This Week's Sermons

Sermons for the Month
"Asperges Me, Domine"
DATE: October 11, 1998
SERVICE: Pentecost XIX
TEXT: Luke 17:11-19
"To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN

They are known as "leaf peepers" in the trade. "Leaf peepers" are tourists who schedule their vacations at this time of the year to visit and view the beautiful fall colors of the trees. Leaf peeper tours have become a fairly recent collaboration of the tourist industry and small businesses located in picturesque locales which are particularly dependent upon the dollars of seasonal visitors. At this time of the year we often see advertised, annual excursions to New England, special train rides through the Cuyahoga Valley, fall festivals in Amish country, harvest fairs in Kentucky--all timed to coincide with nature's annual blaze into the rich, warm colors of autumn's turning leaves.
But the beauty of fall is fragile; it only takes a single hard frost and a cold rain to drop all that brilliant foliage to the forest floor, creating a colorful, if soggy, carpet underfoot. What was once the focus of all eyes and cameras one day becomes an annoying mess under our feet the next. What was enjoyed as an ethereally beautiful blaze of glory is now cursed for the work of raking, piling, scooping and bagging it represents. When fall leaves are still on the trees, they are treasured; on the ground they are trash. Above our heads they are sacred; under our feet they are profane. When they fall to the ground, we curse them for the work they cause.
Alas, it seems that in our postmodern culture, dirt has become the order of the day! Everywhere we look our inclination is to see the dirt, the grime, the gossip more than the beauty evidenced everywhere. Instead of exclaiming the glory that is God's creation, we get more excited by the filth, the mud, the scandal.
How many tabloid trash magazines like the Star dish the dirt in our faces as we stand in the check-out line? And we buy them.
How many entertainment/celebrity gossip shows like Jerry Springer fill our TV screens each day? And we watch them.
How many new Web sites appear online with electronic immediacy to offer the "real" story behind still breaking headlines? And we surf them.
How many careers have been started and ended by an individual's infamy in gossip? And we spread them.
With so much of it selling, what a few years ago we would never have even said in polite conversations has today become common place in our talk. This new explicitness is making us all into Beavises and Buttheads.
In our ancient Christian tradition there is a prayer that I believe is much needed to protect us from all this sludgy profanity that has seeped into every nook and cranny of present our lives. The Latin phrase Asperges me, Domine ("Wash me, Lord") was common in Jesus' day. It was a common phrase because the highway was very dirty, making constant foot-washing a necessity when arriving as a guest at someone's home. The early church incorporated that common phrase into its prayer life but for a much different reason, with a much different goal in mind-- asking God for a cleansing of their souls from the dirt of a pagan world.
Our current culture is in many ways very much like the first century. Our century, like the first, has become extremely dirty. That century's sandaled feet has much more in common with our Birkenstock era than we would like to believe. Tuesday night after I turned off the Indians game after one inning, I turned to a sitcom showing Michael Fox, a mayor's aid, in bed with a sweet young thing not his wife. I later tuned to Fran Drescher, supposedly a nanny, wearing thigh high spiked heel leather boots sitting on desk of her employer. That was followed by a scene where a young 14 year old guest of the employer made comments about his already ample sexual conquests. It was quickly apparent that my spirit needed this prayer: Asperges me, Domine ("Wash me, Lord").
11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus* was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he entered a village, ten lepers* approached him. Keeping their distance, 13 they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"
Each one of us has five pounds (on average) of flaking skin that needs washing off every day. (That's one way to lose weight.) But more importantly, each day we accumulate from the highway of life many more pounds of crud and dirt on our souls that need cleansing if we are to be whole and well and alive to God. This morning's gospel text teaches us, that our "quest" for cleansing, our ritual of washing, begins not when we ask for it but when we give thanks for having received it through Jesus Christ death on the cross. The first step to being healed of Hodgkin's disease—leprosy—may be to turn to a physician to be healed. But the first step to being healed in spirit is to turn to God with thankfulness in our heart.
14 When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were made clean. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16 He prostrated himself at Jesus'* feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? 18 Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" 19 Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."
Our gospel text is all about one thing—giving thanks to God. It tells us that without the integration of gratitude into our lives, there can be no lasting wholeness or wellness, health or holiness. In other words, from a biblical perspective, to say Asperges Me, Domine is incomplete without celebrating and thanking the one who makes our newness and wellness possible.
