Click To Print 

Click To Hear

9:00 AM, Sanctuary 1; Allie Wilson
Outcast. What does it really mean to be an outcast? Are you an outcast at school, work, or at home. How is being an outcast today different from when Jesus was alive?

In biblical times, an outcast was a person who had leprosy. Leprosy was a skin disease that meant you were banned from the city. You had to keep 50 feet away from everyone else and when in a crowd people you had to shout, “unclean, unclean!” Some believed that it was a sign of God’s disfavor. People in biblical times with this were completely disowned from their town.

But an outcast today can be anyone with any type of problem. Our society is one of perfection and if you are an outcast, then you are looked down upon. You can be an outcast in any fashion.

For me being a senior in high school, I have seen what happens when you are an outcast. Middle school and high school can be difficult, even if you are considered “perfect” or “normal.” But, if you are considered even less than that then it can be a rough road.

High school is all about “perfection” and who your friends are. Being accepted is a teenager’s dream in middle or high school. There will always be those kids with whom everyone wants to be accepted. Some might call them popular or well liked, while others might not see it that way. Despite all that, high school is full of stereotypes, judgments and prejudices.

Most high school girls would say that they are an outcast in more ways than one. My friends and I are always comparing ourselves to others. To girls, an outcast can be anything from thinking that you are not being pretty enough to not having the dream boyfriend; there are many possibilities.

Most of the girls I know are comfortable with who they are friends with and rarely let anyone else in. Accepting someone into the group is not always the easiest thing, especially if others in the school think of that person as an outcast. For me, being accepted did not really happen until this year.

Yes, most of the girls are all ones that I have known all throughout high school. But in the last year, things have started to click. It feels like for the first time that there are girls for me to hang out with and be myself. Besides having girls at school who like me for who I am, I have girls that are there for me outside of school. I finally have girls my own age to connect with on a spiritual level. I found a few of these girls at Young Life.

In the beginning of the school year, I was asked to try it out. After that, two girls pushed me to start going every week. It has been one of the best parts of my senior year. Young Life is full of people at school, but in a different light. Girls that I thought would never want to be my friend have accepted me and we have become really close. And for that I am very thankful.

For the leper in our lesson, being an outcast meant not being able to be a part of anything, including worship. To be accepted meant being part of the city. Lepers were considered unclean and only a priest could declare that a person was clean again. A person could be cured of leprosy, but if you had not been confirmed clean, then you were still an outcast. You could only be declared clean if you no longer displayed any symptoms. After that, then a person was welcomed back into the city. This is why the man in the lesson asks to be “made clean”.

Being welcomed back into the city could be compared to being accepted by your peers at school. Someone in the group has to accept and respect you in order to be let in. Back then, it was a priest who made the decision as to whether or not you were clean. Today, it might be the leader of a group accepting you into their close group of friends. So, if one person accepts you, then all of the other friends would probably accept you as well.

In this verse, the man believes that Jesus has the power to heal and make him clean. Although a priest could only declare someone clean, Jesus was the one who chose to heal this man and make him clean.

This was a huge cost to Jesus. In biblical times, touching anyone with leprosy meant that you were considered unclean, even if you did not catch the disease yourself. So Jesus touching him was a huge sacrifice, and yet he was willing to make it. He did not think twice about touching the man to heal him of his disease.

Would YOU be WILLING to make this kind of SACRIFICE for someone?

What did it cost Jesus? Some may have considered him unclean because of what he did, but some considered it a miracle.

In the same sense, what does it cost us to accept an outcast at school? Does is cost us anything to befriend a person who may be un-cool or considered less than everyone else? Jesus was willing to accept whatever the consequence. But are we willing to accept someone no matter what others may think? What did it cost those girls at Young Life to accept me? Did it cost anything at all?

Most girls are nice to you at school and then outside of school, they act like you do not exist. But, these girls are different. Not only did they let me in their group at Young Life, but we talk everyday at school, and are becoming closer everyday.

Being an outcast can be one of the hardest things in life. But once you find those people who are willing to accept you, no matter what the consequences, then you see how it feels to be accepted. After that, you will lead by example to make others feel the acceptance that you once felt.

