Sermons

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

So if you’ve ever heard a sermon on this Gospel text before, including from my mouth, it’s probably been about gratitude and how the Samaritan was able to show it because he was an outcast among the outcasts, and all of that is good and true, but you might have heard it a dozen times before. So I want to talk about leprosy instead. But first, I want to talk about that most exciting of all topics, bible translation.

I was recently talking to somebody about the fact that one can no longer access the New Revised Standard Version of the bible online, as it has everywhere been replaced by the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. This rarely affects me, because in this parish I have us using either the Revised Standard Version or the Authorized (or King James) Version, since I find them almost invariably superior translations, both in terms of aesthetics and, at least as regards the former, accuracy. So when Deborah or I need to cut-and-paste readings into bulletins, it’s easy to do.

I recently needed to do this procedure with the NRSV, though, as I was putting together a bulletin for a diocesan function, and though this is only one of several canonically approved translations for use in our church (the Updated Edition is not yet), its use as the “standard” has become almost ubiquitous, and I didn’t want to have to justify my curmudgeonly idiosyncrasy to somebody “triggered” at hearing the word “brethren” instead of “brothers and sisters.” Anyway, this meant I could not cut and paste, I just had to type it out. It only required five minutes to do, but it was galling, since nobody would have complained if I’d just used the Updated Edition despite the fact that I would thereby technically be breaking church law. I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that the majority of parishes who put the readings into their bulletins instead of paying for lectionary inserts (which is a thing) are inadvertently breaking canon law, but I suppose it would not be wise for me to start bringing people up on charges in the ecclesiastical court.

I mention all this because I had a suspicion about how this week’s Gospel would be rendered in the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition, and this suspicion was immediately confirmed. As of four years ago, the NRSVUE having been completed in 2021, Jesus no longer heals ten lepers. He heals ten people suffering from skin diseases. Now, my ill-humored whinging aside, this may technically be more correct. We don’t know if these ten people suffered from Hansen’s Disease (proper leprosy) or from common acne or from something in-between. We don’t know if what they had was so communicable that society was at least partially justified in discouraging close contact with them or not. We all experienced in recent years just how complicated and difficult it is to humanely balance public health and the need for human connection, so we’d better be really circumspect before we start judging an ancient society who didn’t even have the germ theory of disease for how they dealt with these things.

In all events, this is an instance, I think, of a translation which may be more technically accurate but less helpful. “John suffers from a skin disease” evokes sympathy. “John is a leper” might evoke fear or disgust. Set the moral content of that reaction aside for a moment and you’ll be in the mindset of an ordinary, healthy first century person who’d rather avoid a similar fate. That ordinary, healthy first century person, no matter how naturally kind and empathetic, would need to really stretch his empathy muscles to see “person suffering from skin disease.” His immediate reaction would be: “Danger. Lepers.”

Now, set your Christian faith and worldview aside for just a moment (don’t worry, you’ll pick it back up in just a few minutes). Set aside for just a moment your knowledge that God not only loves the most unlovely but touches the untouchable. These lepers are now not just dangerous. They are ritually unclean. They are forsaken by God, who does not visit them, and—excepting the possibility of an honest-to-God miracle like the one experienced by Naaman the Syrian in this morning’s Old Testament lesson—they always will be.

This is an exceedingly controversial thing to admit in our age of interfaith understanding but I already kicked the hornet’s nest when talking about bible translations, so why not. I’m increasingly convinced that insofar as those phenomena we tend to lump together and call “religion” outside our Judeo-Christian inheritance came into being, they came into being from a concern with safeguarding purity by constructing barriers between ourselves and “dirt” in every sense of that word. I say “phenomena we tend to lump together and call ‘religion’” in the opposite sense from the way some evangelicals tend to claim Christianity is not a religion. I mean to say (and this is the really controversial thing, probably the most controversial thing I can be accused of believing) that Christianity and Judaism are religions proper, that some sects and heretical movements have religious elements insofar as they have taken them on from either a Judeo-Christian past or at least an interaction with religion proper, and these other anthropological phenomena are not religious per se and were mostly thus categorized because nineteenth century anthropologists didn’t know what to do with them. It’s controversial not just because it implies that religious studies departments shouldn’t exist and comparative religion courses shouldn’t be taught (because you’re only left with theology and two religions to compare), but because it makes people awfully angry when you say you believe Christianity is true and other worldviews are false, which is basically what I believe. You can’t bring me up on canonical charges for that one, but you could get me ratioed on Twitter if I were on it.

