St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, October 14, 2007

“Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” The chorus of voices carries over the dusty road. “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Jesus must have seen the cluster of 10 lepers hovering at the edge of the village, as if an invisible fence barred them from joining life. Like dogs panting at the sight of food through fence rails they cannot trespass, the lepers strained at their social confinement, hovering at the edge of human society, forbidden to mix with others in case their leprosy should spread.

“Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” How like God that He would do exactly that -- have mercy, give healing, restore health. And how like God -- that restoring physical health would lead to the healed lepers being restored also to their families, their employment, to the ability to marry and have children, to participate in the human family. Once healed of their disease, the ordinance against them would be lifted. According to Leviticus 13:13, the priest could then certify the leper as cured, and thus restored not just physically but emotionally and spiritually. The healed leper would have a future.

Jesus uses his characteristic short-hand to signal they will be healed. He says, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And so, they did, demonstrating that they had confidence in his words, or that they were desperate enough to try anything. “And as they went,” the gospel says, “they were made clean”: they were healed – all 10 of them.

What attracts the Gospeller Luke’s notice is the one leper, however, who turns back – turns back, Luke says, “praising God with a loud voice.” Was it a scream, do you think, like the contestant at the Price is Right who comes yelling down the aisle, jubilant to be chosen? Or was it a shout-out, like the cheer of the long-suffering fan at the baseball game? Or was it the loud sigh of a person released from long-agony – a groan borne from so deep in the belly that it could come from happiness or sadness?

Not content to stop with praise, the one, healed leper falls prostrate at the feet of Jesus, and thanks him.

I think this is our connecting point with the gospel. Which one of us has not, at some time, had the odds so against us that only a high-stakes gambler would bet that we’d recover? Which one of us has not exhausted every likelihood for success when, just in the nick of time, an unforeseen agent gives us the chance to improve ourselves? Which one of us has not felt, at some time, so demoralized by a defeat – perhaps job loss, a financial loss, or a divorce – that we feel nearly paralyzed in its wake? Which one of us was not frightened by the illness of a child, as we waited and watched to find out if she would recover? Which one of us has not experienced a loss so devastating, whether the death of a loved one or the loss of our health, that we wonder if we can go on?

So then, we also have been the leper, the leper who, as he rushes down the road feels the sores being healed, the skin being restored, the deep ulcers being filled by healthy flesh, finds the praise of God and God’s wonderful deeds overflowing from her lips. Remember how filled with irrepressible joy you were when you realized, after a crushing defeat, that you would have a future. Remember how grateful you were when, after devastating loss, you found a path forward. Remember how amazed you were when someone came along and believed in you and showed you a way through. Remember how happy you were when you realized you would live.

And know, then, the joy of this healed leper, who turns back to thank God, in Jesus, the Master.

This experience of giving thanks after traumatic loss is a lighthouse experience, an event that sheds light on the rest of our lives and shows us the path forward. For many of us, it takes a life-changing event like this to turn us onto an experience that is ancient in our roots. This is the practice of the firstfruits offering.

In ancient Israel, after God had liberated the Hebrew slaves from captivity in Egypt, the firstfruits offering was the way that God helped Israel stay connected with the reality that God was still with them, still blessing them. It is in the books of Exodus and Leviticus that we see God’s instruction for the Israelites to take the firstfruits of the harvest and offer them to God – to literally take the first bushels of grain or fruit that come from the crops, and to give them over to God. In giving over the firstfruits, the farmers were trusting that second-fruits, third-fruits, and fourth-fruits would be coming later. They were expressing not only thanks to the God who had given them much, but also expressing confidence that God would give them even more – plenty for themselves, their families and their villages. They were making a statement of faith.

Did God need this demonstration of faith? – probably not. God knows that human fidelity waxes and wanes like the tides of the sea. Did the ancient Israelites need their own demonstration of faith? -- you bet, because just like us, if they didn’t remind themselves that all things came of God and that God would be faithful to provide more, they would surely forget.

The leper who returns to thank Jesus is himself a firstfruits offering. More than one leper is healed. More harvest than just the firstfruits is garnered from the land. More plenty comes from God’s hand than we each individually receive. The “more” that God gives is a sign of God’s covenant fidelity toward us. And we show God that we trust in this fidelity by offering back to God our firstfruits.