What if more and more people reached out to outcasts the way Jesus did; to accept others despite their imperfections like Jesus? We may not have lepers in our community, but we do have outcasts.

All of us want to be accepted. All of us want friends. But there are some among us who have it harder than others. And those of us who have it good, actually make it harder for those who struggle when we close off our circle of friends. In reality, it does not cost anyone anything to befriend a person who is looked down upon.

There are people who are outcasts everywhere. Think of people you know at school. Think of people you know at work. Think of people you know at the gym or on your sports teams. What would it cost you to be friendly to someone who may be made fun of or considered to be an outcast at school or work?

Imagine if we did not have to worry about who is or is not an outcast? What if everyone were equal? What if at school, everyone was accepting and no one worried about being disliked?

Jesus took a risk that most people choose not to take everyday. What if we took that risk and found something special? Imagine the possibilities if we did. You never know who may end up being one of your closest friends.

The same girls that I thought would never want to be my friend, are the girls that have turned out to be some of my closest and most cherished friends. And because of that they have become girls that I will never forget.  Amen.

9:00 AM, Sanctuary 2; Kim Anderson
Religion, faith and my belief in God in general used to always be a very awkward subject for me. I was not raised in a very religion-oriented family. I was never forced to put on my “Sunday” clothes and sit uncomfortably in the wooden pews and I wasn’t raised to say a prayer before each meal.

My parents are believers of God and believe in the Christian faith, but they are also firm believers in freedom of choice without influence and free thinking. Because of this, when I was younger they wanted me to be able to find my own way, in my own faith and my own choice of religion, so they never really imposed it upon me.

Growing up with a very neutral curiosity about who Jesus was, I often attended church with friend’s families. I didn’t exactly understand what was going on at first; all those Apostle’s Creeds and Lord’s Prayers confused me. It took me a while to hear about the Christian faith, to learn about it, and start forming my own opinions about it. Still though, I wasn’t satisfied. I didn’t believe everything in the Bible and I didn’t believe certain things that the Christian religion preached and upheld, and I still wanted to explore and learn about other religions.

I was the disbeliever. I was the disbeliever in the crowd that watched Jesus perform miracles, that listened to him preach and then rejected his teachings. I was the skeptic; I was the priest that would certify God and all his power, but oppose Jesus and his miracles and refused to believe that he was the Son of God. I refused to believe even after witnessing miracles, after hearing the word.

I began researching other religions; I looked for the beliefs, the morals, the values associated with other religions. I knew that there had to be a God out there; I just didn’t know which religion provided me with the belief in that certain God. Eventually though, the Christian faith seemed to provide me with the most substantial beliefs, theories, and God to satisfy me.

I still didn’t believe exactly everything the Bible said, but I believed in most of it. I began going to church more often, and began to learn even more about Christianity. In the eighth grade, after a series of classes and worships, I was baptized. I accepted Christ, and for the first time lived a miracle. I saw that Jesus was my miracle, he touched me and made me clean.

I finally stopped questioning God, and instead I started listening to him. I heard His words in everything, in the tiny miracles that we experience each day. Like kind words, love and friendship. I began living life differently. I paid more attention to how I was living life in terms of sin, good deeds, and living like a good Christian would.

It all lasted a while, then high school came, and things changed; and once again, I was the disbeliever. Once again, I was the skeptic. I started having doubts about God and Christianity again. I still wasn’t sure how such things like September 11 could occur and there be a God. If he was so powerful and loving, how could he allow for such events to happen?

I began to question God again and even his very existence more and more. Not only did I question Jesus and the teachings, but I abandoned Jesus’ word. I rejected the miracles, and refused to believe in the power and love of God. I could still hear Jesus’ words through my soiled ways of living but I went out and rejected and abandoned him anyways.

For my freshmen and sophomore years in high school, I didn’t exactly live life as a good Christian. I don’t even think I picked up a Bible or stepped foot in a church with the exception of Christmas and maybe Easter.

