February 24, 2008 "Is God Willing?"

Mary Scheer, Brewster Baptist Church

I wanted to start this morning by sharing a few reflections from our mission trip. Some of the most significant moments for me were the times we shared with the children at the orphanage. When we got there the woman who ran the orphanage told us that some of the children in her care arrived there when their parents dropped them off because they didn’t want them or couldn’t care for them any more. She didn’t even have names, ages or birthdays for some of them. So she made up names and ages, and if we asked some of them how old they were they would look at one of the other kids for the answer. Imagine not knowing what your name or birth date is. I just couldn’t get over the feeling of abandonment that some of them must be living with. It’s an awful feeling to think no one wants you. We were all moved by these kids and their stories. It took me back to my own years living in an orphanage. But I had several great breaks in my life, being adopted by a good family, loving support, a family of faith. Children are born with the need to be loved and accepted, to feel wanted, safe and secure. I wonder what these kids will be like when they grow up? What kind of breaks will they get? Will they grow up feeling alone and unwanted? What will that do to them? There are children living like this in orphanages all over the world. And they’re not the only ones who live with feelings of rejection.

As you heard last week, we also visited a leper colony. The director had affectionately named it the “Ex-Leper Colony,” because outside the colony they are lepers, but inside they are people who happened to have a disease. The colony is run and funded by Catholic Charities and the donations of others. I have to tell you that when Madeline asked us if we would visit the colony, I baulked at first, I didn’t even know there were still leper colonies in existence. I thought this was an ancient disease that had been eradicated. The first question I asked is whether or not they were contagious and whether there was any chance that we could be exposed. Madeline assured us that they were not contagious and that there was zero chance we could be exposed at all and that we were completely safe.

She arranged for us to meet with the main doctor of the facility (Dr. Felix Batista). He took a lot of time to answer all of our questions and gave us a lot of information about the disease, the different types, how they are treated and controlled with modern medicine. He said several ingredients have to be in place to get the disease. To get it, you have to be exposed to the Mycobacterium leprae. virus and you have to have a gene that allows the exposure to the virus take hold (less than 10% of people in the world have that gene) and other conditions such as malnutrition, poor water and a suppressed immune system all contribute to risk. Today Leprosy is better known as Hansen’s disease and some 2-3 million people around the world have some variation of the disease.

There is an aspect of the disease that medicine cannot fix and that’s what happens emotionally and spiritually. When I asked him how the disease affected these folks emotionally he said that the biggest thing that happens to them is the rejection they experience. There is a lot of fear and stigma associated with the disease. Even though they can have medicine that makes it so they are not contagious, these folks were rejected by their friends and families and forced out of society. In ancient times and some places today it was believed that leprosy was a punishment for sin. Madeline said the stigma and the fear is so great that even the pastors in town won’t visit. She met with the clergy in a regional meeting and tried to educate them on the disease and the need these folks have for visits but they wont go. No one wants to go in there, in fact when we arrived there was garbage burning on the lawn. The doctor said it’s because no one will come in to remove the garbage, so they burn it right there. Madeline and Pastor Jacqueline have been taking her church for regular visits.

(Power Point) I’m going to show you a few pictures of the folks we met while I talk. When we asked about taking pictures, they said they wanted their pictures taken and their stories told.

When we went in and walked around, one by one people lit up when they saw Madeline coming, like she was their best friend. She knows their stories and you could tell they loved her because she cared. When the doctor was talking to us, he said, “one day when you get to heaven, Jesus will thank each of you for visiting him and we will say, Lord when did we visit you and he will say on Feb. 12, 2008, when you visited me at the leper colony. Because Jesus said when you visited me in prison, when I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, when I was hungry and you fed me, when you visited the least of these, you visited me, because that’s where I am.” And I believe that Jesus is there but I couldn’t help but wonder if they believe that. What do they think about at night when it’s quiet? Does their mind race with questions? Do they wonder why this happened to them, why they got sick, do they wonder if Jesus cares?

Of course there was a time when there was no medical treatment for leprosy. Listen to this woman’s story.

