So Choose

Sermon preached at St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo NY Sixth Sunday After the Epiphany
The Rev. Cathy Dempesy

When I was a little girl and would go home for lunch—yes we actually did that in the olden days-- my grandmother would say, “go into the bathroom and wash school off your hands.” It conjured an interesting image, as if one could wash a school from their hands. Of course I knew what she meant—clean up before eating! The fact is, if she hadn’t said that it wouldn’t have seemed right---it was part of our lunchtime ritual. It helped move me from the atmosphere of school to the atmosphere of home. When Mother Liza and I sit down for lunch she always has a bottle of anti-bacterial lotion available so we can “wash our hands.” Besides physically cleansing us, these rituals help transition us from one state to another.
Anthropologists agree—rituals are very important and are often the primary identifier of a community. Rituals identify us as a community—churches are full of ritual— as Mother Liza has explained many times, our rituals all have reasons, some clearly defined, others more murky. But one thing’s for sure, our rituals identify us as who we are and within that identity comes a certain security.
In today’s readings the performance of a cleansing ritual was the difference between being fully accepted in the community and being outcast and shunned. To be seen as unclean in the ancient world was to be thrust out of the acceptable and into the unacceptable, from part of to separate from. To be cleansed was to heal from that separation, to be returned to community.





In our reading from Kings, Naaman travels from modern-day Syria to Israel to be healed by Elisha. So great was his desire to
be clean in the eyes of others, Naaman left his Gentile homeland for an unfamiliar Jewish land. Although Naaman was one of the King’s most favored advisors he remained on the outside being viewed as unclean, as diseased., a harbinger of death [The shunning of the afflicted was not just a thoughtless response to illness-- disease was seen as a turning away from life, from the divine, and turning toward death and evil.] . His interest wasn’t in the ritual as much as it was in the end result---being accepted! That’s really the catalyst for most humans---we don’t want to be rejected, we don’t want to be shunned, we want to part of instead of apart from. Because of that, I don’t think the readings for today are about leprosy per se. Nor do I think they’re quaint tales of ancient people practicing shameful acts of rejection. Instead I think they’re parables for us, reminding us that when we separate others from us, we separate ourselves as well. When we shun others, we are shunning God. It is the rejection of the
Kingdom of God here on earth that’s today’s leprosy. And we all have it, in one form or another.
We work really hard to avoid being shunned, to avoid being rejected.
And often, our efforts to be acceptable cause us to shun and reject our own values, our own beliefs. Look at the economic crisis we find ourselves in, isn’t it a result of how, in an effort to get more, to acquire more we created a culture of work-aholics needing to work more and more so as to earn more and more so as to buy more and more. And it doesn’t stop there. To give our kids a jump on others, so they can get into a prestigious

school which will let them get a great job so they can earn more and buy more they’re scheduled from morning til night, often 7 days a week. All of this busyness, this scheduling-- this running turns us from the light of community toward the darkness of division.
I know someone who is always in a rush-- moving a million miles an hour. When asked how she is, her reply never varies: “I’m so busy, I can’t even think.” That’s been the same response for five years. Sure her life, at first glance, is really busy, but is it full? Her kids are involved in a number of activities, she and her partner both work full time, and with three kids, two dogs life gets hectic… but what I see is a flustered disquieted woman who’s just trying to make it through the day. She is, as the television therapist of the 1980’s, Leo Buscaglia said, a human doing, not a human being. When we abdicate being for doing we separate ourselves from each another and from God. It’s the busy-ness which keeps us apart. The primary symptom of our modern day leprosy? Being too busy.
Much how the lepers of long ago needed to shout “unclean unclean” to announce their arrival, so people could deliberately avoid them, I think our busy-ness alerts others that we’re not available for community, we’re not available for relationship….with each other or with God.
We all could use some ritual cleansing, to promote our healing, to rid us of the stuff that separates us from God.
Much like washing our hands disrupts the germs on our hands from forming into a full-blown virus, healing our souls, cleansing our spirits, disrupts the darkness that so seductively tries to overtake our lives.


Maybe we need to, as in today’s Gospel, CHOOSE to be healed, to be cleansed from our form of leprosy. By asking Jesus to choose to heal him, the Leper had already made his choice….he wanted to be healed. It was that desire, that wanting to be cleansed which allowed him to receive the healing power of God. Naaman chose to be healed as well, otherwise he wouldn’t have stepped out of his comfort zone, his community, his culture to travel to a foreign land in search of cleansing.
Both men needed to be receptive to the healing for the healing to work.
The events of Thursday night showed us all how important community is—in one sudden horrific moment in time all our busy-ness stopped and we turned toward one another and toward God seeking solace, support and understanding. In this moment of time in the aftermath of such tragedy, we are poised to be receptive, poised to be healed.
Cleansing, healing of any sort requires that we stop, accept that we need it and want it and then be open to receiving it. Will we carry this lesson past this moment in time? Will we take all that ails us, all that separates us from the lushness of a life full of the spirit and present it to God? Will we choose to be healed and to make this place, St Paul’s Cathedral, a cleansing spring of refreshment for all who desire to be healed? Will we choose to slow down long enough to turn away from all our doing and be with God? As we transition from Epiphany, a season of light to Lent, a season of necessary darkness which prepares us for the burst of light on Easter morning, may we all “so choose.”

Amen.