2547) Sunday Worship #3

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ORDER OF SERVICE

Bell/Invocation

Confession of Sin and Forgiveness

Kyrie

Opening Prayer

Hymn “Awesome God”

Scripture Reading:  Psalm 139:1-17

Gospel Reading:  Luke 17:11-19

Sermon:  “Learning from Lepers”  (first given October 2022)

Hymn “Abide With Me”

Offering

Apostles’ Creed

Prayer of the Church

Lord’s Prayer

Benediction/Bell

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INVOCATION:  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

CONFESSION OF SIN and FORGIVENESS

O Lord, before whose eyes all human hearts lie bare and open, forbid that I should seek to hide from You anything that I have this week done or thought or imagined.  I openly acknowledge in your presence even that which remains hidden from the knowledge of others.

O Lord, whose tender mercies are offered to each of us, humbly and sorrowfully I crave Your forgiveness for the sins of this past week:

For every mean or jealous or hateful thought which my mind has dwelt upon…  For every unkind word spoken in haste or anger…  For every failure of self-control…  For every stumbling-block which by deed or example I have set in another’s way…  For every lost opportunity…  For every blessing thanklessly received…  For reluctant obedience and a procrastinating will…  And for these other sins that I am especially mindful of, and that I now pause to reflect upon…

Grant that as the days go by, Thy Spirit may more and more rule in my heart, giving me victory over these and all other sinful ways.  Amen.

Now, hear the word of the Lord from Psalm 88:13 and 32:5:  I cry to you for help, Lord… my prayer comes before you…  I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity.  I said, “I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord.”  And You forgave the guilt of my sin.

OPENING PRAYER:   Let us Pray:

O God, who in love and pity sent us Jesus Christ to lighten our darkness, give me wisdom to profit by the words He spoke, and grace to follow in his footsteps.

Jesus said, “When you pray, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you.”  O God, give me grace to do so now.

Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”  O God, give me grace today to think not of what I can get, but of what I can give.

Jesus said, “When you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”  O God, grant that what I give may be given without pride or self-congratulation, and without thought of praise or reward.

Jesus said, “Enter through the narrow gate.”  O God, give me grace this day to keep to the narrow path of duty and honorable dealing.

Jesus said, “Judge not.”  O God, give me grace this day first to take the log from my own eye, before I look at the speck that is in my neighbor’s eye.

Jesus said, “What will it profit a person, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”  O God, give me grace so to live this day that, whatever else I lose, I may not lose my soul…

Thanks be to you, my Lord Jesus Christ,
for all the benefits you have won for me,
for all the pains and insults you have endured for me.
O most merciful redeemer, friend and brother,
may I know you more clearly,
love you more dearly,
and follow you more nearly, day by day.  Amen.  

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and forever shall be, world without end.  Amen.

SCRIPTURE 

PSALM 139:1-17:       

You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts,^[a] God!
How vast is the sum of them!   

Here ends the Psalm.

LUKE 17:11-19: ¹¹ Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. ¹² As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance ¹³ and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

¹⁴ When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.

¹⁵ One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. ¹⁶ He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

¹⁷ Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? ¹⁸ Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” ¹⁹ Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”  The Gospel of the Lord.

SERMON

Let us pray.  Our Father in heaven, you have said in your word that “faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the Word of Christ.”  Bless the speaking and hearing of that message this day.  Amen.

Do you know the difference between an SVT and a DVT?  Both can appear in your leg, and in that way, they are quite similar; but they are, in other ways, very different.  An SVT can be painful and annoying and last a long time; but it is very treatable and is no big deal; whereas a DVT can kill you instantly without warning and without symptoms.  That’s how they are very different.  But they are similar in that they are both caused by a clotting of the blood.  SVT stands for superficial vein thrombosis, and DVT is short for deep vein thrombosis.

I learned all that at 3:00 in the A.M. one morning when I woke up with a pain in my lower leg.  I had a little pain there the night before, and now it was back and more intense.  Along with the pain, there was a lump and it was red and it was warm.  I wondered to myself if it might be serious. So, I looked around a bit on the internet, and that is where I started to learn about SVTs and DVTs.

