Date: May 1st, 2011
Speaker: Jill Cavanagh
Title: Do You Know Your Heart?
Good Morning Everyone, It is good to be home and back in Saskatchewan after spending the winter in California. I have been told many times, that we picked the best winter to leave town!! Once, while out in our yard while we were away, a couple walked by and asked where we were from. I answered, with great pride “Saskatchewan”. They responded, “That’s nice” and walked on. I then heard the wife say to her husband, ”where are they from” and he replied” I don’t know. She didn’t speak English!”
I want to share with you Mark1:40-45 If you can, picture the scene with me. It is a short, but beautiful passage. When Jesus came down from the hill, great crowds followed him. Then a man with leprosy came to Jesus. The man bowed down before him and said, “Lord, you can heal me if you will.” Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man and said, “I will. Be healed!” And immediately the man was healed from his disease.
In these few lines, we have opportunity to explore three hearts. The heart of the crowd, the heart of the leper and the heart of Jesus. My prayer is, as we examine the hearts of the crowd, the leper, and Jesus you will recognize which heart is yours.
Before we can look at the ‘heart’ of each, I think it is really important to understand the condition of leprosy. One definition states leprosy as a chronic infectious disease caused by an acid-fast, rod-shaped bacteria.. The disease mainly affects the skin: parts of fingers, the nose, even ears may go missing. It has struck fear into human beings for thousands of years. In all ages, it has been considered one of the more despicable diseases and victims have been despised throughout history and kept in separate places (leper colonies, sanitariums). Even today, most people with leprosy are shunned by their neighbors and are held at arms length .I remember as a teacher having a young student, who was born with much of his facing missing. He only had one eye, part of an ear, cleft palate, part of his nose missing and he struck fear in people who didn’t know him, and he didn’t have a disease that he could pass on. Kids often didn’t want to play with him. We fear what we don’t know and fear often, that which is different from us.
Understanding what leprosy is, and how disfiguring and ugly it can be, now if you will, explore with me the heart of the crowd that surrounds Jesus. When we read the scripture we aren’t really told anything about the crowd, but what could we imagine about the ‘heart’ of the crowd, when a leper walks through it. Perhaps, as a school teacher, my perception of crowds is tainted, but this is what I’ve discovered. In a classroom, two rowdy, rude, loud students can direct the whole class. The other 25 kids will be distracted, they might egg on the rowdies, they might watch with laughter or they might even begin behaving the same way. That is often known as ‘mob mentality’.
And, so we understand that this man, with a disease that causes him to be shunned, despised and feared, is walking through a ‘great crowd’ to get to Jesus. What do you suppose would be the reaction of the crowd? Someone may start whispering! Leper!! I am certain that was a leper that just walked past me. Leper in the crowd! Probably no one would shove him or touch him, out of fear, but people would more likely back away. They may even hold cloths over their noses, so as not to get a drift of his stench or rot. They may poke him with sticks and fearfully scream “get out of this crowd; we are waiting to see Jesus. Get your disease away from us!!! And the question is, do we as a faith community, react with mob mentality, when a leper walks amongst us? Are we afraid we will catch “the rotting body disease” if we were to have a close encounter with a leper.
Well, lucky for us, no lepers walk amongst us today and we don’t have to deal with the question.
Or does leprosy appear in different forms?
I know as a faith community, we have experienced mob mentality when it came to the disease of divorce. It was not that many years ago, when divorced people were “frowned upon”. They were sometimes even asked to leave the church. As Christians, our standards are high, and divorce is one of those “stenches” that we like to avoid. And perhaps, if we can clean them out of our churches, the rest of us won’t catch the disease.
We’ve experienced mob mentality in the area of addictions and I remember a stench I had in the addiction area when I first attended church. (And this may be one of those stories I have already told you). I would quit and start and quit and start. I never made a secret about it. I even stood at the pulpit, asked for prayer and then suggested if any of the congregation wanted to experience what it felt like to quit smoking with me, try not eating any sugar for the next few days. And at the end of that very day a member of the congregation called me and said, Jill “smoke all you want, I can’t go without cookies with my coffee!!” Of course he was joking, but I really appreciated his empathy. Appreciated his effort to understand what I was going through and not throw out a cliche – if you really loved the Lord you could quit smoking.!!!! If you really loved the Lord, you would stay with your wife. If you really loved the Lord, you would stop drinking. If you really loved the Lord, He would heal you from gambling. Sometimes our mob mentality just doesn’t get it!
