Broadway Christian Church ·Columbia, Missouri

Morning Worship ·November 21, 2004

Prayer of the Day

Gracious God, we meet here today to offer you a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.  Your gifts of life, deeds of kindness, saving love, acts of mercy, are as many as the stars in the sky.  In this time of worship, as we celebrate the bounty of our blessings, we ask that you would strengthen us for our service to those you would serve.  Amen.

Scripture
Luke 17:11-19

On his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border of Samariaand Galilee.  As he entered one of the villages, ten men who had leprosy came to meet him.  They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”

When Jesus saw them, he said, “Go show yourselves to the priests.”  And it happened that as they went on their way, they were cured, healed, cleansed.

Finding himself cured, one of them turned back praising God at the top of his voice.  He threw himself at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.  This man was a Samaritan.

Jesus asked, “Were not ten men cured, healed?  Where are the other nine?  Why was this foreigner, this stranger, the only one who came back to thank God?”  Then Jesus said to this one, “Rise, stand up now, go on your way, for your faith has cured you, saved you, made you well, made you whole.”

Message
A One in Ten Chance of Wholeness
Rick Frost

We love healing stories.  Many of us have been following Elizabeth Edward’s story.  It is national news.  She discovered breast cancer, as most of you know.  But she is in treatment now, and she has every reason to expect it will be in remission soon, and we are glad.

Gary is a member of this church whose kidneys were failing, but he received a transplant not long ago.  Many of you know that, and he is doing so much better today.  Our own Hugh, barely walked not long ago, but he had a knee replaced and is here today, navigating nicely, and we are grateful for that.  Dorothy, whose eyes were so dim she could hardly drive, but she had cataract surgery and is seeing much better now.  We could go on, could we not?  We love healing stories.

Today’s text is a healing story.  Ten men suffer from a disease, and this story comes to us, I suggest, in two parts.  It is a story not unlike the stories our doctors, our nurses, and our medical professionals see absolutely every day.  Part one of the story goes something like this.  First of all, there is a cry for help.  Ten people are suffering from leprosy, a terrible disease in its day.  They cry out, “Master, healer, have pity on us.”

I remember when my appendix was about ready to rupture.  I cried out, “Doc, give me something!  Do it now!  I don’t care what it is, just do it now!”  The healer responds, “Nurse, give Mr. Frost a shot of morphine.”  “Thank you very much.”

In our Bible story, what does Jesus say?  His prescription is, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”  The next piece: the healing actually occurs.  According to our text, on their way to the priest, they were cured.    For me, surgery, eight days in the hospital, and voila, here I am before you!  That’ s part one of the story.  We all know that story.  It’s very familiar to us.  It happens every day.

Part two of the story, however, is a little different.  In part two, we find that the one person, the one who was healed… Well, actually ten of them were healed, but one of them chose to turn around and to come back to praise God, just like many of us who go to worship in church on Sunday.  He fell at the feet of Jesus, thanking Jesus for the gift he had received.  That’s what worship is.  Isn’t it?  That is what we do when we come to worship when we are at our best.  We come to give God thanks and praise for the blessings we have received, whatever those have been.  Every medical professional in this room knows that people do not cure people.  Every medical professional knows that the Creator cures people.  These are people with wonderful gifts, training, and skills.  Yes, they work together to create the conditions that make for healing, but they do not cure.   The Creator causes any cure that takes place. 

Now, here is the big part.  This is the little secret we were talking about – the little piece many people miss.  It goes like this.  Because one of those persons who was healed returns and expresses his gratitude, he receives a second blessing.

Did you hear that in the text today?  A second blessing.  Jesus says that to the one who worshipped and thanked him, he offered these words, “Stand up now.  Go on your way, for your faith has cured, has saved, has made you well, has made you whole.”  Did you catch that in the reading?