From what I learned it looked like the less serious clot, and if that was the case it could wait until my annual physical, which I had already scheduled, and would be in a couple weeks.  However, there was something about it that indicated it might be the bad kind of clot, which made me more than a little uneasy.  In 1970 my grand-father, at an age younger than I am now, and also in otherwise good health, fell over dead in the middle of a conversation from a blood clot in his heart.  What I was now reading about blood clots, sounded like what might have happened to him.  So, I decided to not wait the two weeks, and not even two hours.  I woke Nancy and told her I was going to the Emergency Room at the hospital; which took her by surprise because she had been sleeping and was not aware of any of this until then…  After a blood test, the ER doctor said yes, there was indeed some clotting going on somewhere.  She didn’t think it was a DVT, but she could not be sure.  She ordered an ultrasound on my leg; and after that showed it was only a surface clot, she told me how to treat it and sent me home.  That was over a month ago, and it’s getting better, but it takes a while for an SVT to go away completely.

Conversations with our friends these days usually get around to health issues, because it seems we’ve all got something going on.  And I have had several things to talk about.  Since retirement, I have had a second hip surgery; which went really well; two cataract surgeries which were pretty easy; and emergency eye surgery for a detached retina, which wasn’t easy and didn’t go very well.  A year later I am still struggling with my vision and still not sure how that will all turn out.  The eye problems have been especially frustrating because I was planning on using my eyes quite a bit during retirement.  But the healing has had some complications, and some of the distortion will never get better.

In today’s Gospel reading, there are ten people who are dealing with a significant health problem.  They were lepers, says verse twelve, and having leprosy in those days was far worse than all of my problems put together.  The faces and hands and feet of lepers were often deformed, and they had to be isolated from the community for the rest of their lives.  There was no cure.

We’ve all been sick—usually it is only for a few days at a time, but for some, the condition is chronic, and for others, the problems are life-threatening.  For many, this doesn’t get too bad until you are old, but sometimes even the very young get sick and die; and for everyone, illness is always a possibility.  We should, then, all be interested in what happens when Jesus meets some sick people; and what they do, and what he does.

I have preached on this story many times over the years, and every time I have spoken of it as a lesson in gratitude—which is the most obvious theme.  Ten lepers are healed, but only one returns to give thanks, and Jesus wonders why.

However, this time, when I was reading and re-reading the text in preparation for this sermon, I noticed something different, something more in addition to the gratitude theme.  Perhaps because of what I have been going through, what jumped out at me this time was how this is also a story of illness—and more specifically, how illness can be a teacher.  Illness, and any other kind of health issue, if we pay attention, can teach us all kinds of things about life and death, about Jesus and about faith, and yes, of course, about gratitude.

So , let’s look at what this story can teach us about illness, and then I will use some of my own story to illustrate what God has been teaching me.

First of all, the lepers learn that they need Jesus.  There is nothing like illness to teach you that you need something greater than yourself, and even greater than the best doctors.  We have in this country the most incredible, wonderful, amazing health care system in the world.  It is not without its problems, of course, —but there are clinics, specialists, pills, and gadgets for any conditions, and it can all work wonders.  But it can’t do everything.  And have you ever noticed; this entire, massive health care system eventually fails everyone? There comes a time when not even the Mayo clinic can help you.  The lepers were at that point.  It was only a few decades ago that a cure for leprosy was discovered, so there was certainly nothing for them in those days.  Those lepers learned from their illness that they needed Jesus; so, says verse twelve, they came to him.

Then, says the next verse, they spoke to Jesus, crying out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”  Now, when we talk to Jesus, we call it prayer; and illness does teach us to pray, doesn’t it?  When we are in pain, or worried about a sick loved one, or waiting for test results and a prognosis—it is at those times that we pray our most intense prayers.  You might not remember to say your prayers every day, but when your head is pounding and you can’t keep food down and you are getting weaker by the hour, you, like the lepers, are most likely to say, “Lord, have mercy; Lord, help me; Lord, heal me.”  Illness reminds you to pray, and, it focuses your prayer.  Everyone who tries to have a daily time of prayer struggles with distractions and a mind that wanders all over the place.  But when you are sitting in that waiting room, waiting to see the doctor who will tell you if that lump is benign or malignant, or if your loved one is alive or dead, you do remember to pray and you do keep at it.  The words might not be eloquent, but we know who we are talking to and we are not distracted.  Illness first brings us to Jesus, and then, it teaches us about prayer.