Anyway, all of this is to say that we have a preternatural drive to protect ourselves from all that we find potentially polluting, and so strong is this drive that we’ve developed our most complex socio-cultural norms around avoiding “taboo.” I pulled out my copy of Mary Douglas’ Purity and Danger which is not only the most important analysis of this phenomenon, but also one of the most important works of anthropology ever written, and found in her preface to the 2002 edition (the book was originally published in 1966) admitted one retraction, which might sound minor, but it essentially covered an entire chapter, in which she dealt with the dietary codes found in Leviticus. Just as her forebears had projected Western Judeo-Christian assumptions onto African and Asian tribal cultural norms a century before, Douglas made the same mistake the other way round. She made the natural mistake of assuming the uncleanness of certain animals to pertain to their unsuitability as safe and healthy food rather than as a function of the elaborate relationship between God and Israel and the relative suitability of animals as sacrificial offerings based on parallels between God and the covenant people. To say more gets us too far afield, but it is one more bit of evidence for the distinction between God-given religion and the enforcement of taboo prohibitions.

Now, one danger to my admittedly religiously exclusivist position is that we might get the idea that being a practitioner of “true religion” exempts us from the danger of erecting dividing walls for the sake of maintaining purity. Just looking at our track record should be enough to disprove this assumption. Despite Christianity having no purity code as such (all things are lawful, even if not beneficial) we too often translate our natural fear of “dirt” to other things and justify exclusion which amounts to a fear of “moral contagion.”

In any event, we need to focus on what Jesus does when approached by the lepers. Normal, healthy, pre-Christian purity minded man would understandably shout “stay back” for all the reasons already stated. Knowing what we do about loving, fearless Jesus, we might expect him to do exactly the opposite–walk up, touch them, heal them on the spot. But he doesn’t do that. He says “go, show yourselves to the priests.” This is precisely what they’re not supposed to do. Yet, inexplicably, they obey. All ten of them, not just the one Samaritan leper have the mustard seed of faith that we heard Jesus tell the apostles they needed. We heard that last week, but the Apostles might have heard it about five minutes before the lepers came into sight, and their faith would have shamed them for their lack of the same. So all ten did well, even if one did better. In one command, in four little Greek words as a matter of fact, Jesus bid these roaming outcasts to show that their faith was greater than the apostles and the whole system of purity keeping. He told them, in a sense go break the purported religious law on what looks like a rather grand scale, while my scrupulosity wouldn’t allow me to bend one about bible translations (in my defense, I hope I would have done if Jesus appeared to me and told me to, but I don’t know for sure).

And yes, the one who returned may have been more grateful, but what else? The priests wouldn’t have seen him if he showed up in Jerusalem at the temple. He was ritually outcast by virtue of not being a “real Jew”, only a Jewish-adjacent Samaritan.

I don’t do sports metaphors, but I’m going to try one for the first time today. Ten football players with torn ACLs were hobbling by the roadside, and one was a Michigan Wolverine. They all cry, have mercy on us! And Jesus says, go present yourselves to the athletic trainer at Ohio Stadium and coach will put you back in the game to play for the Buckeyes this Saturday. Nine did as they were told, and the Wolverine had nowhere else to go. Maybe he could have hitch-hiked all the way up to Ann Arbor or Mt. Gerizim, but he found a new team with a better coach.

