Sermon: Seeing Through God’s Eyes

Luke 17:11-19

10/10/10

The Rev. Shelby Ochs Owen

Trinity Church, Staunton

I read an article recently about a well-known public figure who had just died in September. Someone close to him had said about the man, "He was such an extraordinary character. One of those characteristics he had was to actually make you feel like you were seen and recognized and heard and valued - in a way that is rather extraordinary." (Kabot-Zinn about John Kluge from NBC29.com) Have you encountered people such as this? People who really look at you, see you as a human being, let you know you have been heard, and make you feel valued?

Our gospel writer Luke tells us as Jesus was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. Keeping their distance, they called out, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ And Jesus saw them. Jesus saw them. He noticed them. He recognized them as human beings, he heard them, and he valued them. Jesus valued these men enough to heal them and to make them whole. Lepers in first century Palestine were bound to stay on the fringes of society. The law declared that anyone with a leprous disease had to live outside the town and had to cry “Unclean, unclean” when anyone came near. Essentially lepers were NOT to be seen, not to be touched, not to be heard and were to keep their distance. And yet, when Jesus saw the ten, he did not pass by, did not look the other way, did not ignore, did not keep his distance. He healed the men. Jesus showed them divine love through his actions. He let them know that they counted in their world. In a very real sense he brought them into the fold, moved them from the fringes to the heart of society. When Jesus saw the men it was an opportunity to show them mercy; when the one Samaritan man saw that he had been healed, it was an opportunity to show thanks, to act in a way that indicated the depth of his seeing. We don’t exactly know what happened to the other nine who did not return to give Jesus thanks. But for both Jesus and the Samaritan seeing meant much more than mere observation; seeing meant loving action. Seeing called for a response.

So what does that mean for us in this season of focusing on stewardship, a season where we consider what the church is to us and why we want to be a part of it and why we want to give our money, our time, our energy, or presence to it? The church can be seen as an agent of God’s purpose worked out in the world. To engage in the life of Trinity is to engage in seeing the world through God’s eyes. Just as we hear of Jesus seeing and healing the men with leprosy, the church is called to see and heal. Engaging in the life of the church opens each of us as individuals to be part of the greater body of Christ. We are all part of Christ’s body but none of us is God. Thank God! Each of us brings gifts and talents and ways of seeing the world that help us begin to understand the need for healing in so many areas and those same gifts and talents can be used to heal. God is already at work calling us to look around, to see, to notice, and to respond. And that is one thing the church as a body can do that none of us as individuals can do nearly as well.

Seeing and responding is the church’s mission. I am constantly amazed at how different members of the church bring a new or different angle to seeing and responding to God’s work in the world. Each member, quietly or quite outspokenly, knowingly or unknowingly has the potential to help the rest of us broaden our vision and understanding of God.

Here at Trinity, we have many folks who see a need for us to care for our environment

so we begin to pray new prayers for our natural world;

we begin new practices of environmental stewardship, both at the church proper as well as out in the community. Our local newspaper tells us our church members are cleaning up local creeks, and getting involved with different movements designed to address the sustainability of our environmental practices, basically taking their faith and practice out into the world.

Here at Trinity, we have many folks who see the poor and want to serve them and

so our prayer life includes prayers for the poor, the hungry and the homeless, those who have experienced floods and earthquakes and hurricanes.

and we see members serving lunch to anyone who needs it each day during the week; other members serving the poor by traveling to Honduras and Haiti; others contributing money toward those endeavors; we see other members serving the poor elsewhere in the community through their efforts in civic organizations and sometimes just helping their own friends or family members who are financially strapped.

Here at Trinity, have folks who see the lonely, the sick, the hurting and want to serve them

so our prayers change; we pray for all sorts of conditions of people.

and our members take communion to the elderly, our Sunday School children take apple pies to the homebound, others visit the lonely when they can, others work through the Free Clinic to alleviate suffering, others take classes in Hospice Care so they will be equipped to be present to the dying.

The possibilities are endless with what God can do when we live out our faith seeing and responding to God’s spirit. The joy of being part of the church is that the church opens our eyes to a larger thing. As my friend Roger Bowen says, “None of us is as good as all of us.” We come to church with the hope and expectation of being lifted up out of our own narrow worlds. None of us can see the whole picture by ourselves but through prayer and presence with God and one another we are lifted to a new place where we see new possibilities. We are designed to be complete in our relationships with God and one another. We help each other to see. And we help each other to respond to God’s loving action, to co-create with God. Sometimes we are the ones to serve and sometimes we are the ones being served. But each part of the body is important and to nurture that greater body, we each need to give what we have to give, be it time, talent, treasure, prayer or presence.

Just as Jesus saw the men with leprosy, noticed their need, heard their cry and healed them, we are called to nothing less. To see, to notice, to respond, to love, to heal. And all of us can certainly accomplish that better than one of us.

Amen