This symbol of firstfruits can be powerful for us, who can so easily forget God’s outrageous care for us. When we offer back to God a portion of what we are receiving, even as it is coming in, even as the rest of the harvest has not been plucked -- such that we’re not sure more will be coming in -- we express trust that there will be more. We assert that God is not capricious or whimsical. That God will not leave us on the other side of the invisible fence, languishing in our neediness. That, once we have called out “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us,” God will not say, “Sorry, not this time,” and turn away, walking back down the road.

Our faith in God becomes stronger when we act in ways that show our trust in God’s care. When we offer back to God a portion of what we are receiving, we prove to ourselves what is true, but otherwise unrecognized, that God is reliable, that God is faithful, that God will heal us and restore us to life.

This Sunday kicks off St. Martin’s fall season of stewardship. Frankly, I’d feel remiss in my duties if I didn’t ask you to participate by making a financial pledge to this church. And today, I’m asking you to participate not as a way of raising money for the church, as important and valid as that is. Rather today, I’m asking you to pray about making a promise to give money to this church as a sign that you believe that more will come of God, so much more that you don’t need to be fearful of promising the first-fruits of your harvest.

Even though as a child I always put a dollar in the offering plate, I didn’t become aware of pledging, of making a promise to God of my money, under I was an adult. (Parenthetically, know that I’m sure my mother pledged: I, as a child, simply wasn’t paying attention.) But by the time I was a teenager, my family had gone beyond hard times. We had to give up our house in our safely middle-class neighborhood, and we would have been homeless without the help of federally-subsidized apartment housing. And, as anyone who has been through financial disaster knows, once you are subject to the threat of homelessness, the fear of it never entirely leaves you. In fact, for some of us, the taste of poverty sends us in the other direction – saving that nest-egg, that rainy-day fund, in the hopes that it will protect us from ever being vulnerable to poverty again.

So, by the time I worked my way through college, being helped significantly by at least one member of my church, I was not about to go back to the threat of homelessness. At 23 years old, I was the sole bread-winner in my single-person household. I had just enough income to pay the rent on my apartment, pay the maintenance on my car, pay my utilities and put food on the table. Taco Bell was my version of going out to dinner. There was no one to fall back on – no inheritance, no savings plan – there was just me. No, correct that, there was me … and God. And it was October, on a Sunday, in church, when those pledge cards were handed out, when I was asked to promise to commit some percentage of what I earned to God, in thankfulness for what I had received, and in faith that I would have enough.

Every financial planning strategy would have said simply to make a year-end contribution from what was left over. But I had lived the leper’s experience. I had seen what it was to live on the other side of the fence, and I knew Jesus had pulled me through. I had seen what it was to live through the valley of the shadow of death, and I knew that God had brought me to a better place. How dare I in a moment of fear refuse to demonstrate to myself that God would continue to hold me in the palm of His hand? How could I just continue down the road with those nine other healed lepers without turning to thank the One who kept me alive, one day at a time?

So, I did it. I made the promise, on that corny little green pledge card: I promised the firstfruits of what I earned. I think I started at 4%, then went to 6% and more, until by the time I left for seminary, it was 10%. And because other people did the same, and more, I graduated from seminary debt-free and was able to come here to St. Martin’s – at a time when some priests are restricted in what calls they can accept because of their tremendous debt-load. I suppose that corny green card, on that October morning, led to my pledge conversion-moment. Making that first pledge was my testimony that, even after I returned some to God, I believed that more would be given. More indeed! More than enough.

This week you’ll be receiving a letter from the Stewardship Committee. The letter will identify how much money is needed to fund the ministry and mission done here at St. Martin’s. I can’t promise you a corny green card, but you will receive an invitation and a pledge card, which are offered to you as a way to make your statement of faith. The Stewardship Committee and I agree, that, by telling the congregation what is needed to resource our ministries here, you the congregation will decide how you can meet the need.

So, I ask you to open the envelope when it arrives. Read it. Then put it down, and pray about it. And listen to what God is inspiring your heart to do. Then pray some more. Then fill out that pledge card, or contact me or one of the members of the Stewardship Committee if you have questions that would help you find the right answer for you. Then give thanks, with a joyful heart, knowing that, in returning these firstfruits to God, you will receive more and, like the healed leper, you will [g]et up and go on your way; [for] your faith has made you well” (Lk. 17:19).