Just Prayer Results in Perseverance of Faith (Exodus 3:7-14,,Luke 18:1-10)

It’s just prayer right! When we think of prayer…

We May think of candles, incense and psalms and set liturgy mumbled or chanted in unison.

We may think of our daily prayer time each morning, maybe sometimes rushed or missed as we grab what we need for the day and scramble out the door.

We may think of a small group of people huddled together in the corner of a church or church hall, heads bowed, eyes closed and long silences followed by softly spoken words, usually the same people praying the same things in the same order.

We may think of that turning to God when we are faced with tragedy and crisis hoping that he hears.  We may think of many people gathered together with a band and lights, all the people speaking together, shouting, declaring this truth and proclaiming that promise, hands raised and faces upturned expectantly.

It’s all just prayer Right! How does it connect with what is going on in the world around us?

If we just pray it’s going to be Ok… and if it gets harder we are going to pray harder.

You are going to just pray… come on we need to get off our knees and do something, take action!

If we would just pray… we have all these ideas and strategies to make change but in the end they don’t seem to make a difference. Where is God we are just prayer-less we need to be prayer-more. 

It’s just Prayer. Right! What difference does it make…

It had started off as a small group praying on Monday nights in a church in a city in a communist country. Praying for peace… then after a few years they had been bold enough to put a sign outside inviting people to join them. People came, the church was one of the places where people felt free to speak their minds and hearts. Over the next three years, it grew the place filled with thousands of people gathered together praying and hoping for peace and change. Amazing as this was a country that had been under a n atheist regime for more than a  generation. The authorities threatened its leadership, planned to close the church. A protest was organised and the troops were called in. doctors warned the leaders of the prayer meeting that rooms at the local hospital had been set aside to treat people with gunshot wounds. Despite that they prayed other churches had to open to take the over flow, people joined them around the country. Those at the prayer meeting joined those on the street and marched past the secret police headquarters chanting ‘we are the people’ and  ‘no violence’   and at the last moment the soldiers stood aside. The next week 120,000 joined in the prayer meeting, two days after that Erich Honecker the head of the communist party in East Germany resigned. 300,000 people joined in the Monday prayer the next week and a month to the day after they had feared the police would violently quell their prayer meetings the berlin wall came down the cold war ended. The East German authorities said ‘we were ready for anything, violence terror uprising but we were not ready for candles and prayer. In an article called “did a Prayer meeting really bring down the berlin wall and stop the cold war’ BBC journalist Peter Crutchly said that while there were other important contributing factors you couldn’t dispute the significant role of prayer in the fall of communist east Germany and German reunification. The pastor of the church in Leipzig St Nickolas went back to his everyday routine they still meet in a small group to pray for peace every Monday. When questioned about his motives for doing the whole thing, he replied It wasn’t to attract numbers to the church… ‘we did it because the church has to do it’

It's just prayer right!

In the passage we are looking at today Jesus links just praying with the perseverance of our faith until the end. He encourages his disciples to always pray and never lose heart by telling them a parable and it finishes with the question… Will the son of man find faith on the earth when he returns. Jesus parable is the conclusion to what he has been speaking about previously, correcting the ideas of the Pharisees and his own disciples about the kingdom of God. They were looking for a political and military victory, that with the coming of the messiah, that Israel would defeat the Romans and become a world power, “be made great again’ if you will… Jesus tells them that God’s Kingdom wasn’t going to be that tangible, it wasn’t going to be identified with a place or a time, this nation or that system, In actual fact it would be inaugurated by Jesus death and his followers would face time of trouble and distress. He tells them the parable we read today to encourage them to always pray and not to lose heart.

It a parable whose power comes from its two characters. A widow who will not stop pestering a judge till he gives her justice, and a Judge who does not fear God nor regard humans, who sees she gets justice or she will wear him out. But it’s also a parable which can leave us scratching our heads and wondering how is this encouragement.

I’ve preached on this passage many times and I’ve always seen that encouragement coming from the judge. In our legal system we may look for a judge who didn’t fear God or regard human beings, we would look for one who did not have a religious or social bias, who could judge impartially. But often the legal system and justice are not the same thing, the powerful and rich can get the best lawyers, and work the system. In the Jewish court system, judges were supposed to fear the Lord, they were asked to ensure that the powerless and marginalised received justice and were cared for. It was one of the things that was to set Israel aside as God’s people. But the judge in Jesus story is portrayed as indifferent or even dismissive of the widow and only seek justice because she might ware him out. He was sick of her continual plea.