Ten were healed, just as we see people get healed every single day.  But only one was saved.  Only one was made whole.  Only one received the complete full blessing of Jesus.  What was the blessing?  The blessing is a gift.  It is the gift of faith as the result of being healed.  If you have ever been healed of anything, and it has increased your faith, then you know about the blessing that is being talked about in our Scripture today.  Isn’t that interesting?

You know… We get so use to things.  We take so many things for granted.  Let’s face it.  We have come to expect and we think we are entitled to health care and healing.  The miracles of modern medicine that we are very familiar with today have become so divorced from the source of those miracles – so disconnected from the gifts and the grace of the Creator – that now health care and healing are thought of and talked about as products and services to be bought and sold.  My goodness.  True it is that so much can be done to fight disease and replace worn out parts.  But as you know, with such spiraling costs, which huge numbers of people cannot afford, it raises the monumentally challenging, ethical question and issue of accessibility.  It raises the issue of being able to access health care and to afford what it takes.  The big question today, and it’s going to get bigger even tomorrow, is who is going to receive treatment, and who is not?  You know that.  I am not telling you anything new.

But on the flip side of that, we know that hundreds of thousands of people do receive treatment every day, and many of those people who do receive treatment are healed.  But only a very small percentage are even aware of, much less grateful to God – the Creator, the Healer, the Source of all healing -- the One who not only releases us from pain and suffering, but who also delivers us to something better called freedom and joy.  Did you know that is what the word redemption means in the Bible?  It means, not only being released from the things we suffer from, it also means being freed to the point of being released toward joy and freedom.  Did you know that?

Two parts, not just one.  Two!  So, then people were healed.  They were persons for whom release of pain and suffering did, in fact, occur, but only one of the ten was saved.  That’s what the word salvation means: “redemption.”  Ten were cured.  One was redeemed.  One was made whole.  One of them, only one, received the full blessing that Jesus had to offer.

Do you remember who it was that came back?  It was a Samaritan.  Did you catch that in the text today?  He was the one who came back.  Ten people asked Jesus for healing.  Nine of them were from his own tribe, his own nation, his own people, his own way of doing faith.  One of them, a foreigner, an outcast, a Samaritan, a people the Jews have hated for centuries, who they have been very prejudiced against, considered aliens, unworthy, unacceptable people, was the one who came back.  Isn’t it interesting, and isn’t it regrettable, that ten could have been made whole, but only one received it?

Luke is going to tell us later in the book of Acts that spiritual blindness is something that affects people all the time.  It has happened throughout history.  It does today.  It will tomorrow. 

Do you remember in the biblical story, from the very beginning, Israel, God’s people, had a special place in God’s plan for God’s world?  But by the time Jesus arrived on the scene, Israel had become, like many others, increasingly blind.  They became a people who use to reach out to others, but now they were a people who were increasingly turned in upon themselves.  They were a people who, at one time, understood duty as something that everybody had toward the good of the whole, but now it had been turned into privilege and entitlement.  They belonged, at one time, to a people who offered a helping hand to those in need, but now that helping hand had become an expectation.  They were a people who were blessed with the presence, the knowledge, and the reality of the God of heaven and earth.  What a great phenomenal thing that was, but they had become a people who had become use to that.  They sort of thought that was just a given – that the God of the universe was there at their beck and call.  Does that sound familiar to anybody today?

Spiritual blindness, folks, happens.  It has happened in this country.  It has happened in other countries.  It’s happening in this country today.  Haven’t you noticed it is often the immigrant, the refugee, the Salihovic family of Broadway (those resettled Bosnian folks we have had the privilege of relating to)?  Haven’t you noticed they are the people who really adore, who relish, who are grateful just to have the chance to live in this country next to you and me?  There are people in this land who are spiritually blind to the gifts we have.  If you want a rendition of that, just click on to Bill Cosby and see what he has to say.

