Being Weird and Being Weird

Luke 7: 11-19
October 13, 2013

           Ten Lepers Healed, Brian Kershisnik, 2010

Have you ever felt weird, out of place?
I think all of us have had this experience at one time or another.
The feeling of being different than the rest of the world.
Like an outcast.

Now I think there are two ways of being weird.
There is the kind of weird that is imposed from the outside,
We get this a lot when we’re young.
We don’t fit in with the crowd because
someone doesn’t think we’re good enough,
or attractive enough, or rich enough,
or we’re the wrong color, or the wrong weight,
or just not right in some way.

This kind of weird leaves us feeling bad
like we’re wrong somehow.
It can cause shame: That painful feeling about ourselves,
not just for what we’ve done,
but like we’re bad as a person.

Then there’s the weird that comes about
by making different choices than others.
This kind of weird, I think, leaves us feeling good instead of bad.
It makes us feel unique and special,
maybe even proud that we didn’t go along with the crowd.
That we didn’t do it the way that everyone else did.

Being weird / and being weird.

Now when you’re very sick,
especially when people can see that you’re sick,
there is a feeling that you are weird in the first way
the way that causes shame.

Even though there is no shame in being ill.
It’s difficult to divide yourself from your own body
It’s not something that we did really,
its something that we are, or that we have at least become.
People who are ill feel separated from others,
they feel weird , and not in the good way.
Like those lepers in the gospel story.
They were weird.

Their own body separated them from others,
from what they once were or what they could have been.
They looked strange, they felt strange.
By law they were commanded to stay at least 40 paces from everyone
People feared them because they didn’t want to catch the disease.
People shunned them because they were seen as
having done something wrong to deserve it.

Now, not many of us know
or have first hand experience with leprosy.
But many of us have experience with cancer.
We either have been someone, or know someone
who has suffered the devastating diagnosis,
and then suffered with the cure.

The surgeries, the radiation, the chemotherapy,
the overwhelming exhaustion,
the other strange ways the body reacts to the medication,
cankersores, hair loss, nausea and digestive problems, pain.
All those things separate the ill person from others.
Even though we think we’re much more
sophistcated than those people back in biblical times,
and we know that it’s not contagious
and we know it’s not the patient’s fault or shortcoming,
When someone has cancer, they still often
end up divided from their community.
Even without the laws back in Jesus time
which demanded that they be separated from others.

When we see someone who is obviously suffering with cancer,
many of us will still turn the other way.
Even if we’re sympathetic and not hostile, many of us
are hesitant come into contact,
worried about doing the right thing or saying the right thing.
Some of us don’t want it to ruin our thoughts or our day.
Imagine suffering alone like this with no hope of an end to it or a cure.

Imagine then the 10 lepers,
A group of people who came together
because they were exiled from the rest of their community.
A group of people told that they should have shame over
how their bodies were different.
A group with no hope of a cure separated from loved one.
Imagine them, after calling out to Jesus like they had done
to so many other people who represented God,
the only cure they knew of.
Suddenly being cured.

For a person in the throws of cancer,
that would mean no more radiation, no more chemo therapy,
no more fatigue, no more pain,
no more cankersores, no more nausea, no more fatigue,
no more separation from their family, no more feeling horrible.

The only thing they had to do, in order to get back to their new life
was to go to the priest and have the priest declare them clean
which was what Jesus told them to do.
The only step that they had to take
to be returned to their families, lives, communities.
They could be normal again,
not having this disease cloud their every thought.
Not having to live with a body that was turning against them.
They would no longer be weird.

I can’t blame them for wanting to go on their way
 and get on with their new life.
I can’t blame them for not thinking of taking a second
 to go and thank the one that did this for them.
I can’t blame them for wanting to celebrate
 this new and miraculous chapter in their lives right away.
I can’t blame them for doing exactly what Jesus told them to do.

 
But this one person is different,
he does come back to give thanks to the one who saved him.
The one who gave him this new life and this great opportunity.
Now, on the surface,
this man gets nothing special from his returning to Jesus.
The rest got healed just like he did.
The rest got to go back to their families just like he did.
But he didn’t do what the rest of his friends did.
He decided to turn back.
He is now seperated from the other nine.
He is weird again, but weird because of something he chose to do.
Weird in the second way. Weird in a good way.

And because of that weird choice,
he lives knowing the source from which he received this gift.
He is grounded knowing that he thanked the one
who is responsible for his new life.
This one who came back is not just healed,he is made well.
He is connected to the source of life, he is whole again.

Now we used to live in a world
where most everyone that we knew or worked with
or went to school with would be in church on Sunday.
Giving praise to God.
It was the normal thing that everyone did.
But that choice is not quite as common today.
Many people don’t come back to give thanks to
the one who gave them life.

Now I believe that God’s blessings fall on everyone equally.
The church-going and the non-church going alike.
I believe that we are all loved by God the same.
I believe that each one of us gets the benefits of God’s grace and love.
But some of us make that weird choice to turn back.
To give thanks to God.
And to be part of a community that has made that choice too.
You have made that unique choice today and decided to be here .
Whether you come every week or you go somewhere else,
or you just came for the first time today.

What I want to tell you is that you are weird.
but in that good way of course.
And in that weird choice, we have what this other weird man received:
We know the source from which we receive these gifts we get.
We are grounded knowing that we have thanked the one
who is responsible for our new life.
We aren’t just blessed with miracles,
we aren’t just healed, we are made well.
We are connected to our source of life, we are whole again.

So please keep being weird.
And know that you have thanked the one
who has given us everything.
Connect with that source.
Don’t just receive God’s blessings,
be made whole again.