Sunday, October 10, 2010

Gauging the DEPTHS of of our FAITH


by Frank Savadera, SJ

In the story of the ten lepers, everyone was healed but only one came back to thank the Lord;  What learnings can we pick up from this very rich Gospel story?  

OUR UNCLEANNESS MAKES US STAND AT A DISTANCE FROM THE LORD. 

I think it was easiest for the lepers in our Gospel story to recognize their UNCLEANNESS.  Old societies made it easy for them to realize that they were different.  Simply, they were ostracized.  As a rule, in the olden times, lepers … those whom people of the ancient world thought of as UNCLEAN … stood … at least a few meters away from people they meet.  This explains why the lepers were shouting at the top of their voices: “Master, have pity on us!  Imagine if there was a big crowd that gathered, these lepers would need to stand farther and farther away from where our Lord was. And true as our story implied, the lepers were standing quite at a distance from our Lord who was passing by.  

What’s fascinating also about the lepers in our story is that despite their being outcasts … they’ve managed to establish a multi-racial community of their own.  Misery loves company!  Given normal circumstances, Jews would not wish to stay with Samaritans.  But there they were … Jews and Samaritans … all ten of them moving around as a pack or as one herd.  DISEASE KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES!  Whatever status you have in your life … there is such a thing as CANCER.  Rich or poor can contract DIABETES, HYPERTENSION, a FLU or a COMMON HEADACHE.  Disease knows no boundaries! 

Our bigger problem nowadays, I think is precisely how UNCLEANESS had become so comfortably SHARED by all. UNCLEANESS had become so ORDINARY … and thus not simply TOLERATED but in some cases even ALREADY ACCEPTED.   A kind of a SHARED LEPROSY or SHARED UNCLEANNESS is fast becoming a NORM.  What are the varieties of UNCLEANNESS that we notice around us?  Sometimes we do not even know anymore!   Can we begin with ourselves?  What area of personal UNCLEANNESS will we need to face up and eventually deal with?  We may wish to think about our own compulsions, our addictions, bad habits that are hard to break or biased perspectives that are difficult to overcome.   Misery loves company.  Disease knows no boundaries.  How do we recognize our own personal UNCLEANNESS?  How do we see ourselves much like the community of lepers in the story?  How do we stand so far away … at a far distance from God because of our own UNCLEANNESS?    

GOD GIVES! HE GIVES MORE THAN WHAT WE EXPECT HIM TO GIVE! There is such a thing as the UNMERITED FAVOR FROM GOD

Did the lepers know who Jesus Christ really was … when they were standing quite at a distance from Him?  Did they know that Jesus was God as we know so NOW!  The lepers called Jesus … EPISTATE or MASTER … a secular term which can most generically mean a “leader” or “an official” or “a teacher.”  Here we stress the word ‘secular.’  Standing at a distance from Jesus, we can perhaps say that the lepers didn’t quite know the Lord as Messiah, Jesus as Lord,  the Son of Man or the miracle worker or He who had raised people from the dead.  If they knew, they could have used a far more different term than the very ordinary EPISTATE or Master.  It seems that they didn’t even ask him for healing!  Curing them of an incurable disease seems beyond the capacity of a mere EPISTATE … an ordinary teacher.  The lepers didn’t even bother to ask Jesus that they be healed.   Jesus was simply EPISTATE to them.

What they said simply in a LOUD VOICE was:  Master, have pity on us!   Leprosy then was an incurable disease.  Who can cure it?   Definitely not an ordinary teacher as how they thought of Jesus!  They were asking not for healing but rather for whatever our Lord can give them … or whatever any passerby can give them … alms, food or whatever ... good enough only for their needs at that particular time.  “Master, have pity on us!” was simply a refrain to seek the attention of passersby.  They didn’t expect anything anymore other than a coin or two.  This was just a regular day for them.  They were all too familiar with begging.  They didn’t expect to be healed.  They were simply begging.  They only needed enough help to get them by the day. 