I was diagnosed almost four years ago she said. It started with some lesions on my arms and legs. Then I lost feeling in a couple toes on my right foot. I didn’t think much about it at first I just thought I’d been on my feet too much running after the kids and taking care of the house. But then I got a rash that kept getting worse and spreading. I was forced out of my home and neighborhood, to live in the colony outside of town near the garbage dump. I worried about my family, what would happen to my children, would I ever see my grandchildren? It got worse and worse, my skin turned black and began to peel. It was horrible, I felt like I had been cursed. I didn’t even look like myself. Would I ever be pretty again? Would I ever be happy again? Day after day I sat next to the fires of burning garbage scraping off dead skin with pieces of broken glass or pottery. I looked at the faces of the others living with leprosy. My mind raced trying to figure out how I got it. There was nothing to do but wait and pray and hope it would go away, but I pretty much new the answer. I prayed and I prayed. I tried to figure out what I had done wrong. In the past I had heard of others who got this disease. People gossiped about them, (were they gossiping about me?) they said the disease was proof God was punishing them, others feared them and rejected them. They were banished from community and now, so was I. We were labeled unclean and if we had to go out we had to cover ourselves with a robe, ring a bell to warn people we were coming. We had to cover our top lip and yell, “unclean, unclean, I have leprosy,” so others could move away. It’s humiliating. I went from being a person with a life, and a future, a family and people who loved me. And now I was suddenly nobody an outcast. I was living a nightmare and I kept wishing it was all just a bad dream and one day I would wake up and it would all be over but that never happened. I felt rejected by God. Rumors were spreading around that there was this man who could heal people. They called him Rabbi and every where he went people were being healed. The lame could walk, the blind got their sight back, I even heard a girl who had died came back to life. Some said he was the Messiah, the son of God. I just had to get to him, if he could heal those people surely he could heal me…but would he?? I wasn’t sure if he would, I wasn’t even sure he cared.

What happens when disaster occurs, or when you’ve suffered with something for a long time and you’ve persevered beyond your breaking point. You try to make sense of the thing, you look for meaning or purpose for your suffering, and maybe you wonder if God cares.

Most people who believe in God pretty much believe he’s capable of anything, so the question isn’t is God is able…it’s is he willing, does God care? In fact sometimes this thought is the source of our greatest dilemma because we wonder, if God knows everything, sees everything and is all powerful, Why did my family fall apart? Why did I get this disease? Why didn’t I get that job? Why didn’t you protect me? Why was I born here? Why did this awful thing happen? Doesn’t God care? I wonder how many times a day God hears that question? Have you ever felt that way?

One of the most personal questions we ask is what does God think about me and about my life? Does he really care what I’m going through?

(Scripture) Luke said, one day, “In one of the villages, Jesus met a man with an advanced case of leprosy. When the man saw Jesus, he fell to the ground, face down in the dust, begging to be healed. “Lord,” he said, “if you want to, you can make me well again.” Luke 5:12

Similarly to some of the orphans we met, this man isn’t called by his name, he’s just, “a man.”

The man asks Jesus the question on the heart of hurting people, “do you care? Are you willing?” In all the stories in the Gospels of Jesus healing people this is the only one where we see the vulnerable side of pain that asks the question about God’s love. And why wouldn’t he wonder…people told him he was being punished, that his condition was a consequence for sin. Banned from worship, they couldn’t make prayers or sacrifices at the temple. The restrictions that demanded his removal from society were commands from God straight out of Levitical Law. I wonder how long he contemplated going to Jesus; it was a risk for him to go out in public. From the story it sounds like he doesn’t even have his robe on because everyone can plainly see he has an “advanced case” of leprosy. Did he ask the way he did because he wonder if Jesus would say no?

I wondered how many people might feel like this man, how many people in the world wonder if God cares? I googled the question “Does God Care?” I got 3,260,000 hits. “where is God when it hurts” and got 955,000 hits. People in crisis ask the question, Believers ask the question, non believers who want to believe ask the question.

There are millions of orphans around the world, 2-3 million people living with some form of leprosy today, 33.2 million of people living with HIV and AIDS (Nov. 2007 UNAIDS/WHO statistics), millions around the world struggling with unemployment, around 13 million unemployed in the US alone, almost 948,000 marriages ended in divorce in the U.S. last year, scores of people brutalized, victimized, and murdered every year, families with missing children, folks battling every kind of sickness and disease, communities ravaged by natural disasters, war, displacement, homelessness and on and on. Does the world wonder? In every corner of the world there are people sitting around the fire, sitting on boats, gathered on roof tops, sitting on couches, lying in bed, sitting around the kitchen table, gathered in pews in churches of every kind, seeking God, asking questions, praying for answers and somewhere at some time in their lives perhaps, asking the question, is God willing to help me?

