, who works through his pain and becomes a counselor, helping hundreds of people. Think of the wheelchair-bound young woman who becomes a leader on her basketball team in the Paralympics, inspiring many others in her situation. Think of the Christian who voluntarily gives up the material possessions that are making him spiritually sick, and lets God use his life to help the poor and downcast.

Some people find healed bodies through faith. Others find healed minds and souls. The lepers turn and do as Christ commands. They are healed. They are faithful, obedient, and through this obedience find healing.

Move 4. But even after the lepers are healed, only one turns back, comes to

Jesus, gives thanks, and is made well, or whole. The Christian life is more

than obedience–it is obedience and worship. It is about taking action and

giving thanks.

A life of only obedience can turn into dead faith. It can become very

legalistic, "a list of commandments–‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ with the ‘don’ts’ a

longer list: (Sunday regulations); prayers that have to be said at (the) table; Bible study to be done on schedule–until God is subtly replaced by ‘the law.’" (Buttrick)

The one leper, however, turns back. He praises God and thanks Jesus.

The Greek words here are "doxazon" for "praising," and "euchariston" for

thanking–"both specific terms for worship in (the gospel of) Luke and among early Christians." (Buttrick, p. 336) The leper comes back, rather disobediently since he has not yet shown himself to the priests as Jesus commanded, and worships. He is already healed, but now he is whole.

So think about your Christian life today, within the past hour. It started with a Call to Worship giving praise, and followed with a hymn, "Let

All Things Now Living, a song of thanksgiving." It went onto the Gloria–

"Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost," and then after offering, the Doxology–"Praise God from whom all blessings flow." Many of our "Joys and Concerns" prayers today, too, were ones of thanksgiving. "No wonder Martin Luther tossed off a one-sentence definition of worship: ‘The tenth leper turning back!’" (Buttrick, p. 343)

"The Christian life is obedience, surely, but it is also worship, thankful worship. Together, obedience and worship…make up the Christian life….(The) ‘whole’ Christian life is an alternating current of action and praise."

Conclusion. "Well, here we are–worshipping: We’ve been giving thanks to God all morning. Maybe…we’ve been healed. (Maybe) God in Christ has changed our lives, made us whole. Oh, yes, we know we are commanded (to go and do), and soon we will go again into the world to do God’s will. But now, now, it’s time to whoop it up, time to give glory, and sing out praise. Here we are, the Christian church ‘turning back.’…(Let) us give thanks to the Lord our God!" (Buttrick, p. 346)

October 10, 2004

Rev. Dave Hedgepeth

First Presbyterian Church

Logan, Utah