He doesn’t ask for healing for his blindness!  He doesn’t care to know about those who are passing by.  He was simply asking for the usual coin or two that can help him go through the day. Understandably, he would be happy enough to collect a few coins at the end of the day.  And this is how I think, the miracle came to be more meaningful.  The lepers didn’t expect to be healed.  But they were healed.  God gives!  And He gives more than what we expect Him to give.  What petty requests had we been asking our God about lately?  We know that they are simple requests because they also simply allow us to go on with our life each day.  How do we notice God giving us more … more than we expect to receive?
   
A CALL TO GAUGE THE DEPTH OF YOUR FAITH!  WHAT LEVEL ARE YOU IN YOUR FAITH IN GOD? 

There are varying levels of faith and belief in God.  And I think this Gospel shows us exactly what that means.  Check this out:  Jesus tells them: "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were cleansed.  Already … we can say … wow! MAGIC!  Jesus didn’t even touch them!  He just gave them an instruction.  They followed! And imagine this verse:  “As they went … or in the process of going to the house of the priests … slowly slowly … at every step they were discovering that each of them had been cleansed.  Their lesions dried up so suddenly. Can we imagine that?  As if they were looking at each other while walking and asking … Huy!  What has happened to you?  Is the sun extra bright today? Why is your complexion seemingly better and brighter?  And imagine this still … by the time they reached the doorstep of the priests’ household … they had complete knowledge of how they were freed from their physical infirmities.  They had been healed.  
We must credit the lepers for believing in Jesus and for following his instructions.  To believe and to follow is an initial level of faith.  This kind of faith heals.  This kind of faith cleanses. Can our faith go deeper than merely believing and following? 

The next level of faith inspires us to praise and worship!  All ten lepers realized that they had been healed, but only one comes back “praising God in a loud voice.”  Remember how they all initially called out to Jesus in a loud voice?  Now … only but one of them came back to praise and worship Jesus in a loud voice.  This resonates with what happens to us usually I think.  We pray hard when we are in need or in distress.  

How do we simply go beyond believing and following?  How serious are we in expressing our acts of praise and worship?  How do we … much like the Samaritan leper … throw ourselves most humbly at the feet of Jesus to truly thank him for the gifts and blessings that we know … we didn’t even ask for nor deserve.  I remember my most intimate times with the Lord in prayer … when I would kneel and as if my entire body was praying … when I felt my entire self as fully dependent on Him.  Did you have anything like that?  What a good feeling ‘di ba?  A deeper form / level of believing if you ask me.  

Lastly, if the first level of faith … that of believing and following elicits an initial kind of faith that cleanses,  a deeper kind of faith … associated with gratitude and thanksgiving results to a deeper kind of healing.  We hear Jesus telling the leper from Samaria:  “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”  “Getting well” means more than being cured from affliction.  “Made you well” is translated SOZO … or MADE ONE WHOLE … a word related to SOTERIA or “being saved.”  A deeper kind of faith is more than that which heals us.  A deeper kind of faith is that which assures us that we have been saved.  
  
Friends, the ten lepers were healed.  Only one of them … owing to his deeper faith in the Lord … had been saved.  WHAT LEVEL ARE YOU IN YOUR FAITH IN GOD?  Do you simply stay in the level of believing and following?  Or has your prayer deepened enough to express sincere praise and worship … real gratitude for gifts undeservedly received? Is your faith deep enough to make you a WHOLE, integrated and SAVED PERSON?   

Indeed, certain challenges had been posed for us by today’s Gospel.  Can we reflect on the areas of UNCLEANNESS in our lives that make us stand at a distance from the Lord.  Despite this, can we recognize how God continues to give and how He gives more that we expect Him to give.   And lastly, can we gauge the depth of our faith moving from simply believing and following to a deeper sense of gratitude and worship that will eventually mean our own salvation.