The Rich Young Man and the Leper

Once upon a time there was a rich young man. He wanted to be a knight - but he was a commoner. He wanted to be a crusader - but he was a clothing salesman.

His father’s business was importing fine fabrics from France.

His father gave him fine clothes to wear so he could impress all his rich young friends with his fashionable clothing made of imported fabrics. His father gave him a fine horse to ride.

His father gave him money so he could keep up with the fast crowd and impress them even more with his stylishness.

But then one day the rich young man was out riding on his fine horse in his fine clothes.  On the side of the road he saw a beggar. Not just any beggar - a man with a skin disease. A leper!

Stay away! That was the standard protocol of the time. Don’t come near them - you might catch the disease. And look at them. They have open sores on their bodies. How could you touch them anyway?

We don’t know the name of the man with the disease. But he might as well have been Jesus.

For the rich young man leapt from his horse, went up to him, embraced him, and kissed him.

Not so much the attitude of the man in the Gospel story. What was the difference? Maybe this rich young man had heard the Gospel story. Maybe he just knew he wasn’t so different from the other man. Not deep inside.

For they were both of infinite value in the sight of God.

We have seen things like this in our own day. In Sacramento General Hospital in the summer of 1983 when I was working as a trainee chaplain, someone found out I came from Berkeley. And that was near San Francisco. And you know about San Francisco. Stay away from him! He might have that disease. You know the one. (They didn’t know what to call it yet.) And so the teasing went on - sick, cruel, cased in fear.

Fear. Shunning the unknown, the different.

Our young man, by the way, wanted to be a crusader. He got as far as to get the gear (Dad paid) and the horse and start on his way. But he encountered another poor man, this man a knight (a real one) but destitute, without armor or spear. And the young man in a fit of compassion gave him what he had. And went home rejoicing. Dad was furious.

And then came the last straw. One day the young man went into a church. It was in ruins. So he went back into town, to the warehouse where all the fine fabrics were kept, loaded his horse up and rode to the next town. He sold the fabric and the horse, brought the money back to the church. He tried to give it to the priest. Who wouldn't touch it. Hw wouldn’t have any part of this escapade.

So the young man in a fit of youthful pique tossed the money - now filthy lucre - into a corner of the church and went away. He didn’t get very far. His father was furious. And threw him into the basement of their house. For a month. Or a week. And then he drew him out, dragged him in front of the bishop, right in the town square, and demanded justice. This son of mine has squandered my wealth. Get him to give me back everything he has had from me.

All right, said the young man. You win. And there and then he gave back to the old man everything he had had from him. Every. Last. Stitch.

Naked in the public square.

The bishop threw his cope around him and led him off.

(Later he found a castoff gardener’s garment and wore that. His new life had begun.)

By now you know, or have guessed, the name of the rich young man.

Extraordinary. Singular. Unique. Admirable - but a tough act to follow. You wouldn’t expect, for example, a pope to name himself after that young man, would you?

But there was something about him. Something ennobling - no, better than ennobling, humanizing - about him. Something compelling - because unlike the wealthy man in the gospel story, he didn’t see his status as something to be grasped and held onto. In fact he gladly gave it up for another.

And in fact hard as his act was to follow, some of his rich friends, his father’s customers, well, former customers at this point, followed him into his new life.

They embraced the gospel without fear.

They embraced charity as eagerly as the young man had embraced the leper.

They embraced poverty as if it were the fairy princess in a fable, and they were the heroes, fallen at her feet.

They embraced a love of the world and all that is in it. They served the people, rich and poor, and sang to them of God.

They embraced obedience - to the gospel - even when it was hard. Take up your cross and follow me.

And they went on their way rejoicing.

We have a prayer we can say, inspired by their story (#62, BCP, 833):

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

2016 September 25

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

CProper 21

Amos 6:1a,4-7

Psalm 146

1 Timothy 6:6-19

Luke 16:19-31

The Book of Common Prayer, 1979, 833.

St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Tucson. Sunday, September 25, 2016. JRL+


© John Leech 2016. All rights reserved.

The Rich Young Man and the Leper

O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Grant us the fullness of your grace, that we, running to obtain your promises, may become partakers of your heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Rich Young Man and the Leper

Once upon a time there was a rich young man. He wanted to be a knight - but he was a commoner. He wanted to be a crusader - but he was a clothing salesman.

His father’s business was importing fine fabrics from France.

