Telling Stories

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday October 10, 2010, the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Psalm 66:1-12
2Timothy 2:8-15
Luke 17:11-19

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

When Marie and I started dating, she was living in Grand Rapids, Michigan and I was living in Lamar, Colorado. She asked me what I was planning to do over the Fourth of July and I told her that I was planning on going to Central Missouri to see my parents. She said that she would love to meet my parents.

By the way, Marie says that she did not invite herself like I tell the story. But hey, I’m the one telling the story. So let’s continue…

I was taken aback. I had met Marie’s mom a couple of months earlier when I went to Grand Rapids, and I wanted her to meet the folks, but I was taken aback. There was a difference between “someday” and “today” and the sudden realization that someday was becoming today surprised me. Cool as a cucumber though, I said, “Sure, that would be great.”

So I got to Mexico, MO a few days before Marie’s coming. The folks were excited to meet her. They had never met “a girlfriend” before and since I was in my early 30’s they were just thrilled that I might not die alone.

The closest major airport was in St. Louis and that’s where Marie was flying into. About three hours before her flight was due to arrive, my dad said, “Get up Paul, let’s get ready to go.” I raised an eyebrow and said, “Well, I was planning on leaving in about a half hour.” “Nope, we’re going now.”

Here I am, thinking I’m a fully grown man, and I figured I could drive to Lambert Field and get Marie myself. Nope, we’re going now. “Er, Dad, I know how to get to the airport.” “Nope we’re going now and I’m driving.” There was nothing I could say to him; we were going to the airport and he was driving.

So we get Marie and her bags with no complications and we get in the van and head back to the homestead.

Now, something you need to know about my father is that he had a lot of little rules we had to follow. One of those rules was “Get my attention before talking to me.” So every time we wanted to say anything to him, we would have to begin by saying, “Hey, Dad.” He would then say “what” or something and then conversation could begin. He said it prevented a lot of repeating. The upshot of this, whenever talking with my dad, everything would begin with getting his attention.

Well, Marie is sitting in the back seat of the van, I’m riding shotgun, and Dad is driving. Suddenly Marie says, “Hey!” I turn around, look her in the eye, and ask, “What?” She takes her right hand, points out the window, and says “Hay!” It was time for a cutting and the huge rounds of hay were in the fields. Hay. There it was, big as life, hay, and I had been had. The smile on her face and the glint in her eye was something to be seen.

It could be a couple of hours from St. Louis to Mexico depending on the traffic around the airport and in the county around St. Louis, so we had been on the road a while. Suddenly, Marie cries out from the backseat, “Hey!” I turn around again and ask “What?” You see where this is going don’t you? Well I didn’t.

She points again; this time with her left, and says “There’s hay on this side of the highway too.” Marie is laughing at me, not really hard, but she was loving every minute of it. What I finally noticed was the look on my father’s face. He was trying so hard not to laugh out loud, not because he didn’t want to embarrass his little boy; I imagine he feared losing control of the car doing 70 on I-70.

When my mother heard the story, she was so proud of Marie. The family discovered that I had met my match.

Stories, I absolutely love stories. I love to tell stories. I love to listen to stories. I love to see how people’s faces change when they tell stories. When you hear people tell stories about their families you can see the love and the joy in their eyes and their smiles. Voices pick up in ways you just don’t get when going over the shopping list.

Stories are the narrative of who we are, they are the ways we share what is important to us. There are little nuances that come from stories that come from no communication. For example, in my little story you can tell that Marie is smarter than I am. (I don’t know if this is when I finally realized it, but at least I do realize it and that’s a start.) You can see that I have been well trained by my father. Even three years after his death, more than twenty years since I have lived under his roof, and I still “get your attention” before I begin to chat with you. You might even say that if you train me well enough, I’m obedient. Finally if nothing else, you can tell that, yes, I love stories.

So imagine our gospel story told by the tenth leper. One of ten who were at the side of the road, of course they weren’t too close to the road. They were required to keep their distance; their shouts of “unclean” kept the unsuspecting traveler from being exposed to their ritual impurity. Still they were close enough to recognize Jesus and the circus train that was with him along the border betwwen Samaria and Galilee.

So they cried out to him, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” What happens next? Jesus tells them “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” He doesn’t say “You are healed.” He doesn’t wave his hands. He doesn’t use water or balm of any sort. Nothing! He just tells them “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” An obedient sort, they go to present themselves to the priests. Then somewhere along the way they are cleansed. Then one, just one turns, finds Jesus, and gives thanks.

As our reading ends, Jesus does not remind him to go show himself to the priest, but he doesn’t tell him not to go to the priest. I’ve called him obedient, so let’s say that he is going to follow the first direction Jesus gave him, he’s going to show himself to the priest.

Imagine the cleansed man telling this story to the priest. “Hey, I was with those nine other guys you saw earlier. You should have seen us, we were ragged, unclean; we were a plight on our families. Then we see that Jesus guy, you know, the one everyone is talking about. Well we see him and we call out to him. We ask for compassion, we ask for pity, and he tells all ten of us to come and show ourselves to you.

“I mean, there was nothing. He didn’t do anything, he just told us to come see you. We didn’t know quite why, but hey, we would do as we were told. Suddenly, along the way, it happened, we were cleansed. I’m not quite sure when it happened, I really don’t know how it happened, but I know who made it happen, it was Jesus.

