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Homily for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Yr. C)

2 Tim. 2:8-13 & Lk. 17:11-19

We all take far too much for granted. Each day, we get up and expect the water to be hot, the food to be ready and waiting for us, the day to unfold. We expect so much to follow its normal routine that we fail to notice the little everyday miracles which surround us all the time. Fifty or sixty years ago, your grandparents would never have dreamed of many of the things we take for granted – central heating, television, iPods, mobile phones – and so many, many people round the world still see those things which we expect every day, even food and water, as only a dream, only a miracle. Because we take so much for granted, because we do not see what things really cost – whether for those who have to prepare our food, or for our parents who pay so much to look after us and give us our schooling – we have become lazy in a very particular way. We have become lazy in our thankfulness, lazy in our gratitude for what we have. In short, we have become those lepers who did not come back. We have become like those nine in the Gospel who experienced the miracle of healing, but did not recognise it for what it was, the 90% who knew that they had changed but did not yet know the true value of that change. They too took Jesus for granted, just as we so often do.

Perhaps it is only when things disappear, when we lose what we have come to expect that our gratitude returns. A while ago, I had to deal with a boy whose parents had told him they would withdraw him from the College after a particularly stupid bit of bad behaviour. He was utterly and totally devastated, inconsolable, because suddenly he realised what it would cost to leave his friends, his work, his activities, his future. Only then did he begin to value what he had, and his gratitude and thankfulness when his parents withdrew their threat was immense. I am glad he is still here, but it is a lesson perhaps we all should learn. How often do we realise what we truly have? How often do we actually say thank you, and mean it, for the many privileges we enjoy – whether here or at home? How often do we really thank our cleaners, our matrons, our tutors, our teachers for the miracles they perform every day? How often are we happy to stay in the 90%?

It would be easy to stop at this point, easy to stay on the surface of today’s Gospel, easy to carry on the “guilt trip” - but I think we must go deeper, and look again at the people in Luke’s story. The ten who are cured are lepers, people outcast from their own society for fear that their disease might lead to the contamination of others. To be a leper, at the time of Jesus and probably even now, was to endure a sort of “living death” – not only do some forms of the disease bring disfigurement and mutilation, but leprosy entailed being cut off from normal society, normal work, normal pleasures; being feared, forced to live away from others outside the towns, with only other lepers for company, being shunned by even the religious leaders as “unclean”. They really were the “untouchables”, the outcasts, the misfits.

What did it cost Jesus to heal them? From today’s Gospel, the whole story seems rather sanitised, almost too easy, but many of you will have studied the healing stories in Mark’s Gospel. There, at the end of chapter 1, Jesus heals a leper by touching him, and then warns him not to tell anyone about it, but to go and show himself to the priests. Jesus’ pity overcomes his knowledge of possible contamination; Jesus’ love for the suffering man leads him to do the only thing he can to one so utterly outcast, and that is to touch him, to allow him to feel the warmth of another human being, to welcome him back with a handshake as it were. The consequences in Mark’s Gospel are clear: Jesus, from that point on, is himself treated like a leper, an outcast, a misfit. It is a heavy cost – and perhaps it is no surprise that today’s grateful leper should be so thankful for his healing, since he clearly recognised what Jesus’ action was worth, and what he was receiving as a free gift, foreigner and heretic though he was, since he was a Samaritan.

I wonder how many of you, both new students and old, both English and foreign, have felt like lepers in these past 6 weeks of term? I wonder how many of you – and I would guess it is a good many – have felt like outsiders, like misfits, like “lepers”, simply because you don’t know the right slang, wear the right clothes, or like the right sports or teams. I wonder how many of you have felt lonely sometimes, because you were not quite sure you “fitted in” – have felt yourselves floating or drifting around, not quite part of the group, looking for a real welcome? I wonder how many of you have seen those around you looking lost, or lonely, or sad or confused - and I wonder what you have done about it? All of us – at some time or another - have some experience of being a “leper” – and all of us need the healing, the welcome back, which only Jesus’s hand can bring.

Tomorrow we begin our Retreat, and I want to set you a challenge. I want you – each one of you – to be the healing hand of Jesus to the person you know needs it most. I want you to be the hand that welcomes a “misfit” into your group, and gives them a chance to have a normal life again, just as Jesus did with the lepers, no matter how ungrateful. I want you – each of you – to ignore the cost of making friends with those on the edges, and just do it anyway. And why? Because Jesus has already done that for you, when he paid the cost of your sins on the Cross. Because today, that same healing hand of Jesus will touch your heart at communion; that hand will give you too a new chance of life, just as he gave the lepers; that hand will heal the wounds and disfigurements that make you so often ashamed of yourself and will make you whole again. You cannot afford to take that miracle for granted or keep it just for yourself, lest you too seem ungrateful. Go on, be one of the 10% - if you dare!