Verse fourteen says, “When Jesus saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were cleansed.”  The lepers came to Jesus and Jesus responded, with a command.  It was an odd command.  Showing yourself to the priests meant showing the priests you were all better, and did not have to be isolated from the community any more—but they were not yet healed.  They were still lepers, looking grotesque, with holes in their faces, missing ears, noses, fingers, and toes.  Why go to the priests?  But they obeyed Jesus, and they went.  And as they went, it says, they were cleansed.  Even when the command did not seem to make any sense at all, they obeyed Jesus.  Illness can teach us to listen to Jesus, and then, to obey his Word in all things.

And then we get to what is the most obvious lesson in the story.  Verse 15: “Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks.”  Illness, especially when we are healed of it, can teach us to be grateful…  It may not always.  Nine of those who were healed did not return to give thanks.  We might say, “Oh well, I was going to get better anyway.”  But healing should teach us to be grateful, even if our healings are not as dramatic as we see in this story.  Think about it—even when we get better because the illness has run its course and the body heals itself, even then we should be grateful for the way God made these astonishing bodies we get to inhabit for a few years.  Everything works together quite well most of the time; and when something does go wrong, God has made our bodies with the capacity to fight disease and infections and even broken bones, and heal itself.  We can learn to be grateful for every healing, even when the common cold runs its course.  We might not even pray for healing when we have nothing more than a cold, because we know the routine, and that we will get better—but even for that we can be grateful.  Illness, and the healing of it, taught at least one of those ten lepers to be grateful.  Illness is a teacher of many things, and, it can lead us into a deeper faith.  In the last words of the text, Jesus said to the one man who returned to give thanks, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

Now, a few more things I have been learning, some which are reflected in the story of the lepers, and some are not.

#1) We are indeed, as the Bible says, “fearfully and wonderfully made.” That entire passage from Psalm 139 says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made, and your works are so wonderful.”  When something goes wrong, we learn about how it is supposed to work, and has been working, for our whole life already, without our even being aware of it.  In my hospital visits to people with all sorts of problems, I was always amazed at how many things can go wrong with a person’s body.  But then, that would make me even more amazed at how many things are usually working together, all at once, all the time.  Even pain, which appears when something is wrong, is a gift of God that we must have to live in order to live a good life.  That is the problem with leprosy—the body loses its ability to feel pain, and therefore, the person with leprosy does not attend to injuries because there is no warning system.  So, a broken leg causes no pain for a leper, and is not noticed until the leg breaks completely in half and the bone sticks out and the person falls over; but by then, it is too late and the leg is often infected, and then the person loses that leg.  Any leper would tell you to thank God for your ability to feel pain.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made.  Even as you sit here with your aches and pains, or bad eyes or weak bladder, or headache, or upset stomach—and all your attention is focused on what is not right with you; there are a thousand other things still working just fine.  Health problems have reminded me of that.

#2) In today’s Gospel story the lepers were healed and at least one was grateful.  But illness can teach us to be grateful even when we aren’t healed.  Sometimes we have to adjust to a health issue that will never get better, and what can we do then?  Well, my brother-in-law Bob decided to be grateful for what he had left.  Bob became legally blind very suddenly when he was only 55 years old.  For the last 25 years he has been able to see only a little, as if looking through a pinhole.  But Bob remained a positive guy, and every time I’d see him, he’d tell me how grateful he was to God that he could see that much.  Now, he is losing even that– but still, no complaints.  Now, Bob is grateful to God that he had that little bit of sight for that long.  That attitude of gratitude that Bob has had is an inspiration to me now that I am dealing with some chronic, but far less serious eye problems.

Another inspiring person for me is Dave Busby, who was, years ago, a well-known Christian speaker.  For his entire life, Dave dealt with huge chronic health issues—cystic fibrosis, polio, liver disease, heart disease, and diabetes.  Not many of us can top that list.  Every day was a mind-boggling struggle for Dave.  Yet, he learned to adjust, living with and working with, whatever he had left.  He was a man of prayer, and certainly he prayed for healing.  And he believed God did answer his prayers, but in an interesting way.  He said, “I have been healed of my desperate need to be healed.”  Wow. (repeat) I have thought about those words many times.  That is a powerful testimony coming from a man that dealt with as much as he did all his life.  Dave Busby died in 1997 at the age of 47, in the confident faith that he would then be completely healed, in the resurrection from the dead, when he would receive his new and perfect body.  Illness can teach us to be grateful for whatever we have left.