Viktor Frankl, the eminent psychologist and founder of the so-called Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy (Logotherapy), provides a revealing example of what it means to express gratitude for wholeness and wellness. Frankl, who died last year at the age of 91, was a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Dr. Gordon Allport, in his preface to Frankl's significant work, Man's Search for Meaning (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), says that "there he found himself stripped to a literally naked existence [in those camps]. His father, mother, brother and his wife died in the camps or were sent to the gas ovens, so that except for his sister, his entire family perished in these camps. How could he -- every possession lost, every value destroyed, suffering from hunger, cold and brutality, hourly expecting extermination -- how could he find life worth preserving? A psychiatrist who personally has faced such profanity is a psychiatrist worth listening to" (7).
Frankl answers Allport's question when he recounts his experience immediately following his liberation from the camps:
"One day, a few days after the liberation, I walked through the country, past flowering meadows, for miles and miles, toward the market town near the camp. Larks rose to the sky and I could hear their joyous song. There was no one to be seen for miles around; there was nothing but the wide earth and sky and the larks' jubilation and the freedom of space. I stopped, looked around and up to the sky -- and then I went down on my knees. At that moment there was very little I knew of myself or of the world -- I had but one sentence in mind -- always the same: "I called to the Lord from my narrow prison and he answered me in the freedom of space."
"How long I knelt there and repeated this sentence, memory can no longer recall. But I know that on that day, in that hour, my new life started. Step for step I progressed until I again became a human being" (96).
Frankl, released from arguably the most heinous episode in the history of humankind, could do nothing but kneel before his Creator in a posture of overwhelming gratitude. From that point of thanksgiving, he marked his renewal as a human being.
This week I heard some of the story of Rev. Matthew Shabele, a visiter here from the Lutheran Church in South Africa. He spoke about the Truth and Reconciliation committee that has made possible his country's coming to grips with the terror of its apartheid past. He shared horrendous stories of bones of dead sons and fathers being returned to their families by the men who had killed them. He told of families confronting the soldiers who instigated midnight raids and the disappearance of men, women and children, of whole villages being killed .
When asked about justice for those victimized, why their murderers should not be tried, convicted and executed, he replied, "Reconciliation is always painful," he said. "So we have done away with the death penalty. To use it would be revenge. We want no more killing. We are grateful for our freedom. We want reconciliation."
My friends, our wellness, our wholeness, our very healing and health, our becoming wholly human depends on our being able to celebrate and give thanks for the "freedom of space," for our liberation from death, for the cleansing God has brought to us through Jesus Christ.
When Jesus touches and cleanses us, releasing us from our prisons of grease, grime and gossip, how does he do it? The answer is simple: he does it through the beauty of people. Through the relationships which have changed us. Unfortunately, we often forget to go back and offer our gratitude to these God-inspired and enabled persons who have changed our lives.
Sue Bender, in her book Everyday Sacred (Harper, San Francisco, 1995), describes how she began to develop an attitude of gratitude. It had, she says, something to do with an exploding turkey: "Last month my husband Richard and I decided, at age 60 and 63, it was finally time to be grown-up and responsible. Neither of us is practical about business or financial matters. We went to a lawyer and started the process of making a will and a living trust for our sons.
"What would you like to do in case there's an 'exploding turkey?'" the lawyer asked.
"Exploding turkey?" I asked.
"What if the whole family was together at Thanksgiving and the turkey exploded?" he asked. "If the four of you were killed at that moment, who would you want to have your worldly goods?"
That turned out to be a terrific assignment. A chance to think about the people in our lives, a chance to be grateful and express our gratitude.
I decided to create a new ritual. I would stop at the end of the day, even a particularly difficult day, and make a list: a gratitude list. Who or what do I have to be grateful for today? (110).
If you have not already noticed, my sermon note page in your bulletin is blank this morning. I would like to ask you to take a few minutes now to play the role of the Samaritan by returning to the one person who has been a healing force and presence in your life. Many of us will think of our parents. For the purpose of this exercise, let's assume that our parents have been there for us as the wonderful parents they are. Let's go beyond their parental influence to that of a friend, teacher or mentor. Please do three things: Write the name of this person on this paper. Then, jot down a brief paragraph summarizing this person's role in bringing cleansing and wholeness to your life and express your gratitude for him or her. Finally, would you covenant with me to contact this person during the week to share your thoughts. I, too, am going to do this exercise with you. [Silence]
In a few moments, we will be coming forward to make our pledge for next year. I would ask that you do so only with this one thought in mind—gratitude. A giving thanks to God for the loving personages that He has sent to us to bring cleansing and wholeness, now and for eternity, through our savior and Lord Jesus Christ. May God bless you.

AMEN