His father gave him fine clothes to wear so he could impress all his rich young friends with his fashionable clothing made of imported fabrics. His father gave him a fine horse to ride.

His father gave him money so he could keep up with the fast crowd and impress them even more with his stylishness.

But then one day the rich young man was out riding on his fine horse in his fine clothes.  On the side of the road he saw a beggar. Not just any beggar - a man with a skin disease. A leper!

Stay away! That was the standard protocol of the time. Don’t come near them - you might catch the disease. And look at them. They have open sores on their bodies. How could you touch them anyway?

We don’t know the name of the man with the disease. But his name might as well have been the name of the man who gave us this morning’s parable. He might as well have been Jesus.

For the rich young man leapt from his horse, went up to him, embraced him, and kissed him.

Not so much the attitude of the man in the Gospel story. What was the difference? Maybe this rich young man had heard the Gospel story. Maybe he just knew he wasn’t so different from the other man. Not deep inside.

For they were both of infinite value in the sight of God.

We have seen things like this in our own day. In Sacramento General Hospital in the summer of 1983 when I was working as a trainee chaplain, someone found out I came from Berkeley. And that was near San Francisco. And you know about San Francisco. Stay away from him! He might have that disease. You know the one. (They didn’t know what to call it yet.) And so the teasing went on - sick, cruel, cased in fear.

Fear. Shunning the unknown, the different.

Our young man, by the way, wanted to be a crusader. He got as far as to get the gear (Dad paid) and the horse and start on his way. But he encountered another poor man, this man a knight (a real one) but destitute, without armor or spear. And the young man in a fit of compassion gave him what he had. And went home rejoicing. Dad was furious.

And then came the last straw. One day the young man went into a church. It was in ruins. So he went back into town, to the warehouse where all the fine fabrics were, loaded his horse up and rode to the next town. He sold the fabric and the horse, brought the money back to the church. He tried to give it to the priest. Who wouldn’t have any part of this escapade.

So the young man in a fit of youthful pique tossed the money - now filthy lucre - into a corner of the church and went away. He didn’t get very far. His father was furious. And threw him into the basement of their house. For a month. Or a week. And then he drew him out, dragged him in front of the bishop, right in the town square, and demanded justice. This son of mine has squandered my wealth. Get him to give me back what he has had from me.

All right, said the young man. You win. And there and then he gave back to the old man everything he had had from him. Every. Last. Stitch.

Naked in the public square.

The bishop threw his cope around him and led him off.

(Later he found a castoff gardener’s garment and wore that. His new life had begun.)

By now you know, or have guessed, the name of the rich young man.

Extraordinary. Singular. Unique. Admirable - but a tough act to follow. You wouldn’t expect, for example, a pope to name himself after that young man, would you?

But there was something about him. Something ennobling - no, better than ennobling, humanizing - about him. Something compelling - because unlike the wealthy man in the gospel story, he didn’t see his status as something to be grasped and held onto. In fact he gladly gave it up for another man - men.

And in fact hard as his act was to follow, some of his rich friends, his father’s customers, well, former customers at this point, followed him into his new life.

They embraced the gospel without fear.

They embraced charity as eagerly as the young man had embraced the leper.

They embraced poverty as if it were the fairy princess in a fable, and they were the heroes, fallen at her feet.

They embraced a love of the world and all that is in it. They served the people, rich and poor, and sang to them of God.

They embraced obedience - to the gospel - even when it was hard. Take up your cross and follow me.

And they went on their way rejoicing.

We have a prayer we can say, inspired by their story:

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

2016 September 25

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

CProper 21

Amos 6:1a,4-7

Psalm 146

1 Timothy 6:6-19

Luke 16:19-31

The Book of Common Prayer, Prayer 62, page 833.

bread

Bread from Above
Bread for the Journey
Bread for the World

In the name of God, merciful Father, compassionate Son, Spirit of wisdom.

The people of God wander in the wilderness. They long nostalgically for the ‘fleshpots of Egypt’ – for the familiar, however uncomfortable, however impossible to recover.

God has drawn them out of bondage – led by Moses, whose very name means “he who draws out” or “he who has been drawn out” (both true of Moses).

By a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire, God has led them into the wilderness. They follow – but they grumble.

For they are on an adventure.