The encouragement does not come from the judge rather Jesus affirmation that God is not like the judge he will make sure his people receive justice quickly. It does come from prayer itself but the one we pray to…  God is a judge who will see his people get justice, we know what his character is like and that he can be trusted to be about justice and righteousness. God hears our pleas. God answers. In our bible reading from exodus we heard God speaking to Moses from the burning bush, saying he had heard his peoples cries he had seen their misery, their mistreatment and oppression and was about to act to free them and bring them to the place he had promised and they would be his people. God hears, God sees, God cares and is not inactive but rather is working in history to see his purposes and plans come to fruition.

But this time I found myself being very encouraged by the widow in the story. She is portrayed as an amazing person. AS a widow she would have been marginalised and considered amongst the poor. Widows were dependant either on their children or nearest male relatives to look after them, without that they were dependant on the good will of the community. Look at the book of Ruth in the Old Testament, or Ana in the temple as part of Luke’s nativity narrative. . The legal system also belonged to men, without a male relative to speak for her she would have found it very hard even to be heard, as a woman her testimony was not able to be accepted in court. Yet here she is so convinced of the rightness of her cause, and we don’t know what it is she is seeking, that she is prepared to knock on the judge’s door, sit in his office anti room, leave message after message on his answer phone, when he no longer takes her calls. She will not give up on seeking justice. This is an encouragement for us to be like this widow. Unrelenting about seeking justice.

How does this connect with us today, how does consistent prayer lead to faithful perseverance?

Firstly, there is the encouragement that God hears and God cares and will answer our prayer. As a church we are reminded of that by our logo the burning bush from Exodus 2. We can have that assurance as we face inevitable opposition and injustice. Both in our lives and in the society around us. We have become a society that seek instantaneous gratification. Instant coffee, fast food, plug and play, the buy now pay later trap of credit card debt. We do know that God does hear our prayer and answer instantaneously; as we confess our sin he will forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.   But at the same time people are discovering that good things take time, craft beer, real coffee, slow cook BBQ, bespoke this and that. Faithfulness is trusting God when the answer is wait, even if it is that it will only be finally sorted when Christ returns, trusting that because of the character of God we know he is just and will see his people get justice.

 Of course as we saw in Exodus, the God who cares and who hears and see is also the God who calls his people to Go with his message of liberty and freedom to speak to the powers of this world and lead his people to a better God breathed alternative.

Secondly, there is a link between prayer and the pursuit of Justice and the kingdom of God: faithful Christian living. Prayer is the starting point, It connects us to the one whose kingdom it is, who is just and righteous in all he does, It is the place of compelling vision, the sustaining companion, fresh start in the face of failings, the  opening of hands for reconciliation and coming together, it is the shield in times of temptation and opposition. That’s best seen in the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples and that we say together each week… the Lord’s prayer.

It starts with ‘our Father’ a recognition of relationship, that we together are children of the God most High, co heirs with Jesus Christ who has made that relationship with God possible. It is our hope the relationship that defines who we are and how we are to relate to the world around us.   AS Jesus was about his father’s business so are we to be about our father’s business.
‘Hallowed be thy name’ sets the agenda of seeing the holiness and glory of God be recognised in our lives and our world. 

‘Thy Kingdom come, they will be done on earth as it is heaven’, gives us a compelling vision, of God’s purposes and plans. Its one of seeing people come to know Jesus as Lord and saviour, in 1 Timothy 2 Paul tells Timothy that all people should pray all kinds of prayer, because it is God’s desire that all come to know Jesus as Lord and saviour. The Kingdom starts as people come to know its king. But it Also invites us to have a vision of good news for the poor, widows and orphans cared for, the prisoner and the oppressed set free, the broken hearted’s wounds bound up, the blind receive sight, the stranger welcomed, debt cancelled, land and wealth shared so all may prosper. As we pray and allow God to be part of that conversation through the word of God, which is why its important that regular bible reading go hand in hand with a vibrant prayer life, its in that that we capture a compelling vision, God’s vision for his church and this world, His Kingdom.

‘Give us today our daily bread’ is not just a prayer for sustenance to survive rather it a call to God to help us with what we need each day to work towards that compelling vision of the Kingdom of God. It’s not just a prayer for us individually but one for the world. We can forget the feeding of the five thousand, where when confronted by people in need of food Jesus turns to his disciples and tells them ‘well you feed them” then takes what they have blesses it and feeds everyone with more left over. I am always reminded of an open letter to the pope in the form of a video called viva Christo rei, from the border of America and Mexico where a group of catholic people sat down to a Christmas dinner in El Paso and as they said grace, gave thanks for the food, they sensed God’s call to go and share it with people who lived on the rubbish dump in  Ciudid Juarez across in Mexico. They put their meal on the back of pick up  and went across and started carving and feeding and after three hundred had been feed there was nothing left, and it started a great move of compassion and cooperation to help the poor, it started a revival.

‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us…’ The starting point of reconciliation. Of recognising on a personal level and on a societal level where we have wronged people or we have been wronged and starting to make things right.

‘Lead us not in to temptation, but deliver us from evil’ God’s continued guidance and protection, not into ease or freedom from problems and difficulties, but through them to righteousness, God’s just society and to overcome evil with Good.

It’s just prayer right!

I'm not advocating just the repitition of this prayer without throught like amantra rather that it leads us in our prayer life, nurtures us in our faith as we make it our own and allow Jesus patern for prayer to lead us. MArtin Luther put it like this in a letter outlining how he uses the Lord's prayer in his daily prayer life...“ I do not bind myself to words and phrases but say my prayer in one fashion today and in another tomorrow, depending on my mood and feelings.”  TheLord's prayer guides his prayers for himself and his world each day, in a new way.

It's just prayer right!

The Moravians were a group of refuges looking for shelter from persecution for their faith in their home land. They were welcomed in by count Zinzendorf a German nobleman. In their community, they started a continuous prayer meeting for the world round them. An around the clock prayer vigil that lasted for 100 hundred years, during that time they sent out well over 300 hundred missionaries to preach the kingdom of God. Some were willing to go as slaves to America and the west indies sharing their faith with salve communities in those countries. On a journey to America John Wesley was so taken by the spirituality of the Moravians he felt the need to find what they had which lead to his own experience of God’s Holy Spirit. It was instrumental to the great revival in England which lead to the enlightenment, social reform, abolition of slavery, the end of child labour, moves towards universal education, even the RSPCA. 

Its not just prayer… but just prayer leads to faithful perseverance.  So let’s pray and not lose heart. 

What a wonderful God we have... A prayer of thanksgiving and confession.

What a wonderful God we have

Yes, eternal, all mighty, creator of all there is

All those amazing things beyond our comprehension

But also the God who hears the cries of his people

The God who sees our joys and our sorrow and suffering

The God who cares deeply and loves passionately

The God who responds, answers and moves

What a wonderful God we have

Yes, enthroned above, sovereign and all powerful

Vast and beyond our ability to understand or contain

But also the God who in Jesus became one of us, pitched his tent at our place

Who allowed himself to be a man of sorrow acquainted with our grief

Taught a better way and died to open that way for us

Who invites us to come to him and find rest

What a wonderful God we have

Holy, Righteous and just, perfect in all he does

Who measures the seas in his palm, the universe in the span of his arms

Yet, does not remain aloof but dwells within us by the Holy Spirit

Speaking to us and guiding us by his word

Comforting the sorrow filled, strengthening the weak giving courage to the fearful.

Enabling us to witness to the hope we have, by word and deed

what a wonderful God we have

we do not have the words to describe all that you are and all you do

we need all out theology and all our word craft and it is not enough

But we also know you accept our simple 3thaanks for everyday blessing

For family and friends, support and companionship, love and care

For providing what we need, food, clothing  and shelter

For who you’ve made us with our skills and abilities to make ends meet

Giving us plenty so we may share will those for whom you care

What a wonderful God we have

Who does not want us to pretend that we’ve got it all together

But invites us to be honest and transparent

Not to hide our sin and wrongdoing but to confess it

Knowing that as we do God forgives and wipes the slate clean

Not imagining we’ve got it all together

But bringing our brokenness, that he will bind up and make whole

What a wonderful God we have

Who is not just from way back when or coming again

Not just a distant memory or a vague future hope

But is here with us today in our worship and the ebb and flow of life

Accept our worship O God

We admit we have done wrong, forgive our sin and make us whole

Fill us afresh with Your spirt to do your will, to bring glory to you, father son and Holy Spirit.

A Ready Steady Faith... in Light of Future... Hope (Luke 17:20-37)

With all the political changes in the world at the moment, some people are acting like it is the end of the world. Maybe we are in an epoch change, about to step off the edge into the unknown mist covered waters. At the very least we are seeing a major shift in the ebb and flow of the culture wars in westerns society, between the progressive and conservative.

So it is opportune that we’ve come to a point in working through Luke’s account of Jesus Journey to Jerusalem where he is asked about When will the Kingdom of God come? Because it is helpful for us as we face our uncertain times  to hear Jesus correct the thinking of both the Pharisees and his disciples on this matter.

