Memorial United Methodist Church

Memorial United Methodist Church
White Plains, New York 10605

The Lord works Justice for all the Oppressed

A Sermon by Rev. Stephen Parelli
Based on Luke 17:11-19
September 27, 2009 (Not edited or proofread)

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The Lord works Justice for all the Oppressed

Text: Luke 17:11-19, Ten Lepers Healed – One Returns to Give Thanks

This sermon was delivered September 27, 2009, in the 10:00 Sunday morning service of the Memorial United Methodist Church, White Plains, NY

by Steve Parelli, MDiv., Executive Director, Other Sheep (www.othersheep.org).

Rev. Joe Agne is the Minister

As a child in Sunday school, upon hearing Luke's account of the healing of the Ten Lepers, the lesson that was impressed upon us was this: always be grateful and remember to say "thank you."

And while that lesson is important, Luke's focus is not so much on the act of giving thanks, but on who the person was who gave the thanks. Luke is very careful to tell us that the leper who returned "was a Samaritan." And Jesus, even though he does ask "Were there not nine others who were healed?" is not emphasizing the ratio of one out of ten, but rather that the one who did return was a "foreigner." "No one returned, except this foreigner," Jesus says. The other nine are presumably all Jews.

Luke wants us to understand that Jesus is highlighting not what the leper did – return and give thanks – but who the leper was – a Samaritan, a Foreigner – an individual in society who was marginalized, not foremost for being a leper, but because of his people: he is a Samaritan, a foreigner.

The Samaritans proudly stated that they were descended from the Jewish patriarchs.

The Jews, however, gave no credence to the Samaritans' claim. Instead, the Samaritans were foreigners. They were Cutheans of the country of Cutha in Persia. The Assyrians, in the 8^th century BC, had removed the Cutheans to Samaria, establishing a Median-Persian colony (Jeremias 1969: p355). Any claim to "blood affinity with Judaism" by Samaritans, was scornfully put in check by Jews (Jeremias 1969: p355).

Because they were foreigners, they were treated as Gentiles. There were certain restrictions, much exclusion, and intermarriage was absolutely forbidden. The unleavened bread of a Samaritan could not be eaten by a Jew at Passover; to eat, at any time, of an animal slaughtered by a Samaritan was also forbidden on the grounds that the Samaritan may have directed his thoughts to an idol while killing the animal (Jeremias 1969: p356).

One hundred years after Christ, a Rabbi speaks of the Samaritans has "having no law nor even the remains of a law, therefore they are contemptible and corrupt" (Jeremias 1969: p358).

So, in John's gospel we have the Samaritan woman saying to Christ, "the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans" (John 4:9). One Bible scholar explains: As one descends down the social scale, at the lowest strata, are the Samaritans (Jeremias 1969: p352): After despised trades like tax collectors, after Jewish and Gentile slaves, after proselytes, freed gentile slaves, Israelites with serious blemishes like bastards, the fatherless and eunuchs. And after women. Samaritans are at the bottom of the social order (Jerimias 2006).

So, when Jesus says, ‘Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? ¹⁸Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’ (Luke 17:17, 18) he is setting the Samaritan as the standard, the model, the example, someone to imitate. For his Jewish listeners, this was contemptible, demeaning, and humiliating (Jerimias 2006: p358).

When Jesus stood before Pilot, he was charged with perverting the nation (Luke 23:2). As Mary Douglas notes, The Jews value system was habitually expressed in a given arrangement of things (Goss 2006: p540). Jesus had upset the given arrangement of things, bringing into question the validity of the value system.

Jesus' ruthless enemies – the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the priests – were strict adherents and keepers-of-the gate of the Levitical purity (or cleanliness) codes. Holiness and cleanliness were strongly linked (Goss 2006: p540).

Dirt is "matter out of place" (Goss 2006: p540). A dirty shirt is a shirt with some kind of matter on it that doesn't belong there. Milk, ketchup - these in themselves are not unclean; but when they come in contact with the shirt, the shirt is now unclean. The milk, the ketchup does not belong on the shirt. But there it is. Applied to society – to the body and to the people as a whole – purity is keeping bodily functions and people in place. The religious leaders were experts at keeping matter in its place.