I started acting like a typical high school kid, the cliché: I did stupid things, I made dumb decisions and choices, I rebelled against my parents, and was extremely selfish in my thinking and actions. Basically, I was a mess; and for the life of me, I could not figure out who I was, who I wanted to be, and what I did or did not believe in.

I knew Jesus was there, but I continued to abandon him, and betray him. I left Jesus even after being saved by him.

In our reading today, the leper asks Jesus if he would choose to make him clean. And the gracious Jesus replies “I do choose. Be made clean”. The leper, who has been shunned from society, outcast by his community, exiled from any communication or contact with friends and family, is healed by Jesus and made clean.

Jesus risked everything for healing this man. Jesus risked touching the leper, and by touching him becoming contaminated and unclean both physically and spiritually; for any person who made contact with a leper was considered unclean and impure by the church.

Jesus risked performing yet another miracle and risked having even more people come to him only searching for remedies for sicknesses or death, instead of coming to him to hear the great word of the Lord and coming to him for his ministry. People were already coming from every town to find Jesus, this miracle man, and now more than ever, because of the leper, people began to crowd around him for the wrong reasons. Jesus compromised not only himself, but even his mission in order to heal the leper.

Why then, after Jesus performs his healing miracle, does the leper immediately disobey him and reject his orders?

Jesus forcefully sends the leper away after he has made him clean and says “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

But, instead the leper went out and “began to proclaim it freely, and spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly”.

The man immediately disobeys Jesus, and disobeys God and rejects God, by completely disobeying a direct order from Jesus - disobeying the will of the Son of God.

Why, like the leper, did I reject God even after having lived the miracle of his love? Why do people constantly reject Jesus and his words directly after we live the miracle of hearing his words and feeling his love and his divine power? Why do we, as believers and followers, constantly turn our backs on Jesus, even after he risks everything for us and why do we turn our backs and reject our God when he gave his only son for us?

And finally, why did I, like the leper, disobey Jesus and reject him after I was saved by him?

Thankfully, with the help of friends, I eventually began to realize that turning my back on Jesus and disobeying him, even though I could see the miracles every day and hear his words every day, was only pushing me further and further away in my relationship with Christ.

I started to listen more to God, to try to hear him and obey his words, instead of constantly automatically rejecting what I knew was right. I began to realize that faith was more than what I initially thought it was. I knew that believing and living through the Christian faith was not just living life in terms of good deeds and sin; I knew that it was more than reading the Bible, going to Church, and saying your prayers at night.

I realized that in a relationship with Jesus, you can not hear his words completely, or see the beauty of his face, or live the wonder of His words with your back turns toward Him, and instead of rejecting his words, you must embrace them.

So I would encourage you to open yourself up to God and God’s presence in your life. Stop running. Stop turning your back to Jesus. Listen to what he has to say to you. Follow him and live in his presence.  Amen.

11:15 AM, Sanctuary 1; Corey Yealy
We often hear that anger is a bad thing; that anger leads to sin. In our society, we have anger management courses where we’re taught to “control” our anger. Anger is bad! But if anger is bad, why then, in this passage, does Jesus appear to be angry.

I don’t know if you noticed the footnote at the bottom of the page in your Bible’s, but some New Testament manuscripts say that instead of “being moved with pity”, Jesus was “moved with anger”! As Jesus is reaching out to touch the man, the text says, Jesus was “moved with anger”!

Why is Jesus angry? And why after “choosing” to heal this man, does Jesus “Sternly warn” him saying “See that you say nothing to anyone.”

The leper has just received such an incredible miracle and he is told to “tell no one”.

First off, I want to question Jesus’ intention of keeping the Leper from spreading the good news of his miracle. I know that many of the topics of our services deal with spreading the good news to others, but in this minute event, Jesus tells the Leper to keep the good news to himself. Now, what is Jesus’ purpose behind this?

Jesus has been traveling within the city healing many other people and several more keep coming to him each day, from different cities. This may be Jesus’ idea… to keep some of the attention that has exponentially grown from spreading even further.

