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Reflections from a Cancer Ward: Sermon: St. David.s Oct 10, 2010 Luke 17:11-19

The Gospel reading is straightforward. Ten lepers were healed, but only one returned to thank Jesus--and this was a despised Samaritan. Not only was he grateful, but he was also praising God with a loud voice. He had what could be called "an attitude of gratitude." Notice how gratitude is linked with praise. Gratitude and praise require an open-hearted and expansive spirit because they are directed away from the self and towards another. You may have noticed that we are a little short on this kind of open, expansive spirit these days. Employers, for example, with increasing frequency are so grateful to faithful employees that they pay them as little as possible, reduce their benefits or even let them go—all for the bottom line. Political leaders show their gratitude not to the people who elected them but to the deep pockets who finance their campaigns. Examples abound.

Suzanne, being interested in the history of this parish, asked me to include a personal story from my experience here. My story ties in with the theme of the Gospel reading. Carol and I moved into the parish in 1980 and have never left. Our children grew up here. We lived through the great days in the crowded old church, enjoyed the fun and spontaneity and the many faceted life of this wonderful community. I held down several different jobs during this time. We remember when the old building was burned down. We remember Jack Whitehouse, our interim priest who reminded us that it was only a building that burned and the real church was the people of God. We remember when Susan Tobias, Jim England and others reached out to Alban, who had set the fire, came to reconciliation with him and helped him with his problems. Yes, this is a very gracious and expansive community. It is also a place where God is praised with loud voice, with wonderful music and with full heart and soul.

My own story is this: When we moved to St. David’s I worked at the Vet Center. But Bishop Wolterstorff "leaned on" Carol and me to leave my job and become the campus chaplain. I did this at a significant pay cut. After 14 years of service as diocesan campus chaplain, Bishop Hughes informed me in late October that the money had run out and that effective Jan 1, I would be out of a job. Members of this parish wrote the bishop in protest, and went down to see him, all to no avail. George Hemingway, who was a member of St. David’s, worked in the diocesan office. George found enough money to keep campus ministry going until June and members of the parish raised enough money to help us support our family, pay our health benefits and keep going until I was able to fund enough part time jobs to support us. In 1996, I was able to find full time work. Carol, our children and I have never forgotten your generosity. We will always be profoundly grateful

The story has a sequel. In January of this year I was diagnosed with stage 3 T-cell lymphoma. Because this was a very aggressive cancer, I was placed on a very aggressive program of chemotherapy at the VA hospital. This entailed five straight days of chemo infusion administered 24 hours a day. The doctors are very good and the nurses who care for us there do so with extraordinary competence, kindness and gentleness. Each time I went home for two weeks to recover then back in for another five days at a higher dose. This cycle was repeated six times.

Once again, St. David’s came to the rescue. Louise Buck organized cooked food deliveries three times a week during the times I was at home and Carol was busy caring for me. Bob and Janet Shaw organized a two day prayer vigil in which many parishioners took part. Chemotherapy impacted my reflexes and balance, and I cannot drive, so people from this community provided rides for me to VA clinic appointments. Once again your generosity was overwhelming.

Suzanne, this is the kind of community into which you have come as our spiritual leader. We rejoice that you are here and we know that you share this spirit and that you have embraced this community with love and respect.

Let me expand on what I learned during my 30 days on the cancer wards at the VA Each time I went back in for another round, I was sicker than before because the dosage was increased. Each time I was less able to concentrate on the paperbacks I was reading. Serious reading was out of the question and during my last couple of sessions I couldn't even understand the mindless TV I sometimes watched. Spiritual reading and concentrated prayer were beyond me and a couple of times I experienced real thought distortion and mental confusion. But I came to realize that it doesn't make a bit of difference what mental or physical state I am in because God is always present. If I am mentally confused, God is not. If I am weak God is strong. That's what Paul meant when he said that the strength of God is made perfect in weakness.

During chemotherapy concentration was impossible, so my spiritual consciousness was reduced to a very simple and passive awareness of the presence of God. I became more deeply aware, as Paul reminds us, that we are crucified with Christ. The God who lies beyond serious illness and death is the same God who is the author of life. It is the same God who became flesh and dwelt amongst us. It is the Word of God who became for us a speechless infant. It is the One who, as Augustine says, is more inward to me than my inmost self and yet is beyond my highest reach.

As Paul writes, this is the One who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death--even death on a cross.

By sharing death with us--the disgraceful death on a cross--Christ is present in all the cancer wards, all the hospitals, battlefields, refugee camps, hospice care centers and all the mean streets in the world. As Paul says, if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his and if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. We will share in his resurrection.

The risen Christ goes ahead of us beyond even death itself and works within us at every moment until we finally stand in the glorious presence of the Father. We wait in hope for that time when we shall see face to face and when God will be all in all. I began to understand how it is that creation groans to be set free from its bondage to decay and how it is that we await the redemption of our bodies. And it is true that the Spirit helps us in our weakness. And even when we do not know how to pray as we ought, that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. These words of Scripture are all true.

What have these reflections from the cancer ward to do with this community? Simply this: We begin a new stage in our parish life in Christ with a new priest who told us that she centers her ministry on two things: First: the Great commandment: Love God with all your heart and soul and mind and your neighbor as yourself and Second: upon the Great Commission: Go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you, for I am with you always, to the end of the age.

This is Suzanne's spiritual center. Let us make it our own, for we are told to have that mind in us which was in Christ Jesus who emptied himself even to the point of death on a cross. The Great Commandment is the way we do this. This is the way Christ now serves the world: through us. Through our hearts and hands and actions.

The Great Commission is the way we share with others the new life that God has given us in the risen Christ. It is the way we show to the world what we have received from a gracious God.

We are above all a Eucharistic community--remember that Eucharist comes from the Greek word that means to thank. All these things: thanks and joyful praise, working for others and sharing with them the goodness of God are tied in together. So let us commit ourselves today to follow the lead of our new priest and travel with her out into the love and service of others and thus into the future that God has prepared for us.

With thanksgiving and praise, like the leper in today’s Gospel, let us go joyfully into the future, remembering always that because Christ first joined us in our suffering and death, we now have the promise and the hope of new life. It is because He first emptied himself, coming in the form of a slave, obedient even to the death of the cross,

It is for this reason that God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Amen