“Well, my mother always told me to be grateful, to give thanks, so I went back and found Jesus and fell at his feet and gave praise in a loud voice. I mean I gave THANKS and it was in a LOUD VOICE. Then he wondered where the other nine were. He even made a point to tell everyone who was travelling with him that I was a Samaritan, someone who was not a part of the nation of Judah. Then he told me to rise up and go. He said it was my faith that saved me.”

You might notice that I took a turn away from the text as it’s found in our English bibles. Most English language bibles render this sentence from verse nineteen “your faith has made you well.” Gloriously, this passage could just as easily be translated “your faith has saved you.”

The Samaritan tells the story of what Jesus has done for him. Jesus has made him clean; not for anything the Samaritan did, not for who he was, just for being a child of God and asking; Jesus made him clean. Unmerited favor, this is what we call grace. And through his faith he is saved. Today we still say that we are saved by grace though faith.

So what does this story tell us?

It tells us that Jesus heals and that Jesus saves.

It tells us that being grateful for what we have received is important.

Well, as I just said it tells us that the Samaritan was saved by grace through faith.

It also tells us that even the despised foreigner, which is what the Samaritans were in the eyes of the Jews, even the despised foreigner is a recipient of God’s good grace. We are even told to pray for their enemies, as Jeremiah told the exiles to pray for Babylon.

These last two items can be difficult for us to absorb, but what we would consider “difficult” is occasionally used by God in ways and for reasons we cannot fathom.

Jeremiah makes this point. The nation of Judah is taken to Babylon and the exile will be difficult. There is a prophet who says that the exile will not last long. Jeremiah says no. He says that the Lord of Hosts says build a house. Build a house? Why build a house if it’s going to be only a short time in exile? Exactly, it’s not going to be short, build a house. Sometimes, the word of the Lord is not what we want to hear.

Sometimes the Word of the Lord is “it’s gonna take some time this time.” Sometimes it’s that the despised Samaritan is the one who shows the gratitude all God’s people should show.

How important is the story of the grateful leper? Well, it’s important enough that Luke recorded it in his gospel. It’s important because it shows us how people responded to meeting our Lord. It’s important because even 2,000 years later, it still means something to us. It’s a story that is a benchmark story of the faith, particularly for the outsiders. It helps us define and share our faith.

In the notes from a congregational meeting, one of the things on this congregation’s wish list is that there be more witnessing. It may seem too obvious a question, but what do we witness? Well, the answer is that we witness Christ crucified, this is the story of our faith. We are to tell the world of our savior Jesus the Christ and what God intends for all creation. Well, that can be a mouthful. Some people have difficulty talking about it, I mean where do we start?

Well, if the story of our faith is Christ crucified, then the stories of our faith is where our lives cross this story. As a congregation we have several stories.

One of the stories of this congregation is the story behind “The Church of the Bells.”

It was almost twenty-five years ago that Elder Jesse Walker presented his dream of the Christmas bells to the Session beginning a special ministry that coincides with the city's Wonderland of Lights. When Mr. Walker told the Session what he envisioned, and the dimensions were worked out, and he was told that it would be well over twelve feet tall and nearly fifty feet long, he excitedly said “Yes, that’s just what I have in mind!” The goal was to complete 100 bells by June 30 and members young and old worked joyfully for six months to meet the deadline. Then it was time to work the next task, making the bells move when music is added. Then a third elder made the stereo clarion bells ring out with joyous music proclaiming the birth of the Savior.

What a proclamation to the community! The music and the lights, the setting and the bells; and people come by and see that there is a church in downtown Marshall that believes in the glory of the incarnation of Christ, the living person of God who came as a baby 2,000 years ago to live and show us how to live; and to die and show us how to live.

What a glorious story of this congregation.

I have one more story to share. A few months after meeting my parents, when I was still living in Lamar, Colorado, Marie decided to move to Colorado Springs. She thought (Hoped? Prayed?) I would eventually wise up and propose to her. She gave me a year to come to my senses. (It didn’t take that long, thank God.) So I went out to Michigan to help load the truck and help drive the nearly 1,300 miles in the U-Haul.

Now, something I learned dating Marie is that when she travels on the highway; when she stops, she stops at fast food restaurants. The restaurants are cleaner and there is someplace clean to eat and drink if you want. I tend to go to odd truck stops for the exact same reasons, fast food restaurants may be cleaner, but they are far less interesting.

Along the way, Marie said to me that she was thirsty and could stand to go through a drive-thru. I told her that I didn’t want to drive a U-Haul in a drive-thru, but the biggest truck stop in central Missouri was less than ten miles ahead, it was clean and we could stop there.

Then Marie said to me, “I didn’t say that.” As I was about to say, “Yes you did, you said…” Marie said, “I was thinking it, but I didn’t say it.” The look on my face must have been something else. So what did I learn from this? For me, this was as if God was looking right at me and saying, “All right boy, now that I’ve got your attention, ‘Listen to me, and don’t mess this up.’ ”

When people ask us what being a Christian means to us, we could talk about what God does for humanity, but without a personal connection telling the story may be just so many words that have been learned and spoken by rote again and again. It is where our lives intersect God’s purposes that important things happen, and it is when we share these stories with others that people can connect with us and with God.

So when people ask what it means to be a Christian, we need to learn how to say, “Well let me tell you a story…” God gives us a word to share with one another. Listen to the stories of God in your life, and share the word of the Lord.