Sermon for February 15th

The leper in the story today comes to Jesus and says, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Now, that is faith if I’ve ever seen it. He is trusting that Jesus has the power to heal a disease that, at the time, was incurable. This leper has faith that Jesus can do the impossible, heal not only this disease but, in the process, heal this man’s relationship to his community. For to be a leper meant to be an outcast, a sinner, and unable to be around anyone besides other lepers.

Can you think of some other examples of faithful people in the Bible, how about just in the New Testament to trim down our options? There’s the story about the woman who had been hemorrhaging, bleeding, for twelve years. She had gone to many doctors but they could not heal her, they only made it all worse. She found Jesus and said to herself, “If only I could touch just the hem of his robe, I would be made well. She touched him and she was healed.” That is faith. She trusted in Jesus’ power and believed that, despite the well-intentioned efforts and skills of the medical profession at her time, this man, a carpenter’s son, would be able to fix her malady.

Can you think of another example? I know you aren’t used to speaking up in a sermon, but if you speak out, I’ll do my best to go with it. I know that you know some more, but you are all being very polite so I’ll give you another example. How about the four men who lowered down their friend from the rooftop by cutting a hole in the roof and letting him down on a mat so that Jesus might see him. That is faith, isn’t it? They believed that if they could get their friend close to Jesus that just might do the trick and Jesus might feel compassion. They had faith that Jesus had the power to heal a paralyzed man.

In Romans 3, Paul says that God justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. A person is made right in the sight of God through faith, by trusting in God’s Word alone and not because of what one does or does not do. But it is very easy to think of our faith as some kind of magic trick, as something we do, on our own, to get God to do his thing. Without our faith, our choice, our decision, we figure God is either impotent or uncaring. But viewing faith in this manner can easily turn a healthy relationship with Christ into an unhealthy trust in one’s self or one’s own abilities.

The first commandment says that we are to fear, love and trust God above anything else. Anything else. To fear, love and trust God is to have faith in his name. But here’s the thing. When our ability to believe or to have faith becomes the all and end all, then we are in the driver’s seat instead of God. When salvation comes down to our decision to “choose” Jesus, then we are the one calling the shots and Jesus seems to just be sitting on the sidelines waiting for US to give HIM permission to work in our lives.

This understanding of faith is what many people call “decision theology”. The idea that faith is a choice that you must make or else all God’s work is for nothing. I used to work for the Gallup polls in college, calling people to survey their opinions on everything from what they thought of the President to how good of health care they received at their last hospital visit. But every once in awhile, I’d get a question back and it would go something like this, ““When were you saved?” When was I saved? Umm, I guess when I was baptized? “No, no, no.” They’d say, “I mean when did you ACCEPT Christ into your life? I was saved on April 11th 1988.” Oh, really? April 11th? Hmm. Well, I guess I accepted Jesus into my life when he accepted me into his, at my baptism. Wanna answers a few questions about the election? “Maybe some other time.” (Click) dial tone.

Now, I believe that there are a lot of different ways we can talk about faith, salvation and our relationship to Jesus. I trust that the people asking me about “when EXACTLY” I was saved were wonderful Christians and had a terrific relationship with Jesus. But, just like me, they’ve got a hard time following the first commandment. You see, sinners, like to put their faith and trust into anything OTHER than Jesus Christ alone. Whether that idol is money, or Buddha, or the NFL or the handsome guy looking back at us in the mirror or maybe our own ability to believe.

But faith is not about when or how, it is about who, but it’s not about you. The leper said, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” “If YOU choose, Jesus, YOU can make me clean.” I do not doubt the sincerity of this leper’s faith. Perhaps he went around afterward telling everyone about the day he accepted Jesus into his life and his leprosy was cleansed, “April 11th? Or June 25th?” But I wonder if the aftermath of this event looked a little different. I wonder if this leper might have skipped over how he begged and kneeled down. I wonder if this leper didn’t focus on HIS decision to go to Jesus at all. I wonder if this leper might have forgotten how much faith he felt he had at the moment and just told people, “You gotta meet this guy Jesus! That guy healed me! What? Do I trust him? What do you mean do I trust him? When did I feel this way about him? I don’t know? He healed me! Come and see this guy Jesus!”

Faith is not about when or how, it is about who and it’s not about you. Faith is not about when you “accepted” Jesus. Faith is not about how heartfelt you cried when you prayed the “sinner’s prayer”. Faith is not about how quickly after birth you were baptized. Faith is about Jesus. Jesus’ death on the cross to accept YOU as his chosen and beloved child. Faith is about Jesus’ heartfelt cry, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me!” when he was cursed upon the cross only to be raised from the dead three days later. Faith is about the forgiveness of your sins by being washed “In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

I know that there are a lot of different ways to talk about faith and your relationship to Jesus. But I believe that it’s important to be absolutely clear about who’s doing the real work and who gets the glory. It’s easy to make ourselves into the main actor of our faith rather than the ones being acted upon. But we undermine faith in Jesus when our salvation becomes about how WE decided to have faith or when WE accepted. Because the questions always come up, “Did we really DO anything? Did we REALLY accept Jesus? Do we have ENOUGH faith? Have we fallen away so far that we need to be baptized AGAIN? What if we don’t FEEL as faithful as we once did?” When you place the emphasis for faith upon your shoulders there will never be enough answers for your questions.

But when the author and the focus of your faith is Jesus Christ you can rest in the assurance that when he makes you a promise you can trust him to keep it. No matter how you feel today, or when you accepted him or how long ago you were baptized. Faith in Jesus is much more interesting and important than how you got there and when it happened.

The leper in today’s story said, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” And I’ll tell you what, that is certainly a lot of faith. But you know what? The leper’s faith isn’t the miracle. This story is about Jesus, not the leper. This story is about what Jesus does and what Jesus says, “I do choose. Be made clean.”
“If you choose, you can make me clean.” That could have been the end and no one would have cared. No one would have cared when the leper had faith. But Jesus said, “I do choose. Be made clean.” That’s the miracle. Faith itself, your efforts alone to believe, is only a sidebar in the story. The most important part is who you have faith in and what that means for your life. You are justified by faith alone, yes, but not just by faith alone but by faith in Jesus Christ alone. You don’t do the choosing, Jesus chooses you. It’s not about what you’ve done or how you did it. Faith is about Jesus and what he has done for you. Faith is about who, not about you.

You see, if Jesus chose, you would also be made clean and your sins would be forgiven, right? If Jesus chose. I’m hear to give you this promise: to every sinner within hearing distance, Jesus does choose and he chooses you. Your sins are forgiven and you are clean. Amen.