What isn’t helpful however is that this passage and passages like it have been the subject of much speculation and interpretation. People speculating about what will happen in the future. People  taking the events of their time and squeezing them into the apocalyptic passages and images in the bible. I was a mature student at Otago University in 2001. On September 12^th , for us in New Zealand, as everyone round the world watched two planes crash into the twin towers in New York, a friend of mine at university, an animal rights activist actually, came looking for me. He wasn’t a Christian but he wanted to Know if the Bible talked about such a sign happening? Was this unprecedented event the sign of a coming apocalypse? Id the Bible like that?

It’s also not helpful that a whole industry has grown up around various interpretations of these kinds of passages. Tim LeHaye’s very lucrative ‘left behind’ series of novels and films is the best known example. Evangelists have used these kinds of things to scare people into faith.

It’s not helpful that how these passages are to be interpreted, how we think about eschatology, the study of the last days, has split the church at various times in its history. You can’ t talk about these things without coming up against someones pet theory.

What is helpful is a comment from bible scholar Daryll Bock that the passages in scripture about the coming of the kingdom of God are designed not so we can prepare charts, about what is going to happen, but to prepare our hearts to face whatever is going to happen. It is not about knowing when the last day will be but faithfully following Jesus in these last days, no matter how long they last. The time between the Kingdoms inauguration in the coming of Jesus and its consummation with the Coming of Jesus again. 

The Pharisees ask Jesus when the Kingdom of God will come? The Pharisees had a very definite idea of what they meant when they talked of the Kingdom of God. They had studied the scriptures of the Old Testament and their desires and aspirations where shaped by what they read of God restoring Israel as an independent nation, a world power. It meant the overthrowing of the Roman empire that occupied Israel.  They were one of several political religious groups in Jesus day. The zealots were another group, they believed in direct action against the Romans, But the Pharisees believed if they differentiated themselves as God’s people by keeping the law, being pure, that God would send them a messiah to establish this kingdom.

Jesus reply was that the kingdom of God was not quantifiable like that. It wasn’t a place or a time that you could say here it is or there is it. It wasn’t going to be a definable political physical entity.

And the reason for that was that ‘the Kingdom of God was in their midst…’ The Pharisees were looking for God’s reign in this world and they were missing the very fact that God’s messiah, was right there in front of them. When you ask what is the kingdom of God like, the answer has to be, it is like Christ… it is where the poor, both spiritual and physical, receive good news, the broken hearted healing, the blind receive sight, the prisoners and the oppressed are set free.  It is where the acceptable year of the Lord is declared, that refers of course to the year of jubilee in Leviticus 25, which talks of a time when debts will be cancelled and land and wealth justly redistributed.

Jesus turns and speak to his own disciples as well, there was the same expectation amongst them, that Jesus journey to Jerusalem was going to end in him being recognised as the messiah and made king. You can see that sort of thinking in places like  Matthew’s gospel where John and James Mother asks Jesus if her boys can be in the cabinet when Jesus comes into his kingdom. Not only that but in the early church that Luke was writing to there was an expectation that with Jesus death and his resurrection that Christ would return very soon and people were becoming disheartened because it was not happening. Jesus corrects this thinking.

He talks of a longing to see the “the days of the Son of Man” but not seeing them. As the Pharisees had missed seeing Jesus as the messiah in their midst, the disciples also might miss the days of the son of man because they didn’t recognise what God was doing in Jesus Christ. Jesus would have to suffer and be rejected by this generation. The kingdom of God was not going to be established by political will or military might, but by the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ for the world. The Kingdom of God was not going to be this political military victory rather it would come into being through the sacrificial love of God’s chosen king, Jesus, and his disciples following his example. Because of that there is temptation to be lead astray to false messiahs. Maybe like the Pharisees it would be this political expression or hopes or that specific time and place, and we are very good at doing that aren’t we, “those were the days” or this religious figure or strong leader. The reality is that they would not miss the coming day of the son of man, because it would be like lightening in the sky, they will know it when they see it. It will be universal and unmissable.

Jesus goes on to talk of his coming being like in the day of Noah and Lot in the book of Genesis, both examples of God’s judgment. The flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Jesus is preparing his disciples to face difficulties in their future epoch changing events, many scholars point to Jesus talking about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD by the Romans, the Pharisees thought they were going to defeat the Romans but the reality was the opposite and the followers of Jesus had to be ready for this.  They were unexpected events that happened suddenly…And like those times things will carry on as normal right up until the end. Eating and drinking, births and marriages, business as usual, and they needed to have a ready steady faith now and that would see them through.