And finally… #3) As Christians, who believe in a Risen Lord, we believe that we always have something left.  So, illness can teach us to grow in our faith in Jesus, so that, like Dave Busby, we too can look forward to that final healing and the end of all health problems.  Illness affects the finely-tuned workings of the body, and when it gets bad enough, the body breaks down completely, and we die, and there is nothing left of us.  The great Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart spent his life composing wonderful music.  Do you know what that great composer did after he died?  Well, he ‘DE-composed.’  Right.  On our own, that is all we will be able to do.  But I have always wanted to know if there were any other options that would give me the ability to do more than that.  I have found only one way, and that is in Jesus who said He was the way and the truth and the life—and he was talking there about eternal life.  One of my favorite Bible verses is John 6:68. Not long after the exciting, early days of Jesus ministry, there came a time that Jesus was hard to understand, and difficult to follow.  Many people started to leave him, and Jesus asked the disciples if they wanted to leave too.  And in that verse Peter replied, “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.”  Yes, indeed—who else?…

I like the routine of my retirement.  I continue to get up early—5:00 or even earlier.  That is still the best time of day for me.  I like my coffee, my devotional time, my reading, and, my ability to keep at that for as long as I want without the pressure of having to run off to a whole list of obligations.  By the evening I am tired, and I look forward to hitting the pillow.  I have never been a late-night person, and even less so now.  And that daily routine, or rhythm is, as the poets have pointed out, like the rhythm of all of life.  If we live long enough, we can get tired of health problems and all the other troubles we face, and we might begin to look forward to that final sleep after the evening of life.  But then, if we believe “in the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting,” the rhythm continues; and after that longer sleep, we can look forward to what the old Negro spirituals called that “great, gettin’ up morning” when the trumpet shall sound and the Lord himself will wake us up and bring us into our new and eternal home.  I like that rhythm.

In the meantime, there is in today’s Gospel a most perfect prayer.  When the lepers approach Jesus they say, “Jesus, have mercy on us.”  When we are ill and can’t get better, when we see a loved one going down the wrong path and we can’t do a thing about it, when it seems like the whole world is coming apart at the seams, and finally, when we get tired of this world and this life, we can pray that little prayer we find here and so many other places in the Bible, “Lord Jesus, have mercy.”  AMEN.

Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.

Let us pray:  Abide with us, O Lord, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.   Abide with us, for the days are hastening on, and we hasten with them, and our life is short and transient as a dream.   Abide with us, for we are weak and helpless, and if thou abide not with us, we perish by the way.   Abide with us, until the morning light of our resurrection day, when we shall abide forever with thee.   Amen.    –James Burns

OFFERING

At this time, if you have not already done so, make a decision about what you will give to the Lord’s work this week.  As you think about that, consider this verse from God’s Word in Deuteronomy 16:17:  “Each of you shall give as you are able, bringing a gift in proportion to the way the Lord your God has blessed you.”  And also, consider your offerings from the perspective of eternity.  Let me tell you what I mean.,

Several years ago, in the old American Lutheran Church, the Division for Missions had a program by which congregations here in this country, could help congregations in other countries, construct a church building. One of the countries was Cameroon, where there was a congregation in the city of Meiganga.  They could build their own church with local workers and mostly local supplies—wood and handmade bricks.  But they needed $3,000.00 for a tin roof and some hardware.  I presented this opportunity to the congregation, and in a short time we raised the money.  Some months later we received a photograph of the completed church building, and we were very happy to be a part of that project.

Some months after that I was back at my old school, Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota for a week-long continuing education course.  One day, I met Robert Adamou Pindzie, who told me he was a pastor from Cameroon, now at the seminary doing some graduate work.  I said, “Well that is interesting; our congregation just sent money to help build a church in Cameroon.”  Robert said, “Well that is interesting; my congregation in Cameroon just built a church with some money from a Lutheran congregation in America.  Do you know the name of the town that the church was in?”  “Yes,” I said, “it was Meiganga.” “Oh, my brother,” he said, “that is my congregation!  I am so glad to meet you and we all thank you for your help.”  During the rest of that week Robert and I became good friends.  We arranged for him and his family to visit my congregation, and it was a wonderful day.  Many years later he was again back in Minnesota for a meeting, and we got together again.  It was a blessing for both of us to have that connection.