He also might be starting to see people who are only following him because of his miracles and actions, instead of because of the message behind those miracles and actions.

Notice in verse 44 that it says that Jesus sternly warns the Leper not to tell others. Once again we see this idea of Jesus being angry. By sternly warning the man, he is letting the leper know that he is serious about this statement and is really trying to prove his point.

Although Jesus warns the Leper not to tell anyone of the miracle, he does tell the man to go and show himself to the priest.

Two questions arose for me when I read this verse:
~ What is the benefit of the Leper going to see the priest?
~ And what are the benefits for Jesus by having the man visit the priest?

The immediate benefit for the leper is that he can now be declared clean by those who have the power to do so - the priests. Another benefit is that after being isolated from the society for quite a long time, he can now re-enter the community and no longer be an outcast.

The benefits for Jesus are quite different. His benefits almost make it seem as if Jesus is manipulating the leper in order to help his cause.

Imagine being in the priests' position! Where they have declared a man as being unclean and several years later he comes back and his leprosy has been cured. When the man explains how this happened, the priest will be forced to acknowledge that Jesus has the power of God to heal. And by doing this, Jesus will be exposing their hypocrisy, by showing that while the priests say they believe in his miracle of healing, they continue to oppose his ministry.

But of course, the leper does not listen to Jesus and begins to tell all of the people about his cleansing. I don’t blame him either. Imagine being an outcast from society, untouchable, and looked down upon by everyone around you. And all of a sudden you are made clean and brought up to their social status.

The growing publicity of Jesus soon gets overbearing and forces Jesus to leave the city and become an outcast himself. He and the leper trade places.

Talk about irony! Because of Jesus, the leper is reinstated back into the society. And because of the leper’s disobedience, Jesus becomes an outcast, unable to enter any town openly, but is forced to stay out in the country.

It is also somewhat ironic when you think that Jesus’ fame actually hampered his ministry. Perhaps that was why he was angry. He knew that this act of compassion was going to be costly.

But we all know that Jesus was always willing to pay the cost. He was willing to pay the ultimate cost. He was willing to trade places with this leper. And in doing so, he gave us a foretaste of what he would do later in taking our place.

He healed this leper. He made him clean, pure and holy. He showed the leper and the rest of the society that God had not written him off; that God did not want to punish him; that God had not given up on him; that God was a God of love even for sinners and outcasts.  Amen.

11:15 AM, Sanctuary 2; Jim Simpson, Jr.
Listen carefully as I read the first half of our gospel lesson again:
⁴⁰ A leper came to Jesus begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.”
⁴¹ Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!”
⁴² Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.

What exactly was a leper in biblical times? Lepers were the ultimate outcasts of society, the extent of their life was severely hindered by this disease that plagued them. Within Leviticus, we can find many restrictions on lepers themselves.

For example:
They were required to wear torn and tattered clothing;
They had to have disheveled hair so that everyone could easily recognize them as lepers;
They lived outside of the community, often times with each other, because living within cities walls was forbidden;
When they DID enter within the gates of the cities they had to shout out, “Unclean, Unclean” and they had to stay 50 feet away from all people being sure NOT to touch anyone.
And perhaps even worse, they were not allowed within the temple as the disease was thought of as one of spiritual uncleanness.

Within this context, we can see why the man would come to Jesus to be healed. But then, why doesn’t he say “HEALED”? Why does he ask to be made “CLEAN”? This is because the man did not just want physical healing - to be cured of the disease. He wanted his life to be restored back to normal. He wanted to be PHYSICALLY, SPIRITUALLY, and SOCIALLY cleaned.

So he comes to Jesus and asks him to make him clean. Jesus acts on this and makes him clean saying, “I do choose. Be made clean.”

But do you notice how Jesus does it? Think of it. Jesus has the power to heal people. He’s already healed a bunch of people in this gospel and has driven out many demons. Jesus speaks and people are healed. Jesus could have just said the word and the leprosy would be gone. But Jesus does something different with this man.

He reaches out and TOUCHES HIM! He touches a man who is considered to be untouchable. He touches a man with a contagious skin disease. He goes against Jewish law… against Jewish custom… and TOUCHES HIM! He didn’t have to, but he DID!