Anyway, at one of the times I was back smoking, I was on the board of elders. During that time a new pastor came to minister at our church and it wasn’t long before I was invited to his “office” for a visit. He said, “Jill, is it true you smoke?” When I answered “yes”, he said, “well, you can’t be on the board of elders!” So I told him, “if I can’t quit by January when elections are, I will not let my name stand for re-election.” So that was our deal. Well of course I quit – I wish I could say I was a leper that had been touched by Jesus. But, it really wasn’t a spiritual thing. I was just stubborn. I loved being on the Board of Elders. I felt I contributed to it, because I did not always see things the way the others did.!! Coming from a non-Christian background,it was good to have input and questions from a different perspective.
A few months later I was invited back to the office. The pastor said “you must be so happy about your victory over this habit.” To which I replied “I am not happy and I don’t have victory. I’ve simply changed addictions and now I eat too much. But as Christians we often make decisions who the leper is, or what the leprosy is. An addiction which makes you fat still allows you to serve on a board, but not an addiction where you smoke.
The question would be, does the heart matter at all in the leper, or just their disease?
I tell that story with tongue in cheek and hopefully haven’t offended anyone. I am so grateful to have victory today – and truly I have it, not to please anyone, but because the Lord touched this ‘leper’. I often think the Lord didn’t heal me instantly from smoking, because it gave me so many illustrations for sermons!!!
Another area of stench is the area of abortion, another is the area of homosexuality. And sometimes it is just the disease of being different, being poor, being jobless, being single, being handicapped. And, because we all love the Lord, and because we are obedient to His word and His love, those diseases never touch US!! Well maybe the little diseases like overeating, or divorce and smoking, but not the big diseases like abortion and homosexuality. But then, our world changed, and the unthinkable happened. Some of those diseases touched OUR children. They touched our friend’s children, they touched those we already knew and loved .And then, there was a change in our mob mentality. The Christian faith is full of tensions. The behavior is wrong, but we can still love the offender.. And the faith question I now wrestle with is this: does God allow the “leper” to live and have a ‘close encounter’ in my family, your family, because he knows we already love them. He knows we are most likely not going to send them to a “leper colony”. He knows we are going to ‘dig deep’ to understand what it is to love like Jesus. 2 Cor.5:16 says “Our knowledge of men can no longer be based on their outward lives.”
As part of the ‘great crowd’, or this congregation that is following Jesus, is there a ‘leper’ in your life. Is there someone you won’t touch and does that attitude serve as a barrier for that someone to reach Jesus for his healing touch? If two young men walked in here today, and sat down for the service, intent to find out more about God, would we embrace them after the service or would we start to whisper? When we were in California, I read often of a radical group of Baptists that stood outside the funerals of slain, gay soldiers shouting slurs like. Jesus hates faggots. Your son is going to burn in hell. When one of the fathers of the slain boys, took his case to the supreme court to ask for privacy at the funerals, he was told , everyone has the freedom of speech. When parents were turned down by the Supreme Court to stop the protesters, then a group of bikers showed up and revved their engines during the service, so the parents would not have to hear the protesters. Wow. We live in a world with mob mentality. How will we be different? Is there something you need to do today, to love like Jesus? Do you, like the leper, need to have a close encounter with Him and say “Lord, I know you can heal me if you will. Heal me of my attitude and give me a heart like Jesus. Through your power, may I learn to love those who are different from me.
