One Out Of Ten Ain’t Bad, Luke 17:11-19 (Ordinary 28 Year C)

Luke 17:11-19

On the day when we first suspected Debbie might be pregnant with our first child we were on leave and in Hyde Park, attending a concert by an artist she had wanted to see for a long time, the now-deceased Meat Loaf.

I won’t detain you with my thoughts about that concert, which weren’t very flattering, but of course he performed a number of songs from his famous ‘Bat Out Of Hell’ album. Songs with lyrics such as

I want you, I need you
But there ain’t no way I’m ever gonna love you
Now don’t be sad
‘Cos two out of three ain’t bad.[1]

I guess Meat Loaf did better than Jesus here. Two out of three, 66.6%, versus one out of ten, 10 %. One out of then ain’t bad? Maybe that’s something to remember when we worry about lack of response to the Gospel.

But what I mainly want to explore today is what this story tells us about the ministry of Jesus and how we respond to it.

Firstly, the compassion of Jesus crosses boundaries.

There are two ways in which the compassion of Jesus crosses boundaries. As the lepers cry out, ‘Jesus, Master, have pity on us,’ his heart is roused to compassion.

The first boundary is one of distance. You will notice the lepers cried out – because they were not that near him. Why? Because it was socially prescribed that lepers stayed away from the rest of the population. So they have to shout. Think about all the COVID-19 measures of the last two years, especially before there were any vaccines: keeping two metres apart, the scandal of insufficient personal protective equipment for hospital staff, and so on. These were all required to keep us as safe a distance as possible from transmitting the virus to one another.

Now imagine you had to live with such restrictions for the whole of your life. Imagine too that you had to live outside the boundary of your town, where your only company was with your fellow sufferers. Think about the effect that would have on you – emotionally, socially, and in other ways. The compassion of Jesus crosses that.

The second boundary is about the distance created by geographical borders. We read here that Jesus was travelling ‘along the border between Samarian and Galilee’ (verse 11). Is it so surprising, then, to hear later in the story that one of the lepers is a Samaritan?

It is our task as the church to carry on the compassion of Jesus today. How tempting it is for us to keep it within the boundaries of the church family, with people we know, where we usually feel safe, and where we hope and expect people will support us.

Now that is a rose-tinted view of the church – some of the most virulent criticisms, character assassinations, and use of defamatory language have come inside church circles.

We need to be ready to cross boundaries with Christian compassion, just as Jesus did. To be like him we must take risks and demonstrate his compassion not just in the church but in the world also.

That’s why our Baptist friends are starting a course to help people face and overcome financial difficulties. That’s why our Anglican friends have run bereavement ministries, as well as their community fridge that helps prevent food going to landfill. That’s why one Saturday morning a month you can see ‘Healing On The Streets’ based in our high street, offering prayer for people. That’s why we run the clothes bank.

But just because things are happening doesn’t mean we can be complacent. We cannot sit and think, well so-and-so and so-and-so are operating something from our church, we don’t need to get involved. We do!

Do we already know someone or a group of people outside the church who need the compassion of Jesus? Or is his Holy Spirit drawing us to care for others?

Jesus went into the broken places to meet broken people with the love of God. Is that what we are doing?

Secondly, the ministry of Jesus is to the whole person.

How does Jesus heal? Here there is no laying on of hands, nor does he speak to the illness and rebuke it. All he says is, ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests’ (verse 14). The healing happens while they are on their way to the priests.

For one thing, the mere fact of physical healing by Jesus puts paid to the idea that we should confine ourselves to what is ‘spiritual’ and not concern ourselves with physical or material matters. It’s a criticism levelled at the church when we get involved in politics or when we have to spend time on practicalities.

But we cannot divorce the physical or the social from the spiritual. They are all inter-linked. Christians speak of human existence being a ‘psychosomatic unity’ – that is, soul and body are bound together in the one human person.

The mere act of healing shows Jesus’ concern for all that he created. It is a concern he calls us to share.

And why does he send the lepers to the priests? You may know that in that society the priests were the ones who could declare someone cured from leprosy. If they did so declare, then a sufferer’s social isolation as I described in the first point was over. No longer would they suffer socially and emotionally by being cut off from human contact. They could embrace their family again and experience the healing power of touch. They could take their place in society again. They could have the dignity of earning a living once more. They could share in worship with others as they had done before.