Think about what this action would have meant for Jesus. According to biblical law, the law Jesus had studied his whole life and in which he abided - Jesus, himself, was now unclean.

What did Jesus risk? Not only did he risk contracting this highly contagious disease, but he, himself, could no longer enter the temple. He, himself, was no longer supposed to get close to people.

Think of how potentially different the scene on Palm Sunday would have been. Look! Here comes Jesus riding on a donkey. Oh… that’s weird! He’s screaming at the top of his lungs over the roar of the crowd. “I’m UNCLEAN, I’m UNCLEAN.”

People would be throwing down their palm branches scrambling to pick up the clothes they placed on the path for the donkey to walk over. After all, is even a Louis Vuitton purse worth risking leprosy?

I think that the most important thing shown to us by Jesus through his actions is his willingness to go beyond biblical law, to show compassion for someone who needed it. Jesus shows that some acts of kindness and love are greater than written law. He was willing to move beyond the Torah regulations about becoming unclean and risked HIS OWN position in society to help this man - to restore this man.

Helping outcasts, helping those in need, is hard. It’s a RISKY BUSINESS. The risks can be anything from Physical, Emotional, Social, to Financial.

Think about the PHYSICAL risks: Sometimes helping the lepers of our society requires that we place ourselves in harm’s way. This can be one of the greatest sacrifices. The Peace Corps’ mission is to send, those who are willing, into harms way to try and bring about stability and equality within nations. In World War II the soldiers of the allied forces risked themselves in order to bring about the end of a horrible dictatorship that outcast anyone who didn’t fit into the Arian mold.

Beyond the physical risks, there can be EMOTIONAL risks. Sometimes risking yourself for others can be such an emotional experience that although you are not physically harmed, you are never the same again. Many of the firefighters, policeman, and heroes of 9/11 suffer from this. PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) is a diagnosable form of this type of emotional harm. The same can be said for many Vietnam War veterans suffering from this disease either in hospitals or sadly on the streets.

Beyond the physical or emotional risks, there can be SOCIAL risks. Sometimes helping others can cause us social pain and can risk our place in society. The Freedom Riders knew all to well what their bus protest would do to their place in society. Protesting for equal rights and the end of discrimination in the United States, the freedom riders were willing to risk alienation from their fellow man to bring about radical change. They were willing to sacrifice everything they had in order to help those that were outcast in our society.

And finally, there are the FINANCIAL risks. Only months after the tragedies of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita we find ourselves still financially tied to victims of Katrina and Rita. We have to ask ourselves, “Are we willing to sacrifice some of our luxuries for other people’s necessities?”

I hope our answers are yes. I hope that in most situations, we are willing to sacrifice all that we have to help the outcasts in society. These actions can be anything as simple as sitting down with someone designated as a “loser” in our lunch period, to anything as extreme as risking your life to save another. (Or running into a building that is going to collapse in order to save the lives of all those who have been ruled out as dead.)

This is what Jesus would have done. It was his mission to accept the outcast, let in the outsider, save the forgotten. This too needs to be our mission. Jesus demonstrated his mission to bring about the kingdom of God to this world through his actions towards the leper. We need to go out with this in mind, and help all those lepers and outcasts in our world today.

With our theme this Youth Sunday being Sanctuary, we need to place an emphasis this Sunday, next Sunday, every Sunday, and, in fact, in every day of our lives, to bringing about God’s kingdom here on earth.

It starts with creating a sanctuary within ourselves; thinking of ourselves and our lives as a place in which God is present, alive and active.

Then, we extend this to our church, making this place, this community, a sanctuary for all those who have been expelled by society. We need to open our doors to all those who need help.

And this will help bring about our most important and final goal: the creation of this world as a sanctuary; one in which there are no lepers, there are no diseased, there are no outcasts; a place where everyone is loved, and honored and respected; a place where God’s will is done, on earth, as it is in heaven; a place where God dwells.

This is what we are called to do. This is our mission.  Amen.