Spiritual blindness: it can happen, not only in our lands, and in the culture.  It can happen in the church.  Have you noticed it is often the stranger who walks into our midst?  This person who we don’t really know, who sings out loud, with heart and soul, the songs that many of us have left to Mike and the choir, and to others to sing?  Have you noticed how it’s often the visitor who comes, whose life may have just been touched, and set free, and changed, and transformed, who is there sitting and listening with baited breath to the sermon.  (I love this person!)  And others are sort of nodding off.  It’s ok.  We can nod off here.  Have you ever noticed how often it is the new believer who gets excited about this old Bible that you and I – most of us – have had since we were in the third grade, but rarely read?

Do you see the point?  Do you see what is going on in this amazing text?  God’s grace, God’s healing, God’s blessing is not just about a day, and it is not just about a weekend, and it’s not just about a vacation or a holiday.  It is about a life of thanksgiving, a life of salvation.  Those two words are related, friends.  A life of gratitude, and worship, and praise, and a life of service.  You and I have about a one in ten chance in receiving it, according to the text.  One in ten chance.  Do you want that gift for yourself and for your loved ones?

What are you genuinely, genuinely grateful for today?  What are you really – in your heart of hearts – thankful for today?  As we get ready to celebrate the great national gift of Thanksgiving, I am going to ask you to make a list.  There are members here today who are sitting in this room who somewhere this Thursday are going to be gathering with friends and family, and you are going to be in charge.  Now some of us aren’t going to be in charge, but some of the rest of us actually are going to be in charge where you are going to be on Thursday.  I’m going to ask you who are in charge, to seriously consider creating a prayer and offering that prayer wherever you happen to be.  I would ask you to think about the things and name the things for which you give God praise and glory. 

Let’s consider some things like this – just giving God thanks and praise for being God.  That One who is eternal, and majestic in the heavens, and yet, whose Spirit, as you and I know, is right here within us, in our hearts.  In fact, according to Scripture, that Spirit is closer to us than our very breathing, and who wonderfully has revealed himself to us in Jesus Christ.  Thanks be to God just for being God.  How foundational is that?

How about a word of thanks for our families – the love of our families – and the affection of our friends.  Isn’t it all about relationships?  Isn’t it really about relationships?  Those are the people who support us, and share life with us, and care for us, and celebrate the good times when there are good times, and who weep with us when things are tough.  They are the ones whose humor just sparkles in our hearts, and who guide, and guard, and bless us.  My goodness, it is all about relationships.  Let’s give thanks.  Let’s name the people – friends and family.  Let’s name them out loud before God in a spirit of thanksgiving. 

And how about a word of prayer to God asking and thanking God for the strength and the abilities that every person in this room has to serve the purposes of God today?  Every one of you has gifts that God can use, if you are willing to give them, to serve God’s purposes today.  Now, yesterday doesn’t matter.  It is gone.  It is over and done with.  Tomorrow – we don’t know about tomorrow.  But we have today, and we have gifts, and we have strengths.  How about a prayer of thanksgiving that we might use them?

And how about a word of gratitude to Jesus for being a part of this community of faith called Broadway Church – the place where we believe he is the head, and where you and I are privileged to call this our spiritual home.  It’s a place that worships, and sings, and works together, and prays together, and cares about other people together.  All those kinds of things. 

Sure, there is a lot in this world that needs to be addressed.  Sure, there are lots of things that need to be fixed and made right.  But today and this week need to be times of thanks.  Thanks for the blessings we receive, for the health, the healing we have received, giving him the praise and the glory.  If we are willing to do that, according to our text today, we will not just receive the healing that comes from having pain or suffering removed from us, but also will be moved in the direction of redemption, moved toward joy and freedom, moved to the place where we might receive the second blessing of Jesus, the full blessing of Jesus.  The one who says, “Rise, go from this place, stand up. Your faith has cured you.  Your faith has saved you.  Your faith has made you whole and made you well.”

And we all say together… “Amen.”

Benediction

God, please cultivate in me an ever-grateful heart.  Thank you, and Amen.