The healing of Jesus is physical and social as well as spiritual. Thus our expression of his ministry in the world today needs to be similar.

Of course, we have to be careful not simply to be another social agency. We need to find ways to show why we are showing God’s love in material and social ways. We need to express the reason for the hope that is in us, as the New Testament puts it.

I’m not suggesting we only give material and social help on condition of people hearing a gospel presentation – I have heard of churches that do that and it’s a form of manipulation. But I am saying that there should be something about the way we freely offer the love and mercy of God to all and sundry, regardless of whether they share our faith or not, that should end up prompting questions about why we might do such a thing.

One place where we have an opportunity for that is at our annual Christmas party for elderly and lonely people. We have always offered that event free of charge, and people have often wanted to give a donation towards the costs. How easy it would be for us to say to our guests on that afternoon, there is a reason we offer this for free, and it is to do with the God we believe in. We believe he freely offers his love to us: we don’t pay our way into heaven. We could leave people thinking about the Gospel on that Sunday afternoon.

Thirdly, faith in Jesus needs to be active.

To be scrupulously fair, you could say that all ten lepers put their faith into action, because they all obey Jesus’ command to go and show themselves to the priests. In that their healing comes.

But as we heard, only one returned praising God to Jesus. And that one was not a Jew but a Samaritan (verses 15-16) – someone with decidedly dodgy theological convictions in the view of typical Jews. He had God and where and how to worship God all wrong. Yet he is held up by Jesus as the exemplar of faith (verses 17-19).

So what is the difference between the Samaritan and the nine Jews? Surely it’s gratitude. That’s why the Samaritan returns. The other nine have got what they want out of Jesus and off they go.

How easy it is for us to treat faith in Jesus like the nine Jewish ex-lepers with their conventional, ‘correct’ beliefs about God. If we are not careful, we end up using faith to get what we want or need out of it without bowing at the feet of Jesus as the heretical Samaritan did.

An obvious area where this manifests is in those people who complain after a morning service that they never got much out of it. They came to get, not to give. Worship is a giving experience.

The same people and others will complain that they are not being fed spiritually. Yet what are they doing to feed themselves? Yes, the shepherd is meant to feed the sheep, but in the process the sheep themselves learn how to feed. But some people in our churches just want everything put on a plate for them. It’s selfish and un-Christlike.

Instead, a true active faith like that of the healed Samaritan is one that is characterised by gratitude. When we know what Jesus Christ has done for us the faithful response is gratitude. Gratitude seen in our commitment to regular worship. Gratitude in nurturing our own personal connection with him in prayer. Gratitude in recognising that as he laid down his life for us so the fitting response is to lay ours down for him. And that is why a ‘take, take, take’ attitude is so unworthy of the Christian.

But the grateful faith of someone who lays down their life for the One who died for them will not stay in splendid isolation in the church but cross boundaries with the love of God for others.

That same laid-down life in gratitude will show that love of God in physical, material, and social ways, all because of the spiritual connection with Christ.

Are we among the nine out of ten? Or are we the one out of ten?

October 9, 2022 1

What Pastors Don’t Like About Pastoring

Thom Rainer lists a Top 10 of things ministers don’t like about the ministry. It’s only an informal list, not based on a serious, properly researched survey. Ministers will have different perceptions. For example, I love doing weddings (#9 on Rainer’s list) and I also consider it a great privilege to conduct the funerals of non-Christians (#2), because there is a gospel opportunity to show the love and compassion of Christ. But budgets (#10) and business meetings (#1) – oh yes, I’m there every inch of the way.

What do you think of the list? What would you add to it, or remove from it?

November 1, 2012 2

A Pastor’s True Vocation …

… is to be a fashion consultant. Welcome to the wild and wacky world of Pastor Ed Young Junior‘s Pastor Fashion. Oh yes. The man who brought you the book Sexperiment now tells you all you want to know about skinny jeans and testosterone. Is there a connection?

I just missed these classes at theological college. I took the trivial stuff like biblical studies, doctrine, church history, pastoral theology and missiology. Eugene Peterson, you got it so wrong.

Meanwhile, Erwin McManus launches a fashion range, but he seems to be doing it for more arty reasons. Apparently, he says,

This is an incarnation into the world of art, story, and creativity.

At least if you read the whole of this interview with him, one of his motivations is job creation.

