Someone who grew up in a religious home
and was told either explicitly or implicitly that they were no good.
Lots of times this is around sexuality,
but not always.
People who have religious trauma carry
with them shame, internal hatred, and perfectionism.
They express to me that they grew up in a "strict" religious household.
Many of them tell me they will never
return to a church.
The damage that was done to them is too
great.
For example, I once had a conversation
with a man who attended a Catholic school growing up.
His parents were divorced so the nuns
often punished him for this.
On day family days they forbid his
parents from attending.
While the other students were off doing
things with their families he had to stay in class and copy the dictionary.
Often the nuns would tell the young boy
that his family was going to hell for their sin of divorce.
Or the time that someone told me that
their pastor once told them that if they ever played with a schoolmate who was
Jewish that they would go to hell.
This was a problem for this child because
his best friend was Jewish.
Or the time that someone told me that all
they were ever told at church was that they were sinful and wrong because they
had feelings for other men.
Or the time someone told me that they
always believed they would go to hell because they had an abortion.
Or the time someone told me that they
grew up believing that only super good people went to heaven.
They weren't allowed to watch movies,
listen to music, dance, or do anything outside of going to church and reading the
Bible.
Often times people express this in more subtle
ways.
They say something like, "I had a really
bad experience growing up in Church."
This doesn't even account for the sexual
abuse some received at the hands of clergy.
All the time people are telling me that
they will never come to church because of some trauma they received at church.
It is sad to me that this happens to
people.
And as a Lutheran (I want to interject
here that some of the stories I have been told also happened in Lutheran
churches.) I think this happens because we bring too much law and not enough
Gospel.
As Luther once wrote, "We shouldn't
make Jesus into Moses".
Making Jesus about keeping laws, rather than
setting us free from sin and death.
To me, that is what the text is about
today.
It is about Jesus confronting not just
leprosy, but religious trauma.
It is about how our religious beliefs get
in the way of having faith in God's love and grace for us.
Let us start by saying that in Jesus' day
people believed that any infirmity you suffered was because of sin.
Religious people believed that leprosy
was a punishment for some sins.
And on top of that, you were then ostracized
from the rest of the community.
You were made to live apart.
This is where we find Jesus this morning.
In this land between Galilee and
Jerusalem.
It is no mistake in Luke's Gospel that
Jesus is in this liminal space.
It was not a place that many people
traveled to, or through for that matter.
Many people went the long way around to
get from Galilee to Jerusalem.
Why?
Well, there were Samaritans living in that
place.
We know those good religious people viewed
the Samaritans as less than them.
And it is clear from Luke's telling that undesirable
people, like lepers, also lived in that space.
But here is Jesus, God's only Son,
traveling through the heart of it.
And not only that but along the way
stopping to heal.
I know that we can look at healing texts,
like this one, and get caught up in the miracle of healing the physical ailment
of leprosy.
But the real miracle here is the healing
that leads to a restored sense of faith.
The nine people that ran off to show
themselves to the priest, still seem set in the religious precepts where they
first experienced trauma.
While the one who returns to give thanks
is giving up that life for something new.
Turning away from a system that is based
in how well you perform religious tasks.
Instead turning to a system of
thankfulness for the blessings of God.
To a system where all of us are free to
live out our faith in the ways that seem best to us.
Because Religious trauma happens when we
are trying to control people.
It happens when we use religion as a way
to manipulate people into doing what we think they should.
What Jesus offers us is the opposite.
Jesus offers us wholeness.
Jesus offers us freedom from oppressive
systems that want to dehumanize us.
Systems that use religion to control us.
Jesus is freedom from such religion.
This makes it all sadder that in
Jesus' name people are traumatized by leaders who say that they represent him.
There are many reasons for the demise of
religion in our day, but let me suggest that this might be one of the biggest.
That we have gotten it so wrong for so
long that people just walked away because of things the church did to them.
Because what Jesus shows us over and over
again is that there is no sin that God won't forgive.
All human beings have worth.
No matter who we are, where we come from, or what we have done, we matter to God.
That God is always going into the spaces
that others don't want to go in order for us to know these truths.
When we find ourselves in places that are
in between when we seem lost that is where Jesus shows up.
I believe that we are sinful.
But I believe even more in the truths
that Jesus showed us.
I believe even more in God's grace and
love.
I believe even more that we all have
worth.
And I believe that especially those who
don't think they have worth are the people that God is searching for.
I hope you all know today how much value
you have.
You are not lost, broken, or unworthy.
You are beloved children of God.
And Jesus Christ crossed over into the
worst parts of this world to show us this truth.
May you always know how much God sees in
you?
May you know that you are saved.
May you know that you have worth.
When we know of God's love and grace for
us we too like the leper who returned will have grateful hearts!
Amen
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