2 Kings 5:14-17
2 Timothy 2:8-13
Luke 17:11-19
Tonight I want to talk about bodies. I think sometimes we are too quick to spiritualize everything, taking it out of the fleshy realm of reality, but we are an incarnational people. We believe the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us, and we can encounter revelations of the divine mystery and presence in and through the flesh: in our bodies and all bodies that make up the larger body of God. We have a fleshy/physical Gospel story tonight that invites us to reflect on our relationship to bodies: our own body, the human bodies of others, and the larger body of God that makes up the cosmos.
This story tonight in the Gospel of Luke is actually his second story of healing lepers. These healing stories of Jesus are meant to teach us a lesson about who Jesus is and what he has come to do: Jesus consistently responds to those who on the margins, the outcasts of society, those whose bodies have been rejected rather because of a skin disease like leprosy or other physical challenges like blindness, deafness, or challenges with mobility. Jesus not only associates with but loves and touches the bodies of those who have been rejected from community, seeking to restore that sense of belovedness and connection.
I feel pretty confident that all of us, at some point or another, have had something about our bodies that we didn’t like, that we felt ashamed of or embarrassed by, or that we wished we could change. I know I certainly have, as a woman who grew up in a patriarchal church and is inundated with media messages about feminine beauty and what a woman’s body should like. There are huge industries that are making billions of dollars off of making people feel bad about their bodies. And its not just women, men and non-binary people are targeted too.
The persistence of systemic oppressions like racism, heterosexism, and ableism also target bodies that don’t fit into what the dominant power holders have deemed as “normal” or “desirable.” There are real barriers to these targeted groups in accessing what should be human rights such as excellent health care, housing, education, and employment, sometimes with life or death consequences.
There is also an emotional and psychological internalization of these harmful messages for those targeted by oppressions against different identities. We internalize these negative messages about skin color, hair, size, physical appearance, how we express our gender, or who our bodies love. And a lot of this internalization of negative messaging is happening on an unconscious level, where we don’t even realize it, and it impacts not only our relationship with our own body but how we interact with the bodies of others as well.
There was organized, systemic oppression against those with the skin disease of leprosy in the time of Jesus blocking their access to health care, housing, education, and employment, and I think they probably internalized that oppression as well, feeling dirty or unworthy. This is why they cry out to Jesus to have pity, or rather compassion for them in their suffering. And in encountering the Christ, the divine one who took on flesh, they are in fact “cleansed” of that particular barrier separating them from community.
But only one of them was “healed.” The Samaritan who upon realizing that he had be cleansed, also experienced something else, something deeper, that made him return to Jesus in deep gratitude rather than return to the community who had been oppressing him. I think it is important that these two different words were used: cleansed and healed. The root of the word for healing is the same as salvation, and some translations have Jesus saying to the Samaritan “your faith has healed you” and others “your faith has saved you.” Perhaps the healing and salvation in this story, is not only skin deep, but a profound sense of knowing oneself and one’s body as good, and holy, and whole despite what the wider society tells you. This has been a personal healing mantra for me, as I have sought to reclaim this body God has given me to do her work in the world despite the messages I receive to the contrary. "I am good, and holy, and whole," and so are you.
You see when we experience healing and reconciliation with our own bodies, we are also able to open up to a deeper love of all the bodies in which a spark of the divine dwells, and appreciate how each member of this diverse body of God reveals something unique and important about the mystery of God.
St. Francis, one of our patron saints who’s feast we celebrated last weekend, had an experience like this with a leper as well. You see even 1100 years after the life of Jesus, society was still isolating and treating people with leprosy as less than human, and Francis bought into that messaging. He despised lepers and was disgusted by them, intentionally avoiding them whenever possible. And then he encountered Christ, through a person with leprosy. He wrote: “When I was in sin, the sight of lepers nauseated me beyond measure; but then God led me into their company, and I had pity on them. When I became acquainted with them, what had previously nauseated me became the source of spiritual and physical consolation for me.” Embracing the body of the one he had harshly judged, he had a profound metanoia – a conversion – and saw that body and all bodies like it as the body of Christ himself.
We all have people who we judge or treat like lepers in our own lives, whether we want to admit it or not. Those we intentionally avoid, those we look on with contempt or judgment, those we don’t want to touch or embrace. They are not the ones who need healing in order for us to accept them, we are the ones who Christ is inviting to heal, to experience the transformation of St. Francis in seeing the very face of Christ in the body of the one we least want to engage with .
