A sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on February 15, 2009 at St. Mary's Medical Center, Convent Chapel. Huntington, WV.
Mark 1:40-45 Jesus Cleanses a Leper
40 And a leper [1] came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.” 41 Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” 42 And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. 43 And Jesus [2] sternly charged him and sent him away at once, 44 and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” 45 But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.
The Compassion of Jesus to Heal
Did you ever think that we seem to trust our friends and their willingness to help us more than we trust God to help us?
Ask yourself which you believe more: That God has the POWER to heal or that He is WILLING to heal. You see, most of us today would agree with the former statement. We believe that God is powerful – in theory. But we have a real problem believing that God is WILLING to heal us – or even to answer our prayers!
But as FF Bosworth points out in his book “Christ the Healer”, this is really backward because it doesn’t take into account the essential goodness and Compassion of God. When the leper comes to Jesus, he expresses this same sort of split. He believes that Jesus CAN heal him, he’s just not sure if he WILL.
But how does Jesus respond? He stretches out his hand, touches him and says to him, “I will; be clean”. Why does Jesus do this? Because he is moved with Pity – or Compassion as other versions say. What is Compassion? - “To love tenderly, to pity, to show mercy, to be full of eager yearning.” Compassion is what God is by Nature.
Psalm 145: 8,9 describes God in this way:
The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.
God is GRACIOUS and MERCIFUL. To be gracious means to be disposed to show favor – regardless of merit.
Consider this verse from II Chron 16:9: “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him…”
Psalm 25:10: “All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.”
And this from Micah 7:18: Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. (Mercy)
His eyes eagerly seek out the faithful in order to support them, and he delights in showing Mercy. This is the attitude that God has towards us as we approach him with our requests: a favorable disposition to show unmerited favor out of his deep love and tender compassion. This is the spirit in which Jesus received the leper; he was moved with Compassion.
Examples of Christ's Recurring Compassion
Matthew 9:35-38: And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because hey were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Matthew 14:13,14: Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
Matthew 20:29-34 And as they went out of Jericho, a great crowd followed him. 30 And behold, there were two blind men sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” 31 The crowd rebuked them, telling them to be silent, but they cried out all the more, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” 32 And stopping, Jesus called them and said, “What do you want me to do for you?” 33 They said to him, “Lord, let our eyes be opened.” 34 And Jesus,[moved with compassion] touched their eyes, and immediately they recovered their sight and followed him.
It’s always the same. Jesus sees suffering, and he is moved to his very depths with Compassion.
Now, let’s think about the leper in our story again. He is sure of Jesus’ power, but he doesn’t really know about Jesus’ will. Had he known Jesus better, he might have presumed first upon his grace and his compassion.
But Jesus is never one to quibble about getting the order of things right. He sees the man’s heart, and immediately reaches out to heal because his heart is deeply moved with compassion. His healing POWER follows from his great COMPASSION. And so the man receives the healing he requests.
And buddy, was he excited! Even though Jesus specifically told him not to tell anyone, but to go show the priests that he was well, the poor guy just couldn’t keep it in. He runs out of there and tells the whole county! He had something to share with his neighbors: God is Powerful and God is Good! Yippee! I got healed and you can too!
The result of this was, of course, that the whole county came after Jesus seeking healing.
Here we learn something about God’s purposes in the world. By sending Jesus into our midst, God definitely answered the two nagging questions we have about our own suffering: Is God Good? and Is God Powerful?
Jesus took upon himself human flesh, he went about doing good and healing, was tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin, was crucified, died and was buried. On the third day God raised him up, trampling down Death by Death as the orthodox like to say.
Our two questions of God have been answered decisively in Christ.
But now there are two questions God has for you:
Do You have something to share?, and Do You Care?
Has Jesus done something for you exciting enough to tell others about it? Is it powerful enough that you couldn’t keep it in even if you tried?
Do you have Compassion like Jesus for those around you? Are you deeply moved down into your guts for your neighbors? Do you care enough to tell them about the way to eternal life?
If not, you better either rethink your experience, or reevaluate your own level of compassion for those who are perishing.
But if you do have something to share, and you do care, you may not have a good method of sharing.
SHOT Principle
This past week I came upon a simple idea called the SHOT Principle. This is a way of engaging those around you so that you can share your experience with them. It really represents a nutshell approach to the very most effective means of church growth: namely, personal invitation. It has always been true and always will be true that the most effective and lasting way to get your message out to the world and to grow a church is to personally engage your family, friends and neighbors.
So, here’s The SHOT Principle for Growth:
Go Somewhere together.
Ask for Help with a ministry.
Share a meal at Our house.
Visit Their house; share Testimony.
I’m going to hand out some cards at this time with the SHOT principle on one side. What I would like you to do is to take a few moments and to write down on the other side of this card, the names of people you will personally pray for and personally engage by means of the SHOT approach.
Friends, do you remember the figure 75,000? Do you recall that more than 80 percent of people in our area do NOT go to church on Sunday morning? And do you remember that 5 out of 10 people who do not go to church DO have some sort of church background?
When you seek the lost, you are not seeking total strangers. They are most likely church people who got lazy or lost the way, or got mad at God or somebody at church. These people need to be saved or reengaged as diciples. Jesus wants us to go out there and get ‘em in order to make disciples of them so that He can spend eternity with them as friends and family members.
So again, I ask you some basic questions:
Do you care?
Do you have something to something to share?
Are you confident in God’s Grace to heal and forgive?
Will you use a silly little mnemonic device to help win your neighbors for Christ?
I hope to God you do, for our faithful fulfillment of the Great Commission depends upon it, as does the very life of our church.
Thoughout Lent, Fr. Mark and I hope to meet with you all individually to talk about the Four Practices for 8th Day Life and the implementation of the SHOT principle. Let me assure you that this is not like a sales quota, but rather a simple tool to help us accomplish what Jesus commanded us to do.
Like St. Benedict, I will quickly add that if anyone has a better idea they are already using to accomplish this goal, more power to you – but regardless of method, let us all resolve to be united with Christ in feeling Compassion towards those who are perishing and reaching out in love to bring them healing. AMEN.