I think God may have arranged that meeting as a foretaste of many such meetings God might arrange for us in heaven.  One might say, “Oh, you packed meals for Feed My Starving Children?–those meals kept me alive throughout my childhood when there was a severe drought in my village…”  And another might say, “You contributed to Voice of the Martyrs?–  they helped me move to a new village after my husband was killed by our own neighbors for preaching the Gospel…”  And still another, “You were a part of The Timothy Initiative?—my whole family, and then our whole village came to Christ through that ministry…”  and so on.  And in return, I will say, “Each month I would read in those organizations’ newsletters about how your churches remained strong amidst much suffering and persecution, and I was always inspired and strengthened in my own faith by you…” and so on.  I look forward to those conversations.  I think this is what Jesus had in mind when in Matthew he talked about laying up for ourselves treasure in heaven.  (6:19-21 ESV):  Jesus said, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

With that in mind, listen to these words of Randy Alcorn from his book ‘The Treasure Principle,’ p. 43 (paraphrased): He who lays up treasures on earth will, if he lives long enough, inevitably spend his later years having to let go of those treasures, or at least the enjoyment of them.  As he moves toward his end, to him, death is loss, and he will be in despair.  But he who lays up treasures in heaven looks forward to eternity.  He is moving daily toward his treasures.  To him, death is gain.  He who spends his life moving toward his treasures has reason to rejoice.  Are you despairing or rejoicing?”(I Timothy 6:17-19)

OFFERING  PRAYER:

Let us pray…  Everlasting Father, we know tha.t the whole earth is yours, and everything in it belongs to you.  We recognize that all we have is from you and will one day return to you.  With joy and thanksgiving we now offer back to you a portion of what you have first given us–our selves, our time, and our possessions, signs of your gracious love.  Receive them for the sake of him who offered himself for us, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

PRAYER OF THE CHURCH:

Trusting in the goodness of our heavenly Father, let us pray in Jesus’ name for the Church, for the world, and for one another.

Heavenly Father, thank you for the joy, peace, and love you have brought to our world through the gift of your Son, Jesus.  Thank you for every instance of healing, forgiveness, and hope that happens in this sin-damaged and death-shadowed world.  Thank you for your peace that passes all human understanding and endures past all human malice.  Whatever our circumstances, give us hearts filled with a lasting joy and an imperishable hope. Lord, in your mercy… HEAR OUR PRAYER.

Almighty God, we pray for the people and ministries of our congregations. Send your Holy Spirit into our hearts, that he may increase our faith, direct us according to your will, comfort us in all afflictions, defend us from all error, and lead us into all truth.  We pray that you bind us to our Lord Jesus with cords of love, make us firm in our faith, and give us willing hearts to serve and obey you. Bless the work and witness of our congregations, using us to bring your forgiveness, healing, life, and salvation to those who do not yet know you.  Lord, in your mercy… HEAR OUR PRAYER.

 Almighty God, we pray for your mission to all the world so that all may know of the salvation to be found in Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior.  Fill your church everywhere with faithfulness, holiness, and joy, so that many hearts may be turned to You. Grant strength to all persecuted Christians who suffer because of their faith in Jesus; and may that same light illumine and cleanse the darkness in the hearts of their tormentors. Lord, in you mercy…  HEAR OUR PRAYER.

We pray. O Lord, for your blessings upon our nation and all nations. Guide all the world’s leaders with your Spirit of wisdom and understanding, counsel and might. Remind them that they must one day give to you an account of how they have used the power and authority entrusted to them.  Lord, in your mercy… HEAR OUR PRAYER.

Lord, we know that we can be selfish, oblivious, irresponsible, and foolish. Teach us those virtues that are often neglected; responsibility, accountability, wisdom, and self-sacrifice.  Give each of us the grace, wisdom, and kindness to be true friends, neighbors, and servants to those around us.  Lord, in your mercy…  HEAR OUR PRAYER.

 We lift before you all whom it would be easy to forget: the homeless, the neglected, and the lonely; the destitute, sick, and aged; the mentally ill, and those physically or mentally challenged; those who are abused, and, their abusers. Touch them with your tender care; and help us to bring them healing and hope, forgiveness and friendship, for the love of Jesus. Lord, in your mercy…  HEAR OUR PRAYER.

 Into you loving care, O heavenly Father, I commend all those who are dear to me, especially those I now name in my heart…

Bless all those with whom I live and work and worship, and grant them a satisfying sense of Your reality and power.  Be with all those who this night are in any danger or distress.  Be in every sore heart, in every stricken home, and beside every bed of pain, giving to all the blessing of Your peace.

And all God’s people said…  AMEN.

 BENEDICTION: Now, may the Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, bless you this day and forever, leading you into the way of abiding truth and eternal life.