And I want to be clear here that the goal is not to stop seeing the actual, physical, unique body by appealing to some universal connection like “we’re all the same on the inside.” That’s not what I’m saying. I want us to see Christ as a person with a skin disease, as a black transgender woman, as a queer female pastor, as a successful black business man, as a nonbinary overweight teen, as a person who is differently abled, as a person living with addiction, as body covered in piercings and tattoos, and not ignore any of those details.
Because I would be so bold as to say that we can’t really love God until we can love all of the diverse bodies that make up the body of God. And this extends beyond the human family to the whole of the cosmos. Ecofeminist theologian Sallie McFague is the one who coined the term body of God, and she describes it as: “not this or that body, and certainly not a human body, but all the bodies that have ever been or ever will be, from quarks and exploding stars to microorganisms and centipedes, rocks, mountains, and water, but not forgetting tortoises, pine trees, buttercups, giraffes, and of course, human beings in all their various shapes, conditions, and colors.”
The messages we have internalized and are acting out about the more than human parts of the body of God are causing the 6th mass extinction event in the history of this planet, and the first one cause primarily by human actions. Dozens of species – precious members of the body of God, go extinct every day. Forests around the world are burning, seas levels are rising and oceans and waterways are filled with plastic and other trash. This sickness of anthropocentrism – human centeredness, and neo-liberal capitalism is destroying the body of God, and we are in need of some deep collective healing.
What would it look like to cleanse ourselves of the anthropocentric sores that keep us separated from the rest of creation and restore the blood flow, the life line, to these equally important parts of our body that we have cut ourselves off from? The body of God is not only inviting us, but crying out to us to do so, and I believe this is a core part of the salvific healing Christ is seeking to realize in the world. When we can recognize every living part of creation as a member of the body of God, and embrace our connection to this diverse, beloved body, we can transform our relationship to our own body and all the bodies of the cosmos.
I want to end with a word of thanksgiving. The word thank in our Gospel tonight is the same type of thanks Jesus gives at the last supper as he blesses the bread and wine, which is also the root of Eucharist – to give thanks. The Samaritan leper presented his healed body before Christ in thanksgiving, in Eucharist. As we present our bodies tonight around the table of Christ as beautiful and diverse temples of the holy one, may the thanksgiving we offer in recognition of the one who took on flesh to show us what love incarnate looks like, transfer into thanksgiving and healing for our own bodies, beautifully and wonderfully made to continue incarnating love and restore community.
Healing the Body of God
This story tonight in the Gospel of Luke is actually his second story of healing lepers. These healing stories of Jesus are meant to teach us a lesson about who Jesus is and what he has come to do: Jesus consistently responds to those who on the margins, the outcasts of society, those whose bodies have been rejected rather because of a skin disease like leprosy or other physical challenges like blindness, deafness, or challenges with mobility. Jesus not only associates with but loves and touches the bodies of those who have been rejected from community, seeking to restore that sense of belovedness and connection.
I feel pretty confident that all of us, at some point or another, have had something about our bodies that we didn’t like, that we felt ashamed of or embarrassed by, or that we wished we could change. I know I certainly have, as a woman who grew up in a patriarchal church and is inundated with media messages about feminine beauty and what a woman’s body should like. There are huge industries that are making billions of dollars off of making people feel bad about their bodies. And its not just women, men and non-binary people are targeted too.
The persistence of systemic oppressions like racism, heterosexism, and ableism also target bodies that don’t fit into what the dominant power holders have deemed as “normal” or “desirable.” There are real barriers to these targeted groups in accessing what should be human rights such as excellent health care, housing, education, and employment, sometimes with life or death consequences.
There is also an emotional and psychological internalization of these harmful messages for those targeted by oppressions against different identities. We internalize these negative messages about skin color, hair, size, physical appearance, how we express our gender, or who our bodies love. And a lot of this internalization of negative messaging is happening on an unconscious level, where we don’t even realize it, and it impacts not only our relationship with our own body but how we interact with the bodies of others as well.
There was organized, systemic oppression against those with the skin disease of leprosy in the time of Jesus blocking their access to health care, housing, education, and employment, and I think they probably internalized that oppression as well, feeling dirty or unworthy. This is why they cry out to Jesus to have pity, or rather compassion for them in their suffering. And in encountering the Christ, the divine one who took on flesh, they are in fact “cleansed” of that particular barrier separating them from community.