And now, let us take a look at the heart of the leper. What courage it must take to go where no one wants you, no one wants to brush against you or touch you, no one wants to admit they know you. What courage it takes to walk through the crowd to find Jesus, especially when people don’t like you , let alone, love you. Have you ever experienced the soul of a leper? Have you ever been shunned, despised, beaten up emotionally, spiritually, physically. Told you weren’t good enough, you weren’t smart enough, pretty enough, rich enough, In my work as a counselor, I know many of you have!! Some of you have experienced it in your families, some in your work place and even some in your churches. My heart breaks most when I hear about it in our churches. Absolutely devastates me, because for some reason I think we should know so much more about love, about acceptance, about touching the leper. My heart breaks because I am capable of mob mentality myself, after all God has done for me. I am less capable of it now because I have had my own leper experience. It was a place of employment, where I showed up to work every day, where I wasn’t wanted. It happened 20 years ago, when counselors were first introduced in schools. The staff had never had a counselor on staff, didn’t believe kids needed counseling and didn’t want a counselor. They didn’t include me in anything. It truly was an old fashioned shunning. And it was horrible. If you are out there today, experiencing the soul of a leper, may I say with complete compassion I understand. May I tell you God’s wonderful promise from Hebrews 11:6 : God rewards those who diligently seek Him. Praise God for the experience, because without question, my greatest growing experience has been to have the heart of a leper, to be shunned, despised and left out. Because it was then I had nothing, nothing but the knowledge God loved me. Nothing but scripture that said I could walk through that miserable, cranky crowd and ask God for healing and He would do it.
What issue makes YOU feel like a leper? What will help you seek a close encounter with Jesus regardless of the personal cost? Regardless of your fear of walking through that crowd?. What do you need to move toward Him? Do you need someone to walk with you? In my leper experience, I had two friends who kept assuring me of His promises; one powerful one from Hebrews 5:13, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” If you need support, please ask someone - myself, Pastor Kevin. Nearly every one here, at some time or other, has experienced a leper situation. And my faith question, does Jesus allow us a leper experience so we can develop a Jesus heart?
And last we examine the heart of Jesus. The scripture says, ‘Jesus reached out and touched the man”. And the picture looks like this: A couple in the great crowd have seen the leper and start the whispers, others hear it and fear of the leper is produced and now some start yelling and the leper with all the courage he can muster is making his way to Jesus not knowing if he will be beaten or stoned to death before he gets there. But, he remembers one thing, Hebrews 11:6 , God rewards those who diligently seek him. It doesn’t say God rewards those who seek religion, or systems or creeds, but rewards those who seek him. What about this close encounter between Jesus and the leper. Scripture says, Jesus reached out and touched the man. Why isn’t Jesus afraid? After all he came to earth to live amongst us and experience everything we did – why isn’t he afraid of ‘catching the disease”.
Perhaps Max Lucado in his book Just Like Jesus explains it best when he says:
Remember, heaven was not foreign to Jesus. He is the only person to live on earth after he had lived in heaven. As believers, you and I will live in heaven after time on earth, but Jesus did just the opposite. He knew heaven before he came to earth. He knew what awaited him upon his return. And knowing what awaited him in heaven enabled him to bear everything on earth. The shame of being stripped before his own mother and loved ones and nailed to a cross, the shame of being forced to carry that cross and stumbling under its weight. The shame of the pastors and elders of his day mocking him and calling him names.(Sounds like a leper experience). In his final moments, Jesus focused on the joy God put before him, Hebrews 12:2 He ‘accepted the shame as if it were nothing because of the joy that God put before him’. He focused on the prize of heaven. By focusing on the prize, he was able not only to finish the race but to finish it strong. I often forget about heaven and that the prize is the joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord is my strength.
How do we deal with lepers? Perhaps Jesus allows more ‘lepers’ in our own family situations so we will have the love He does. Is it possible we will be exposed to more lepers until we get it right – until we reach out and touch one. I am not saying divorce is right, that smoking is right, that homosexuality is right. But, thank God, I am not the judge. I am saying, reaching out and touching is right. It is the example we have been given. It is what we are called to do.
Which heart is most like yours today? Write it down on your paper.
Do you have the heart of the great crowd, when faced with a close encounter with a leper, becomes frightened and whispers “you and your kind, don’t belong here”.
Do you experience today the heart of the leper – you want, need and know that Jesus can heal you, if you will diligently seek him. It takes such courage to go through the crowd to get to Jesus, but Romans 8:31 says If God is for us, who can be against us? Who will you ask for help?
Or can you say thank God for his grace, I am learning to love like Jesus and I can touch a leper?
Eph 3:20 Now glory be to God who by his mighty power at work within us is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of- infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts or hopes.
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