Standing up for Jesus
by The Rev. Sara Fischer
When the gospel writers mention a location, it’s usually a signal for us to sit up and take notice. Jesus heals ten lepers in a no-mans-land between Samaria and Galilee. This reminds us that he ministered in a fractured time to a fractured people, people whose allegiances to God and to Empire were constantly being demanded and questioned. This is maybe true of some of us, also.
When I was in seminary I went to a preaching conference where one of the many extremely basic, practical words of advice we got was “check the headlines before you come to church on Sunday morning.” There is a lot going on in our city and it seems that headlines are changing every hour. The already fragile fibers of our wider community are fraying. There are things happening that may be causing you to question whether we are still—if we ever have been—one nation under God. When our nation was founded (not all that long ago) it would never have occurred to the writers of the declaration of independence or the constitution that anyone would ever have to choose between God and country. But if we choose the Jesus who came for the last, the least, and the lost, following Jesus may be interpreted by some as unpatriotic.
Does anyone remember the Hebrew National hot dog commercials featuring Uncle Sam? The voice over read all the ingredients the federal government would allow companies to put in their hot dogs. The punch line was “We could use all these ingredients, but we don’t. We can’t. We’re kosher. We have to answer to an even higher authority. “
Jesus’ work, which we hear about in every gospel, is to expand his followers’ understanding of healing and of community. The gospel not only teaches us but also commands that we include people in our circle of care who are outside traditional ways of thinking about community. This is what we are called to do as followers of Jesus. Not only that, but we are called to protect and to serve those on the margins. If we want to be like Jesus, we will continue to widen our embrace. Like Jesus, we will choose sides for the poor and for those whom no one wants around.
Back to the lepers. It is the tenth leper who is the star of today’s story. The nine are not doing anything wrong. But the tenth leper is our teacher for today, for the challenges right outside our door. He is placing Jesus at the center. He is taking sides, taking Jesus’ side. This is what I hope we will do as we navigate the challenging times in our own lives and in our lives in the wider community of humans. Jesus came for the least, the last, and the lost behind, and the tenth leper knows this.
If you read my stewardship letter—did anyone get it already?—you know that I define stewardship as the belief that “all that I am and all that I have comes from God, all the time.”
The tenth leper knows this, too. He knows he can never repay Jesus but he also knows that his first priority is to give his attention to Jesus as the source of all that is good and holy and healing. So—I might suggest—that our response to events around us must be to attend, first and foremost, to Jesus, the source of all that is good and holy. We haven’t heard this for a while, but we need to ask ourselves: What would Jesus do? If Jesus showed up in Portland, where would he be?
There was a presidential candidate a long time ago who said that we should not talk about whether God is on our side but rather whether we are on God’s side. (He lost his bid for the presidency by a wide margin, but that doesn’t mean he was wrong about everything.) We know from scripture that God is always on the side of the vulnerable, the weak, the outcast, the foreigner, and the stranger. So to be on God’s side is to be there with the weak and the outcast, the foreigner, the other.
The battles of the world are not always our battles—but sometimes they are. Our closing hymn today, Stand Up for Jesus, reminds us of this. The hymn writer, George Duffield, was inspired to compose the hymn by the death of a young clergyman who was also an abolitionist, persecuted in the 1850s for his anti-slavery beliefs. His last words were “tell them to stand up for Jesus.” It’s not clear from the story who the “them” is—perhaps he’s challenging the pro-slavery Christians to switch sides for Jesus. Or he’s reminding his fellow abolitionists not to lose heart but to hold fast on God’s side. When the tenth leper turns around to thank Jesus, he is standing up for Jesus. The hymn calls us to keep Jesus as our center, to keep Jesus as the source of our courage, and our strength, and to put on the armor of the gospel in order to protect the vulnerable and marginalized around us, to stand between them and anyone who would do them harm.
When we gather at this table to share the simple gifts of bread and wine, we affirm the triumph of love over death, the strength of community over all that would divide us. We affirm our dependence upon God for spiritual food for the journey, and we stand up for Jesus.