Jesus on the other hand made it his practice to be out of place. He crossed the line in all of the following: tithing; washing of hands; proper preparation of meals; eating with suspect people; touching the unclean bodies of lepers; placing his hands on a corpse; coming into contact with menstruating women; allowing himself to be kissed by a sinful woman, and healing a crippled woman on the Sabbath (Goss 2006: p540).

How was this – things and people out of place - the coming of the Kingdom of God? Let me tell you how: In the words of William Barclay, the religious leaders of the day "narrowed the love of God until it included only themselves; Jesus widened the love of God until it reached out to all men" (Barclay 1961: p138) . . . the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, the blind, the bruised . . . As Jesus declared concerning himself in the synagogue at Nazareth: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel . . . to the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, the blind and the bruised" (Luke 4:18).

In the State of Vermont, when the courts were hearing arguments against gay marriage, one brief against the appeal said: "At stake in this debate is the very foundation of our social order" (Moats 2004: p128). Dirt: something out of place.

Justice John Dooley, responding to another like argument, said: "So what does that show other than how long-standing the alleged discrimination was?" (Moats 2004, p134)

In those words of Justice John Dooley you will find Jesus. How long-standing has there been this discrimination against those like this Samaritan? And if something must be out of place in order to demonstrate the inherent worth of this Samaritan, then live with the so-called "dirtiness."

Robert Goss tells us that "Jesus transgresses the social boundaries in order to create . . . the reign of God" (Goss 2006: p540).

The biblical scholar Halvor Moxnes uses the word 'queer' as the best term to characterize Jesus: "To use the term queer of Jesus describes the unsettling quality about him" (Goss 2006: p526).

Twelve years ago, in the church where I had been pastoring for ten years, I stood in the pulpit for the last time. As I preached I heard myself say within me, this is my last Sunday. And so it was. I quietly disappeared in the days that followed. I literally dropped out of sight without leaving behind even a letter of explanation. Gone – on the Dover train. In my heart I was nothing more than a Samaritan leper: twice an outcast: a leper; a Samaritan. You see, I am a man drawn physically and emotional to other men; puberty played a cruel trick on me: when my class mates were reveling in the joy of discovery, I was cowering in confusion and despair living with a sexual orientation I could not change or shake, and because I was "this way," society left me as poor, broken, bruised, a prisoner in my own body. My claims to a "faith in Christ" brought nothing but internalized scorn and shame – that is, if they were to know. I knew. And I knew what they would say about me. Dirty: out of place. Unnatural. Society over turned. Values and dignity lost. No hope; outcast; unclean.

After ten years to the month, for the first time since I had left the ministry as a self-declared gay Christian, I was privileged to give a homily in a Sunday morning service. My first time in the pulpit to preach a sermon in ten years.

The Jews had created a "God-honored" story about the Samaritans' origins to show that the Samaritans did not belong, that they must be excluded. In marginalizing a people group there must be a time-honored story that makes the targeted group less than. The story must be told again and again, from generation to generation. In the case of same-sex love, the story-of-origin is often grounded in the sacred text of Romans chapter one where the story-of-origin ends with "against nature."

In addition to stories-of-origin, a marginalized people must be marked by day-to-day ritualized actions.

The Samaritans were marked by certain religious restrictions which were practiced by the oppressive party, the Jews. Marginalized people are marked by discriminating actions that often become accepted ritual, and enshrined, by the oppressive majority, in civil laws and customs.

The incriminating story and the unquestioned rituals create a culture in which truth is little, if at all, recognized until someone, like Jesus, says "Who is this foreigner, who is this Samaritan, who returns to give thanks. Is he not – in contradiction to your inhuman stories-of-origin, your contemptible customs and your unholy rituals – every bit the same person as you; and is he not, in this case, one who stands as a shinning example to all of what is right and good in humankind.

And in doing so, Jesus stood with the Psalmist who wrote:

The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed (Ps. 103:6).

Let us stand with Jesus, to be named with him, and though all hell should break in upon us – let us work righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.

Amen.

Resources

Barclay, William, 1961, The Mind of Jesus, New York: Harper & Row.

Goss, Robert E., 2006, Luke, in: Deryn Guest, Rebert E. Goss, Mona West,

Thomas Bohache, editors, 2006, The Queer Bible Commentary, London: SCM Press.

Jeremias, Joachim, 1969, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus, London: SCM Press.

Moats, David, 2004, Civil Wars: A Battle for Gay Marriage, United States:

David Moats.