Jesus is warning them that the day when the son of man is revealed will be like that. That when it comes there will be no time to go down and get your possessions it will be swift and sudden. He warns them about Lots wife who when fleeing from Sodom and Gomorrah stops and looks back longing for the things she has left behind and finds herself get caught up in God’s judgment. He tells them if they want to hold on to their lives they will lose it. This is the central warning and teaching for Jesus disciples, that they are not to be caught up in the things of this world, when the day of the son of man comes they will be caught looking backwards. They will be torn between the things of this world and the things of the Kingdom of God.   The time to make a choice about what you will do is

Jesus goes on to talk of a series of people going about everyday life and one will be taken and one left behind. Know this has often been a passage that is referenced by people when they talk about what is called the rapture. The idea that there will come a time when Jesus followers will be taken up to be with him. This is the left behind bit… right… Different understanding of eschatology argue over when this would be… some say it is before there is a time of tribulation others say after. But I actually think they’ve missed what is being said here when they do that.

F

irstly Jesus is speaking in a very Jewish way. The important bit is in the middle of Jesus paragraph here the warning about holding on to life and losing it and on either side of that are two passages which are saying the same thing in a different way. Before the warning it is that there will be not time to go back to get anything. This week in Christchurch and Australia this has been made very real for us with people being told to flee as wild fire had drawn close to their houses, and we’ve seen the distress of not being able to go and grab anything if they were to get to safety.  The second section says that it will come so suddenly that people will be going about their business and one will be taken and the other will be spread. I understand it because of the way a school acquaintance of mine was killed. He was in a motor vehicle which was hit by a bolder that came down the mountainside. He was in the passenger seat and was killed instantly while his mate right next to him survived without a scratch.

The warning from Jesus is to live ready, in the long haul in the midst of the mundaness of life to have a ready and steady faith, to live faithfully in light of our future hope.

How does that work out in our lives.

We are always tempted to see the kingdom of God associated with the victory of our way of thinking and living in the world, but the Kingdom of God is in our midst, in the form of Jesus, present physically like he was with his first disciples, or with us by his spirit, the Kingdom of God looks like Jesus, God’s son. Sadly we can think the kingdom of God is like the empire, or the Pharisees, we can equate it with a way of thinking or a political expression or political structure and get lead astray. Christian Europe is a good example of that, what we call Christendom, when people thought Christianity had conquered the known world, but there was need for reform and renewal and even revolution. Like with Francis of Assisi, whose renewed knowing of Jesus lead him away from the power structures of his day to live with and serve the poor. To look like Jesus…The reformation, Martin Luther’s reiteration of the grace of God in light of the churches excesses of selling indulgences to build a cathedral. To look like Jesus.  Today when Christians identify with the political agendas of either the conservative right and the progressive left, and equate hem with the Kingdom of God there is a need to be reminded that the Kingdom of God is neither but looks like Jesus and we need the renewal and reform that goes with that.

Secondly, Jesus teaching here points us to the fact that God’s purposes and plans are being worked out in human history. History is not just moving inevitably on ad infinitum, but God is working out his plans and that will come to fulfillment. We are called to live in these days in the light of that day. How we live our priorities, our vision are to be shaped by the Kingdom of God established in Jesus Christ and awaiting its consummation.

 The times when the church has lost the understanding of Eschatology in its true sense; not an idol curiosity about the future, but a trust that God is working out his purposes in the world, has been the time when the church has simply fallen asleep. When it has become an institution, simply holding on to past gains. It has lost its life because it has been afraid to lose that. When it has been aware of the presence of God with it and the call of God to be about its master’s purpose and plan for salvation, personal and on a societal level it has been a movement with the vitality and vision that allow it to face both suffering and tragedy, and the mind numbing sameness and challenges of everyday life.

The civil rights movement in America in the 1960’s is a great illustration. One of it’s catch cries was “keep your eyes on the prize”. Keep your eyes on the prize”. For them it was a very Kingdom of God vision of equality and justice and receiving the rights they were promised under the constitution of the United States, that kept them going, kept them persevering under opposition and oppression, that meant when they were met with violence they could take it and not be put off. But it was a saying that came from an old gospel spiritual, keep your eyes on the prize and keep your hand to the plough. It summarised the words of Hebrews 12 let us throw off everything that would hold us back, every sin that would bind and let us run the race set before us, with our eyes fixed firmly on Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