To anyone who ever prayed about something that didn’t seem to get any better? To anyone who ever felt small and insignificant in this world, unnoticed, unimportant? To those who feel unwanted or rejected, to those who wonder if they are being punished for some sin, to those who wonder if God really does care, God had an answer.

He walked this earth in human form. Jesus said if you want to know the Father is like, look at me. “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father, for the Father and I are one.”

The man said to Jesus, I know you are able, but are you willing? do you want to heal me?

(Scripture) “Jesus reached out and touched the man. “I want to,” he said. “Be healed!” And instantly the leprosy disappeared.” (Lk 5:13)

In the Bible, when Mark told the story, he said that Jesus was filled with compassion and Jesus said, “I want to.” And that could have been enough. God spoke the world into existence. Many of the miracles in the Bible occurred at Jesus command. All he had to do was say something.

But he did more than that. What he did next said I’ll do more than tell you, I’ll show you…and he touched him. He touched him…just one touch and he was healed. It was more than healing on the outside that Jesus was after. With his touch he healed him on the inside too, forever settling the question of whether God cared.

There’s a lot of symbolism here because lepers were considered unclean and if someone touched them, they became unclean and had to leave society until it was known if they contracted the disease, then after one week and again at two weeks they had to present themselves to the priest to be declared clean if no rash occurred. The leper came back into community and Jesus went outside where he continued his ministry to the broken and hurting. Jesus was willing to trade places with the leper.

The whole message of the gospel is pictured in this story. When Jesus died, he took our sins upon himself and suffered our death. He carried away our sickness and our diseases and with his stripes we are healed. (Isa. 53:5) And we are declared clean before the father, not because of what we did but because of what he did. Jesus didn’t keep his distance then and he doesn’t now.

Who are we tempted to keep our distance from today? Doctor Felix told us there is another form of leprosy that has no outward symptoms, no lesions on the skin because it takes root in a place that can’t be seen…on the inside, in our hearts. Leprosy causes nerve damage that leaves the affected part with no feeling. He said that If we’re not careful, we can loose our sensitivity and feeling and wind up with leprosy of the heart. We might not use the same language calling people “unclean,” but are there people we treat that way? Even though we were assured there was no risk involved when we went to the colony, on the inside, I was still a little unsure before we got there. Are there places you wouldn’t go, people you wouldn’t associate with because of fear. Think about the diseases of today that some people and some faith traditions associate with God’s punishment.

As Christians who live to share God’s love with others, it’s important for us to know that there is no place God won’t go. There are no people that God would avoid, no sickness or disease, no reason that would cause him not to care.

God has a message for you and me, for our children, for our neighbors and coworkers, he has a message for the orphans, for the lepers, for those suffering with pain, for those with diseases, for those with addictions, for those feeling ostracized, for anyone who wonders, God’s message is that he cares and he is still willing. He still offers us his healing touch; all we have to do is ask.

LET’S PRAY:

Dear Lord, We’re so glad Luke shared this story with us. The vulnerability and risk the man displayed is impressive. Sometimes it can feel like you’re so far away, so removed from us and what we’re going through that we might wonder if you care. We can look at the desperate struggles that so many around us and so many around the world are living with that we might wonder why you don’t do more, why you don’t intervene and ultimately whether you care. It’s hard because we know that there is so much we don’t know or understand that it’s beyond us. And even when we believe you are able, there are still times when we might wonder if you’re willing. God, I pray for everyone who is wondering today, if doubt has taken hold, may the story and the promise of your touch replace it with a fresh sense of faith and may the question of whether you care be settled once and for all. Whether we are overwhelmed by the enormity of the problem or under whelmed by the commonality of our situation, we know that each of us and our issues matters to you. Jesus, right now in our heart, we kneel before you, we bring you our personal needs, we intercede on behalf of the children in the orphanage and our friends at the ex-leper colony, and those we know in crisis…Jesus, we know that you are able, and we know that you care, and we seek your touch. Through faith we believe and by faith we receive your grace. You are all we’ve ever needed, your touch is enough. Thank you God. In Jesus name. Amen.