You see, the nine had enough faith to see Jesus and recognize him as Lord and Master. They were rewarded because they did just as he had told them. That’s good. One took it a step further. He realized then and there that this was God and he had changed everything, not just his life. And so he took the better part, just as Mary had done better than Martha, as nice as Martha’s efforts and intentions might have been. It was meet, right, and the bounden duty of those nine to go get checked out and to make the appointed sacrifices of thanksgiving. But it’s also a good idea to go right to the source of health and salvation and say “thank you” from the heart. Then those sacrifices will be truly acceptable and pleasing to God, as they will be an act of spiritual worship.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

One of the uncomfortable things about our tradition of Christianity (particularly for the preacher, who must try not to lead others into error) is that our peculiar place between Roman Catholicism and Reformed Protestantism means that some rather important doctrinal matters have been very carefully nuanced. Maybe the most famous of these is found in our catechism–which I encourage you to read through from time to time; it starts on page 844 of our Book of Common Prayer. Anyway, some of you know that one distinction between Roman Catholicism and most Protestant churches pertains to the number of sacraments–Sacraments being those objective means of Grace, performed by the church’s ministers (though some more evangelical protestants would disagree with that definition). For Roman Catholics there are seven and for most Protestants there are two.

So how about us? Well in one place, the catechism states that there are “two great sacraments given by Christ to his Church”, those being Holy Baptism and the Holy Eucharist. Then a few pages later five other “sacramental rites which evolved in the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit”–confirmation, ordination, holy matrimony, reconciliation of a penitent, and unction–that they are, indeed, means of grace, but that “they are not necessary for all persons in the same way that Baptism and Eucharist are.” There has since the Sixteenth Century been a concerted effort to have a broad enough church for those of both more Catholic and more Reformed sensibilities to be able to conscientiously be a part of the church, and I think this threads the needle quite nicely.

All of that is just to set the stage for an issue of doctrine which is even thornier, and which one has to do a bit of digging to find something like a satisfying answer as to what the church teaches–namely, the nature and effects of faith. Probably the closest we can get to an official stance is found in the 39 Articles of Religion, finalized in the Church of England in 1571 and confirmed by the Episcopal Church at its General Convention of 1801. (Here is some more homework for you- because the Articles are also in your prayerbooks, beginning on page 867.) In the eleventh article, it says that the Reformation doctrine of justification by faith alone is “a most wholesome Doctrine, and very full of comfort.” Then the very next article says that good works “do spring out necessarily of a true and lively faith.” This suggests two things as I read it. First, that there is what a philosopher would call logical implication (a relationship of necessity) between faith and morals. Second, and more to the point of what I’m building up to, that faith is to be understood as something more than simply believing a claim for which we don’t have evidence.

I said at the outset that our church’s carefully staked-out middle-ground theological territory sometimes makes it difficult for the preacher. I should have said, it makes it difficult for me, and as recently as last week’s sermon you might have noticed me trying to balance on that razor’s edge of saying both that, on the one hand, we cannot earn our own salvation by being good but, on the other hand, God expects us to grow in virtue and not doing so has consequences.

I think it comes down to understanding faith in the fullest sense of its meaning in scripture, as it was carefully summarized in articles eleven and twelve, and as we see it borne out in both the Old Testament lesson and Gospel appointed for today.

We don’t hear too often from the Book of the Prophet Habakkuk, but we should pay it more attention, because it is generally regarded as the basis off of which the Apostle Paul developed, thanks to Divine Inspiration, his own rather nuanced view of the nature of faith. It’s important to the arguments found in Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews. Paul rather explicitly casts himself as a sort of “new Habakkuk” in his sermon in Antioch in the thirteenth chapter of Acts.

In any event, central to both Paul’s project and our own understanding is that last half verse of today’s Old Testament lesson: but the righteous shall live by faith. The Hebrew reads “vetzaddik yichyeh beemunatov”–the just shall live by firmness or steadfastness or fidelity. We might have already guessed that to live by something, suggests that that something must be more than mere, tepid cognitive assent. Understanding that the word itself, translated for us as faith, means something like firmness or steadfastness makes the point clearer.