Lastly, How do we face the uncertain times, the times when it feel likes it the end of the world … It is with a ready steady faith that seek to put the presence of the Kingdom of God with us  a priority in our life…I’m drawn back to the image on the screen, because when I see it I can’t help but thing of the Irish monks in the navigato of St Brendan, one of the most ancient European pieces of literature. Who knelt to pray on the shore of their beloved land and then were willing to venture out onto the wild waves and uncertainty of time and seemingly at the mercy of tides and currents, storms and lulls the in search of the Kingdom of God. The image behind me is not some far off Irish coastal scene by the way it was taken at Ambury farm Park, it’s the moody Manukau, its right in the middle of suburban Auckland, I had to frame the shot to not get all those houses up in Hillsborough in frame, if you turn round from here you can see One tree Hill and the High Rises of the City. That is where we are called to set sail, with a ready steady faith, on the adventure of seeking the kingdom of God,  trusting Jesus is in the boat with us.

Your faith has made you well (Luke 17:11-19)

Sometimes it hard to talk about healing.

Most of us have had to deal with situations where we have lost a loved one, having watched them battle disease, suffer and die. And when we’ve prayed we’ve felt as if heaven’s door were closed shut, God had gone home, taken the phone off the hook, put his feet up in front of the TV and dozed off. I know  some of you are facing those kinds of issues today… and Large chunks of the Wisdom literature in the Old Testament wrestles with this, wrestle with why do the innocent suffer? Wrestle with Where is God in the face of evil?

We’ve been put off by the over the top excesses of the shaman, the showman and the salesmen, the faith healers and the snake oil salesmen. It’s so tied up with the call to donate, and in the face of people not getting healed that abusive lie… ‘You just didn’t have enough faith”.

In God’s providence we live in the wonderful age of the wonders of science and medicine, able to help and cure so many, and to talk of praying for healing is relegated to the level of quackery and the lunatic fringe. Even in the growing ranks of alternative medicine, it’s kind of pushed to the back of the shelf.

In the Passage we are looking at today Jesus encounters and heals ten lepers, only one of whom come back and receives not only healing; is made clean, but receives Wellness and wholeness at the feet of Jesus. It’s a passage that talks of faith and healing, the compassion of God and healing, gratitude and worship in response to God’s over the top lavish grace. So while it’s hard to talk about healing that’s what we are going to talk about today.

We are working our way through Luke’s account of Jesus journey to Jerusalem, a journey that takes up the central third of the gospel narrative and a narrative that focuses on Jesus teaching his disciples about what it means to follow him.  The passage we are looking at today is the fourth of five miracles stories in that narrative. It acts as the start of a new section in Jesus journey. We’ve just been looking at a large section of teaching which seems to have taken place at the house of a Pharisee and now we see Jesus moving on. He is following the pilgrim trail from Galilee to Jerusalem, which means making a detour round Samaria. The encounters we have with Jesus now focus on people’ responses. These encounters and these Responses show how we too should respond to Jesus.

Let’s have a look at the passage today

Jesus comes into a village, and ten men who had leprosy meet him. For us this might seem a strange occurrence but in Jesus day this would be common place. People with skin diseases, probably not the modern disease we call leprosy,  were ostracized from the community, they had to live outside and away from people, there were stringent rules and regulations about keeping a distance from others, of warning people of their approach. These men keep the law concerning such diseases, by staying a distance from Jesus.

They call out across that distance to Jesus, ”Jesus, master, have mercy”. They humbly call out in the hope that Jesus might be able to help them.  It’s not a demand it is hoping that Jesus will be compassionate. They do it because they had heard of the things that Jesus had been doing. They had heard his teaching about kindness and compassion to the outcast, the little ones, the beggar at the gate. Maybe they were simply expecting a hand out, alms from a righteous and generous person. Maybe hope against hope that they may receive something more from Jesus. In Acts 3 Peter and John are going to the temple to pray and they are confronted by a lame beggar who asks for help, and Peter and John don’t have anything to give them but they pray for him and he is healed. It is a good example of how we come to Jesus in times of trouble and in need for healing. We come Humbly, no demanding. We come with faith because of what we know of Jesus; trusting in his compassion.

Jesus shows them compassion. He says “go and show yourselves to the priests”. In the Old testament law the priests acted as health professionals, if you had one of the skin diseases that made you unclean they would diagnose and proclaim that. If you got better, they were the ones who checked it out and provided the processes by which you could be acknowledged as clean again and reconciled to the community.  

Luke tells us it is only as the men go on their way that they find that they are healed. This is where faith had come into the picture. Faith in Luke’s gospel is hearing Jesus word and Obeying it. In the Old Testament Naaman is a Syrian general who has leprosy and who is told by a Jewish slave girl that there is a prophet, Elisha in Israel who can cure him. When he goes to Elisha he is told to go and wash himself seven times in the Jordan river, he gets upset about that, it’s not a mighty river like the ones back home, But he does it and it is in this obedience putting his faith into action that he is made well.