And as Michael Chabon, author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, says,

“Adventures are a logical and reliable result – and have been since at least the time of Odysseus – of the fatal act of leaving one’s home, or trying to return to it again. All adventure happens in that damned and magical space, wherever it may be found or chanced upon, which least resembles one’s home. As soon as you have crossed your doorstep … you have entered into adventure, a place of sorrow, marvels, and regret.

“For better or worse it (the story of the Jews) has been one long adventure – a five-thousand-year Odyssey – from the moment of the true First Commandment, when God told Abraham lech lecha: Thou shalt leave home. Thou shalt get lost. Thou shalt find slander, oppression, opportunity, escape, and destruction. Thou shalt, by definition, find adventure.”

Michael Chabon, Gentleman of the Road (Ballantine, 2007) 201-202, 203.

Now the people of God are embarked upon a great adventure. They are seeking – home, but a new home, which is their true home, their only home; they are seeking the land of promise where God dwells with them.

God has pitched his tent among them - but God has promised: this is only a way station. You are on a pilgrimage, a journey, to the place where you really belong: the place that I prepare for you.

So. They are walking here. They are walking in the desert. And they are getting hungry.

The people of God cry out – and God hears them.

So, God provides. Quail in the evening, manna in the morning. Day after day after day. Forty years of it. They are sick of it within a week. (Just wait till they run out of water.)

What have they got? They have

Bread from Above – Bread from Heaven.

The Holy One has provided them with what they need.

Notice: he provides them just what they need. As it turns out, no matter how anyone gathers, each person finds they have just enough for the day – or to tide them over during the Sabbath. There is nothing left over, nothing you can hoard: it turns bad by morning.

What do they have?

They have the bread that the Lord has given them. They might want to sing:

All I have needed thy hand has provided; great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.

They are able to go on, as the God who has called them forth from the familiar fleshpots on the way of the great adventure, as God leads them forward to the place of his purpose.

The bread from above is bread for the journey.

***

In the story of the laborers in the vineyard, the bread from heaven appears again – as the daily bread, the bread we need.

Imagine hanging around the Shell station all day, waiting for a job. Nobody has hired you and it is getting on toward 5 o’clock. How will you explain to your family you have nothing for them? There is nothing to eat. Nobody picked you and now you have nothing.

Then a man in a truck says, get in -- you’re hired.

And at the end of the day, he pays you a full day’s wages.

After all that waiting, all that wondering, worrying, it is like – bread from heaven.

You might be a little surprised to hear what the other guys say after you leave: “Hey! That’s not fair. We worked all day. Through the heat. And all you give us is –

“A day’s wages. As agreed.”

Each of them, however much they’d gathered or hoped to gather, has their daily bread.

They have it from God.

Whether this seems like abundant providence or stinginess – they have the staff of life.

God provides it: not from merit, but from – something else.

Because the complaining laborers are thinking about what is right, what is due, for each. But the landowner is concerned with what is right for all: the welfare of the whole community, the whole people of God.

And that is a pretty big group.

Last year Sarah and I went to a class taught by Art Simon, founder of the Christian citizens’ group Bread for the World. The course had been billed as how to preach on behalf of the poor to the rich – but he quickly threw out the title. We are all in this together. Rich and poor, we are all one people. God’s people.

So the bread from above is bread for the world.

We are given this bread, and it is bread from heaven.

It is for us to bless it, break it, share it among ourselves, and pass it on.

How will you receive the bread from heaven this week? How will you take in the body of Christ, the bread of Heaven, to be renewed and energized? How will you take the bread from above, blessed and broken, and extend your hand to offer it to another?

There are very practical ways: in the past weeks, we’ve taken up offerings for local food banks – and we’ve learned how to help with hurricane relief.

There are other opportunities for mission and service ahead – from working in local direct assistance programs to supporting mission work far away.

There is the citizenship side of the poverty issue. We, without regard to party, can become advocates for the work of relief and development.

There is our own good work, done in the course of getting a living, done for the glory of God.

We can continue to develop our mission and our outreach as a community – finding the ways each of us and all of us together are called to serve – and to discover what our own place is, in the sacred story of the people of God.

Show us your way, Lord, as you showed the men and women and children in the desert of Sinai, the way to worship you and to serve you, and to become your people in the midst of the world. Provide us with the bread we need; and give us the grace to become part of your gift: bread from above, the bread of heaven – bread for the world.

Amen.




Proper 20, Year A - Pentecost XIX
Exodus 16:2-15
Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45
Philippians 1:21-30
Matthew 20:1-16

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