May 17, 2012 5

“Can I Speak The Truth In Love, Brother?”

Brady Boyd on ‘Five Conversation Starters Every Pastor Dreads‘.

Do any of these strike you? Do you have any other – ahem – ‘favourites’?

May 6, 2012 0

Organise Your Church On Purpose And Giftedness

So says Rick Warren. OK, you’d expect Warren to use the word ‘purpose’, but the thrust of the article is the benefits of structuring a church around people’s gifts, rather than in trying to fit them into a predetermined structure. Makes sense to me. But it means there are some powerful institutional forces we need to resist in our denominations.

April 21, 2012 10

Seven Things Pastors Should Never Say

What do you think of this list? Would you add anything or change anything?

April 1, 2012 4

Hope For ‘Failing’ Pastors

All sorts of jobs have particular pressures today. My work as a minister certainly has. There is all sorts of pressure against whatever might be regarded as failure:

* In the light of numerical church decline, many churches are looking for a hero to ride over the horizon and come to their rescue. I have seen Methodist profiles where circuits explicitly seek a minister ‘with a proven record of church growth’.

* In a culture where we are increasingly regarded as employees in principle, even if not (yet?) legally – appraisals and reviews, ‘letters of understanding’ about new appointments – people think they can have their say, and if they don’t think ministers are meeting their expectations – whether they are reasonable or not – they turn the screw.

* It is seen in other professions. Politicians think they can harvest extra votes by more quickly dismissing ‘failing’ teachers.

* Alongside the above reasons, there are cases where a minister has behaved in a manner unbecoming of their calling, and the church authorities have glossed it over.

* The opposite has happened: a congregation has been allowed to get away with bullying its minister, and the church hierarchy has been more interested in preserving a fictional facade of niceness that a wounded minister limps off elsewhere, or maybe is lost to the ministry.

* As implied in the last point, there is a culture of ‘pretend’, if not of outright dishonesty, that pervades too many churches, which makes it difficult for people, ministers especially, to be open and vulnerable about their fears.

In the light of all this and more, an American pastor called J R Briggs organised a conference last year called the Epic Fail Pastors’ Conference, and he’s doing the same again this year. It’s in the USA, so my expenses won’t quite stretch, so I won’t be there (although apparently last year one delegate flew from Australia). They are deliberately not meeting in a flash convention centre in a fashionable city. They aren’t announcing any big names. Much of the schedule is taken up with ‘time together’.

I nearly typed that I wished them a ‘successful’ conference, but that would open up an interesting conversation about what truly constitutes success. But I do wish all the participants healing, hope and peace.

January 21, 2012 8

Employment Rights And Ministers

The Methodist Church has lost an appeal against a minister who claims she was unfairly constructively dismissed. To be more precise, Haley Preston is pursuing a case along these lines against the church, and in past times the church could claim that it was not her employer, but that ministers are employed by God. Now the Appeal Court has upheld the ruling of an Employment Appeal Tribunal that Mrs Preston was in fact employed by the church, a position which gives her access to redress under employment legislation. Before now, ministers who were dismissed have had no such redress in law. The full judgment is here. The official Methodist response reads as follows:

Revd Dr Martyn Atkins, General Secretary of the Methodist Church in Britain said: “The Methodist Church is seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court against the judgement that Haley Preston’s (formerly Moore) case is a matter for an employment tribunal. We are treating this matter with great seriousness as something which would affect all of our ministers and the culture of our Church. “The church values all of its ministers, and it is clear to us that relationship cannot easily be reduced to a simple contract of employment. The call to Methodist ministry cannot be treated as just another job – it is based on a lifetime calling, expressed through a covenant relationship with the Church. “We want to ensure that we treat everyone fairly and properly and all of our ministers have rights of redress under existing Church procedures. We are committed to caring for all who serve the Church, whether lay or ordained, paid or volunteer.”

The point of the ‘covenant’ language is that there is a mutual covenant between church and minister. Ministers give up a home to go where the church stations them; in response, the church provides a stipend (a living allowance – not a salary) and a manse. In court the Methodist Church tried to invoke Human Rights law to the effect that religious conscience should have prior claim over employment law. The Appeal Court called this ‘moral poverty’. It appears that the church has added things to the covenant from the world of secular employment, such as appraisal, supervision and holidays, and these are now regarded as evidence by the courts in support of ministers being in a contractual situation, in addition to or instead of a covenantal one.