But only one of them was “healed.” The Samaritan who upon realizing that he had be cleansed, also experienced something else, something deeper, that made him return to Jesus in deep gratitude rather than return to the community who had been oppressing him. I think it is important that these two different words were used: cleansed and healed. The root of the word for healing is the same as salvation, and some translations have Jesus saying to the Samaritan “your faith has healed you” and others “your faith has saved you.” Perhaps the healing and salvation in this story, is not only skin deep, but a profound sense of knowing oneself and one’s body as good, and holy, and whole despite what the wider society tells you. This has been a personal healing mantra for me, as I have sought to reclaim this body God has given me to do her work in the world despite the messages I receive to the contrary. "I am good, and holy, and whole," and so are you.
You see when we experience healing and reconciliation with our own bodies, we are also able to open up to a deeper love of all the bodies in which a spark of the divine dwells, and appreciate how each member of this diverse body of God reveals something unique and important about the mystery of God.
St. Francis, one of our patron saints who’s feast we celebrated last weekend, had an experience like this with a leper as well. You see even 1100 years after the life of Jesus, society was still isolating and treating people with leprosy as less than human, and Francis bought into that messaging. He despised lepers and was disgusted by them, intentionally avoiding them whenever possible. And then he encountered Christ, through a person with leprosy. He wrote: “When I was in sin, the sight of lepers nauseated me beyond measure; but then God led me into their company, and I had pity on them. When I became acquainted with them, what had previously nauseated me became the source of spiritual and physical consolation for me.” Embracing the body of the one he had harshly judged, he had a profound metanoia – a conversion – and saw that body and all bodies like it as the body of Christ himself.
We all have people who we judge or treat like lepers in our own lives, whether we want to admit it or not. Those we intentionally avoid, those we look on with contempt or judgment, those we don’t want to touch or embrace. They are not the ones who need healing in order for us to accept them, we are the ones who Christ is inviting to heal, to experience the transformation of St. Francis in seeing the very face of Christ in the body of the one we least want to engage with .
And I want to be clear here that the goal is not to stop seeing the actual, physical, unique body by appealing to some universal connection like “we’re all the same on the inside.” That’s not what I’m saying. I want us to see Christ as a person with a skin disease, as a black transgender woman, as a queer female pastor, as a successful black business man, as a nonbinary overweight teen, as a person who is differently abled, as a person living with addiction, as body covered in piercings and tattoos, and not ignore any of those details.
Because I would be so bold as to say that we can’t really love God until we can love all of the diverse bodies that make up the body of God. And this extends beyond the human family to the whole of the cosmos. Ecofeminist theologian Sallie McFague is the one who coined the term body of God, and she describes it as: “not this or that body, and certainly not a human body, but all the bodies that have ever been or ever will be, from quarks and exploding stars to microorganisms and centipedes, rocks, mountains, and water, but not forgetting tortoises, pine trees, buttercups, giraffes, and of course, human beings in all their various shapes, conditions, and colors.”
The messages we have internalized and are acting out about the more than human parts of the body of God are causing the 6th mass extinction event in the history of this planet, and the first one cause primarily by human actions. Dozens of species – precious members of the body of God, go extinct every day. Forests around the world are burning, seas levels are rising and oceans and waterways are filled with plastic and other trash. This sickness of anthropocentrism – human centeredness, and neo-liberal capitalism is destroying the body of God, and we are in need of some deep collective healing.
What would it look like to cleanse ourselves of the anthropocentric sores that keep us separated from the rest of creation and restore the blood flow, the life line, to these equally important parts of our body that we have cut ourselves off from? The body of God is not only inviting us, but crying out to us to do so, and I believe this is a core part of the salvific healing Christ is seeking to realize in the world. When we can recognize every living part of creation as a member of the body of God, and embrace our connection to this diverse, beloved body, we can transform our relationship to our own body and all the bodies of the cosmos.
I want to end with a word of thanksgiving. The word thank in our Gospel tonight is the same type of thanks Jesus gives at the last supper as he blesses the bread and wine, which is also the root of Eucharist – to give thanks. The Samaritan leper presented his healed body before Christ in thanksgiving, in Eucharist. As we present our bodies tonight around the table of Christ as beautiful and diverse temples of the holy one, may the thanksgiving we offer in recognition of the one who took on flesh to show us what love incarnate looks like, transfer into thanksgiving and healing for our own bodies, beautifully and wonderfully made to continue incarnating love and restore community.
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