I’ve heard people say I believe God has healed me so I don’t need to go to the doctor, I don’t need to carry on with my treatment. But often faith in Jesus is being willing to go and do the things we need to do to be declared well again. Go to the doctor, if we are healed on the way, it is confirmed, if we must go through treatment, well we have faith that God is with us and moving through that process. Both are acts of faith.

We can think faith is this big thing, this supernatural strength to believe, if I just believe enough, but in this passage it is simply to trust Jesus words.

One of the ten when he sees he has been made clean again, responds by coming back praising God, and falling at Jesus feet thanking him.  All ten were made clean, healed of leprosy, but this one man during the spiritual experience recognizes who Jesus is and comes back to acknowledge that. This is a salvation moment for him. Not only is he made clean and able to reconciled with his community, but enters the Kingdom of God.

It’s interesting that in Jesus response to this we find out that the man was a Samaritan, so for the Jews not only was he unclean because of his skin disease he was an outsider because of his nationality. Jesus points this out, the implication is that this group of men would have been a diverse group, Jew and Samaritan. It affirms the kingdom of God is for all who will put their trust in God. It shows the compassion of God is for all people. Even those we might deem far away.

Remember the Samaritan were of mixed heritage and they believed you worshipped God at a different place than the Jews. But he is the one who recognizes, God present in Jesus. Jesus response signifies a different level of healing for this man. He can rise and Go because he has been made well or whole. Not only cleansed of leprosy, not only able to reconciled with his community again, but reconciled with God through his belief in Jesus Christ.  It is that faith in Jesus, that has meant he has wholeness wellness in his life.

We often think of healing as being a physical process. But in Christ there are different kinds of healing.

Yes there is physical healing. God can and does heal and make clean. It is based on the compassion and the love of God.  We humbly come to God and ask for mercy. God will and does respond.

It maybe, in that physical healing but he answers that prayer in other ways as well. The courage to face medical procedures, coming to the place of knowing God’s peace and presence in the midst of the upheaval, and the emotional and physical roller coaster of illness. I’ve mentioned it  several times before but Walter Breuggemann identifies a process in the book of Psalms. He says there are psalms of orientation, when everything is rosy and wonderful, the happy clappys which are great expressions of praise to God. Then he sees the psalms of disorientation, when it all goes pear shaped. Like you’ve gone out to the wild west coast and find yourself caught up by wave after crashing wave, spinning round now knowing which way is up, and trying to hold your breath… and where is God in the midst of the white water and the boom crash of Wave after wave? Then he detects another  type of psalm the psalms of reorientation, where people come to a place of peace and calm, where in the midst of all that is going on, even in the face of sorrow and suffering they become aware of god’s abiding presence and peace. Sometime they are healed and other times they can face everything knowing God’s immanence and sovereignty.

It may sound rather callous, or pie in the sky when you die, opiate for the masses, but death is also a form of healing. It is an end to suffering and pain, a going to be with Christ.  A couple of weeks ago we looked at   the parable of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16… Jesus paints the picture of Lazarus in heaven in Abraham’s bosom, all his suffering and sorrow behind him. Through deprivation, homelessness, illness and the shame of being a beggar he had kept his faith in God and now he finds himself, with God, consoled and cared for.  The passage I often preach on at funerals is John 14 where Jesus says In my father’s house there are many rooms and I go to prepare a place for you.. and I come back so you will be where I am. In the book Philippians, which we will be looking at later this year, Paul in chains and facing possible death says ‘to live is Christ, to die is gain.’ It still leaves us here to deal with the grief with unanswered questions with loneliness that someone is not with us anymore. But it is the gospel hope.

The passage in Luke also points to healing as reconciliation and welcoming back. Healing relationship and community. Jesus heals the lepers but also makes it possible for them to be reconciled with their community, by going through the legal and religious processes set out in the Old Testament. We see this time and time again Jesus reconciling people he has healed or forgiven, to the people of God. The women who touched the corner of Jesus garment is reconciled to her community by Jesus asking her to tell what she had done and his affirmation that her faith has made her well.