Likewise, the disciples’ desire that the Lord should increase their faith in today’s Gospel suggests that it is something more than believing a proposition. It could, of course, mean something like “make our certainty about this proposition’s truth stronger.” When we look to the Greek, however, we get something closer to the Hebrew of Habbakuk: Πρόθες ἡμῖν πίστιν–add to our faithfulness or trust.

Now, two things: first, this more active way of understanding faith presupposes that one believes certain propositions. Perhaps that’s obvious, but a full-blown postmodernist philosopher might quibble with this assumption. So we take it as a given that saying something like “I steadfastly trust in the resurrection of the dead” logically requires one to believe the resurrection is a true fact. Second, it is important that we recognize that it is not our active faithfulness which justifies us. Nor for that matter would our mere, tepid cognitive assent do if that were all faith meant. It is the action of God which does it all; we’re talking here of acceptance of God’s saving plan rather than our personal agency in that plan.

All of this is important, because it suggests that we are saying something more substantive than “I accede to the truth value of this proposition.” We’re saying, I put every bit of my trust in this truth and it changes how I live my life. In a few moments we will, as we do every Sunday, recite the Nicene Creed. I’ve heard it said, in jest, that the reason they moved the Creed from its traditional place immediately before to immediately after the Sermon in our current prayerbook was to correct the preacher if he had spouted any heresy from the pulpit. That is certainly a fringe benefit of the revision if nothing else.

In any event, it does give me the opportunity to suggest that this week, when we recite it, we might consider what it means if we are saying not just “I believe these propositions” but “I put my whole trust in them.” Indeed, I think this was the intention of the Fathers at Nicaea. It is obscured by the fact that our version is essentially a translation of a translation–We believe, translated and subsequently pluralized from the Latin Credo (I believe), itself translated from the Greek Πιστεύομεν (We have faith or trust or remain steadfast in).

Consider that, and consider how placing your trust wholly, steadfastly in our triune God, in the Incarnation, in the Resurrection, in the Communion of Saints, and in the hope of the life of the world to come might change your lives and the lives of those you love here and now.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

So last week I dodged the homiletical bullet and managed to not talk about money; we interpreted the parable of the unjust steward as pertaining to sin and forgiveness rather than financial wealth. I don’t get that chance this week, considering all of our readings deal with money and love of the same. I think I mentioned in this pulpit before a psychologist I once knew who claimed that all modern, western people suffered from five psychological complexes: mother, father, sex, death, and money. I don’t know whether this is true or not, but these are certainly topics we don’t like to think about too deeply or for too long, and we certainly don’t want to talk about them. Too bad we can’t avoid it this morning. Oh well.

Most of you have heard me say before, but it bears repeating, that the great spiritual danger of wealth is that it encourages the development of a false soteriology. That is to say that it gives us something we can convince ourselves will solve all our problems, including the problem of sin and death, other than the grace of God. In this way, I think the preferential option for the poor is less a moral judgment than it is an empirical fact. That it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven without God’s special, providential act is just the simple truth of the matter.

Here is the most disappointing news for those who have wealth, and it is something I hesitate to mention for what will become obvious reasons. Simply being beneficent isn’t going to cut it. We all may be ready to agree with the proposition “you cannot buy your way into heaven” in the abstract, but don’t some of us sort of believe it, anyhow? If only one gives enough to charity or to the church, if only one directs one’s philanthropy to effect the most good possible, cannot one be assured of pretty swanky digs in the hereafter? Well, no. Perhaps you can see why I don’t like to say this too loudly. If people think this way, they might be apt to be more generous, and that could solve a lot of real problems. But maintaining too much reserve in sharing this difficult news is even more dangerous, because we’re back to relying on ourselves, in this case our own outward generosity, rather than on God’s grace.