The covenant is good when it works. However, it can go wrong on either side. A minister can be treated badly by a congregation, circuit or other body; equally, a minister can mistreat a church or individuals. I do not know what happened in Mrs Preston’s case, and even if I did it would be wrong to comment, especially when the legal process has still not finished. Clearly, though, she feels aggrieved. However, it is a tragedy when Christians have to invoke the law in order to deal with each other, something Paul told the Corinthians in his First Epistle to their shame.

At this point I simply want to tease out the pros and cons if ministers do end up being treated as employees. In favour is the fact that it would open us up to clear protection in employment law. It might also make things clearer in cases of incompetent or abusive ministers. Against is the notion that some people would want to tell ministers explicitly what they should be doing, in ways that go against the historic notion that the stipend frees ministers to pray and seek God’s direction for their work. The introduction of the ‘Letter of Understanding’ that circuits give to ministers when an invitation to serve in a new circuit is accepted has pushed in this direction: some circuits start to get quite precise about their expectations of the minister. While accountability is important, it will be hard to be a leader if those we are trying to lead think they can tell us what we should be doing.

Furthermore, should the position be confirmed that we are employees of the church, we shall need to resolve exactly who or which body in the church is our employer. The fears described in the last paragraph could be very real if the employing body was very local. If, on the other hand, it was the Methodist Conference itself, there might be more opportunity for proper safeguards and procedures. It is not that all local lay leaders are dangerous – far from it! – but lack of knowledge, experience and skills could be dangerous.

There is a fascinating (but increasingly complex) discussion of this issue going on at the UK Methodists page on Facebook.

In the wider context, the trade union Unite (which represents such ‘faith workers’ as join it) has been campaigning for a few years now for ministers to be given the same rights as employees. That may not necessarily involve us becoming employees, but being entitled to the same protection. There is a paper explaining their position here.

This is going to run and run, in some form or another. Whatever the final conclusion, it will massively change the relationship between ministers and their congregations. My gut feeling is that it will end with ministers becoming employees in some form or another, because – as has been said on the UK Methodists Facebook page – the courts are increasingly taking the line that ‘if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck then it is a duck.’ It is hard to know what fundamental doctrinal reason we could have for resisting employment status, but if we go that route we shall have to be careful and we shall need to be proactive in developing what that relationship could and should be in line with our convictions.

December 22, 2011 5

Introverts In Leadership And Ministry

Earlier this year, I chronicled as part of my sabbatical my investigations into ministry and personality type. My current reading is Adam McHugh‘s book Introverts In The Church, which Scot McKnight has picked up on.

Now I find I’m by no means the only Methodist minister interested in this topic. American minister Beth Quick posted an article last week entitled Introverts Can Make The Best Leaders, in which she cited an article from Forbes Magazine entitled Why Introverts Can Make The Best Leaders.

By way of a quick exercise, I thought I would take the five characteristics that the Forbes author and muse briefly on them.

1. Introverts think first and speak later. Well, sometimes a calm, measured approach is welcomed. When life is complex (and it is), careful reflection should be valued. I’m not sure it always is, especially in an always-on, text-sending, 24-hour-news-channel world.

2. Introverts focus on depth. I like this and I think it’s important. However, some people want ministers who are strong on chit-chat. They think it is a sign the minister is interested in people. It can be, but it can also be about a church that can’t get beyond superficiality.

3. Introverts exude calm. I haven’t often been told this! Although when I worked in an office and someone phoned in with a complaint, I was often the person who dealt with it. Many outwardly calm introverts are paddling furiously beneath the waves. There may be a genuine air of calm about a lot of introverts, but a lot of us have coping strategies, especially when calm is required in a group setting. The article quotes some examples. I rehearse conversations before I have them.

4. Introverts let their fingers do the talking. Yes. I love preaching, but I love writing. Given time, I can order my thoughts better that way.

5. Introverts embrace solitude. Please stop pejoratively calling the introvert a ‘loner’ and the extravert a ‘people-person’. You know the prejudice: serial killers turn out to be loners. When we withdraw from the exhausting task of being with people, we reflect and think.

None of this is meant to demean extravert leaders, but it is designed as a plea for people to widen their vision about the people who can lead and appropriate styles of leadership.

What do you think? What is your experience?

December 13, 2009 4

Tag: ministry