Forgiveness of sin brings the same healing. In our devotions at the Maungarei Ministers Association on Thursday, Russel Grainger from Mt wellington community Church, shared the story of Tarore and her gospel of Luke.  She and her father the chief Nagkuku had become followers of Jesus. Tarore  was killed while on a trip to the bay of plenty, by a raiding party from Te Awa tribe and her gospel of Luke which she carried in a Kiti around her neck as a treasured possession was taken by the leader of that raiding band Uita. He had hoped it was valuable but when he saw it was a book didn’t know what to do with it as he couldn’t read. At Tarore’s funeral Ngakuku because of his new-found faith had preached against taking Utu, revenge for the death and mana the tribe had lost. Utu was expected but he spoke against it. Meanwhile a slave called Ripahau offered to read the gospel of Luke Uita and his people. Uita became a follower of Jesus and was convicted of his sin of killing Tarore and knew he had to go and ask forgiveness, even if it meant death. When he came to Ngakuku he confessed his sin and asked for forgiveness and the two knelt together in prayer. It was timely reminded of the healing power of Jesus love just after Waitangi Day. How Jesus can bring healing and wholeness between people.

The last type of healing in this story is salvation. The Samaritan came back to Jesus and recognizes who he is and so is reconciled with God. This is not just being made clean but Jesus proclaims him well, whole healed. Free from his illness, able to be reconciled with his people and reconciled with God and welcomed into the kingdom of God. The Jewish word for peace means wholeness, right relationships, this starts with that relationship with God through Jesus Christ… the hope of healing and wholeness in our life and world.

He is the example for us of how to respond to God grace, with faith, he did what Jesus had told him to do, with gratitude and thanks. The nine who didn’t return show us how often we take God’s graciousness for granted, and how we can encounter Jesus compassion but it may not change our hearts. But the Samaritan calls us to with thanksgiving and worship  acknowledge Jesus as God’s son and our saviour.

So today I want to invite you to hear this passage in your life.

Hear Jesus desire to show compassion and love and speak healing into our lives. As we call out to him ‘have Jesus, Lord, have mercy.

Hear Jesus words ‘Rise and Go, your faith has made you well”, as an  affirmation of our salvation as we affirm our faith in him and give him thanks for what he has done for us.

Hear them as life affirming, that we can go through life trusting in Jesus presence peace and strength, as we hear Jesus words and obey them. 

A portion of this message comes from a shorter reflection a few week back called... four types of healing.

It would be easy to ... but we chose the narrow upward way ( a prayer of thanksgivng and confession ( a lament really) based on Psalm 18)

I'm using the Bible in one year app for my daily devotions again this year. Systematically working my way through the bible with a reading from  Psalms (or Proverbs) the New Testament and Old Testament (other than the psalms) each day, with a reflection on each by Nicky and Pippa Gumble.

My plan is to use the Psalm I read on the day I write a prayer for Sunday as the inspiration for that prayer.

  This week we've been working our way through Psalm 18, a royal psalm where King David talks of God as his shield and rock, his strong tower, the reason that as king he has been able to subdue his enemies and extend his kingdom... while I found myself identifying with David's trust and hope in God and found his victory encouraging I couldn't help feel like I wasn't quite there... I was still in the fight, wrestling with the dark. But I still wanted to affirm with David 'the Lord lives! I still wanted to say in the face of the stuff that would try and bring me down 'Praise be to my Rock!' I still wanted to say Exalted be God my saviour!' these things are true in the battle as well as in 'victory won'.

I may not use it on Sunday I've got a few days to think about it... But I offer this lament and prayer of hope and faith.  The refrain in Bold comes from Psalm 18 v 46 I will invite the congregation to declare their faith in and praise of God by saying it.

feel free to use any or all of it, if you find it helpful...

It would be easy to focus on the night

To give in to the dark as it drapes over us;

Oppression like a blanket, sorrow like a shroud  

It would be easy to forget about the dawn

To lose hope in the once come and coming light

The Lord lives! Praise be to my Rock!
    Exalted be God my Saviour!

It would be easy to get lost in the fight

To give in to the struggles that assail our heart

All those things that have declared war on our faith and love

It would be easy to submit to this sense of powerlessness

To forget the presence of the one who is our shield and might.

The Lord lives! Praise be to my Rock!
    Exalted be God my Saviour!

It would be easy to be bound up in sin

To give in to the weight of brokenness and shame

All the things that we have done, that we know we ought not

All those good things we ought, that we have left undone

To forget the one who by his blood gave freedom and invited us in

The Lord lives! Praise be to my Rock!
    Exalted be God my Saviour!

But we will not give in; we take the narrow upward way

We will give praise to God for God’s great grace in Jesus Christ

We confess our sin and know God’s forgiveness flow

Filled afresh with Spirit’s help, we set our face to keep his ways

we pursue justice and peace and proclaim his name today

The Lord lives! Praise be to my Rock!
    Exalted be God my Saviour!