Note what Abraham did not say to Dives from across the great chasm fixed between heaven and hell. He did not say, “well you’d be here if only you gave ten percent or fifty percent or ninety percent of the good things you enjoyed in life to Lazarus.” Should he have done that? Of course. But not because he thought he would thereby merit salvation. That gets it the wrong way round. He should have done it, because he realized at the first that his wealth was never going to save him, that only God could do, that all his money was itself a gift of God (as are all things), that the purple and fine linen garments and sumptuous feasts were a veil which obscured his profound spiritual poverty.

You cannot buy salvation, but what about happiness. You also cannot buy happiness. This is a cliché, but I think it’s true without being a truism. At least it’s not a truism in English, in which we have too many definitions for “happiness”. You knew I was eventually going to go down a Greek rabbit-hole, right? Wealth either can procure or is itself the definition of ολβος or ευτυχια, and these words for happiness are close to the ideal sort of life in the non-philosophical Greco-Roman mythological worldview. Whether you can procure this yourself by a combination of hard work and bribing the pagan gods or if this is entirely dependent on however Fortuna’s wheel is spinning for you is a matter of debate.

This, however, is not what the New Testament means by happiness. Nor, by the way, is it what Aristotle talked about (in case you like ancient philosophy) or Aquinas (in case you’re a Thomist) or the Westminster Shorter Catechism (in case you are of a more Reformed bent). All these in one way or another claim that the goal of human life (in this world and the next) is happiness, and I would contend along with them—and contra Kant and the accepted orthodoxy of a large part of philosophical ethics over the last two centuries—that it is the aim of moral reasoning. But happiness in what sense?

There are two Greek terms to consider here: ευδαιμωνια and μακαριος. The former was the preferred term of the philosophers, but doesn’t appear in the New Testament (perhaps because it has the Greek word for demon right in the middle of it, though that is an oversimplification of the meaning in context). The latter is the term used throughout the New Testament, and it is a near synonym. In all events, this word for “happiness” is alternatively translated “blessedness” or “beatitude”, and it suggests something much deeper and permanent than cheerfulness or good fortune. It is, I’d say, the state of being at peace with God and the world, established in hope, and able to maintain trust in the almighty amidst all the changes and chances of life. This, I think, is the state of which St. Augustine famously said in which our restless souls find rest in God.

All that is sort of complicated, metaphysical stuff, which is where my theology-addled brain usually goes, so how do we make all this practical? Forgive me for one more Greek term: αυταρκεια. This is the word translated in our Epistle this morning as “contentment.” This was a favorite word of the stoic philosophers, but Paul uses it in a slightly different sense than they do. He gives us some very practical advice, here:

There is great gain in godliness with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of the world; but if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content.

The way to achieve this lofty spiritual state of Happiness [with a capital “H”] is simply to rely on God’s Grace and be satisfied with what you’ve got if you’ve got enough to survive.

What happens naturally after this simple commitment to the proposition “that’s enough” is amazing. We stop ignoring Lazarus at the gate; we actually help him out. We stop insulating ourselves from the problems around us, like those at ease in Amos’ Zion. Maybe we can contribute in some practical way to the grievous ruin of Joseph, or maybe all we can do is pray for God’s blessing on those in distress, but stuffing ourselves with lamb and veal and wine and napping on ivory beds wasn’t going to make us any happier in any event, only more deluded.

And here we have the great irony of the life of Christian virtue. Doing all these good works to justify ourselves isn’t going to get us one whit closer to God and salvation or happiness. But once we take that step of admitting our utter dependence upon God and commit to living with that being enough, a virtuous cycle kicks off. As St. Paul promises– we do good, we are rich in good deeds, we are generous. And as we practice these virtues we become more-and-more content and hopeful and happy; and doing these things becomes like second-nature, because it literally is–we’ve shed the nature of Adam and taken on the nature of Christ Jesus. And finally we may take hold of the life which is life indeed.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.