28th Sunday 2016 - Jesus leads to true conversion

Lk 17.11-19
This passage is one of the reasons why being Catholic is so much fun!
If we were literalists, we would say, okay, some lepers were healed, one is grateful and gee isn’t he nice.  And Jesus is such a good guy for doing this. Or isn’t Jesus powerful, able to cure 10 lepers from afar.


But, as Catholics, we go deeper, to the invisible reality that the visible words are presenting.
Jesus is teaching us about True Faith and experiencing the Salvation in the here and now.  Which means it can change everything.
Most of you who have heard me preach know that the theme of Salvation is very common.
I think we do not fully comprehend what it means, and because we of this, we prevent ourselves from experiencing the fullness of being disciples of Jesus Christ.
I also am thinking we really underthink  faith too.
Clearly, faith and salvation are connected
How many times in the gospels does Jesus say  “Your faith has saved you.”  or something similar.
He tells it to the samaritan leper.
Kaltenbach Portrait of my Father
Faith, first of all, is not merely saying “I believe” or “I trust.”  Faith is being open to the utter aliveness of God and being open minded, imaginative, to what that reality means.

Salvation, at its heart, is being free to love and be loved.  Which means it is not just about getting into heaven, but being full of love today, here, now!
So we have 10 lepers, who don’t even necessarily ask for healing; they simply asking for pity from Jesus.
Jesus tells them to do what the law requires:  go to the priests for a declaration that they are no longer lepers.  Then they could rejoin society.
Its says they were healed on the way (btw, we could spend hours on that theme).
Yet, the one leper comes to a deeper realization...He has been healed because God is all about life.  He understood the “Why” of his healing.    He has experienced the mercy of God
God did not see him as someone impure, as someone disfigured, even as a “Foreigner”  
God, through Jesus, saw him as a human person.  I think this blew his mind wide open.  Probably after years of being called a leper, disdained because of his disease, and because he is a samaritan, he feels loved.  
This is his faith
This was his moment of Salvation, his moment of Conversion.
This is why he is grateful.  His gratitude is a response to the love of God which frees him.
No longer can anyone demean him with their words, leper, foreigner, sinner.
He is free to love and be loved.  He will no longer demean others based on the condition of their lives.
How about us?  Have we truly been converted?  Have we truly, I mean truly, opened our very minds and hearts to the reality that we are children of God and that God loves us; that God is ALIVE!
Have we experienced salvation?  Have we truly become grateful persons?
We say this something to that effect in every mass.  Every preface, in some form or another says “It is our salvation to give you thanks, Father…”
Conversion is not being healed of our depression, addictions, bad habits, anger, etc.  These are good, and yes please give thanks for when that happens.
Conversion, true conversion into true disciples of Jesus Christ, is to experience the very mercy of Jesus Christ, and understand, believe, be open to the utter aliveness of God, such that it changes the way we see the world, and live in the world.
We become agents of mercy.
Salvation is to be changed so that we no longer hold violence in our being and therefore we no longer use that violence on anyone else or ourselves; which means we forgive, we show compassion, we do not demean others because they are different, or of different gender
...we include and not exclude.
We find JOY in our lives.
That mercy begins with the simple realization of God’s mercy made real in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Humanity murdered, executed, killed the Son of God; because he was deemed too different, too extreme, too wrong.
Humanity used violence to try to end a conflict.
El Greco's Crucifixion
God’s response to such an affront, such a crime, to such violence…
Resurrection.  
Jesus came back, not to punish us, not to seek revenge..but by his words, his being...to show us mercy, to give us peace, reconciliation forgiveness.
Ruben's St. Francis
If God forgives us this...God forgives us all the other sins that we do.  God is utter mercy.  God is utterly alive and created us for LIFE!

And if we accept God’s forgiveness, we can forgive those who have used violence, in all of its forms, against us.  We do not have to continue violence.
And we remember this and it is made real in each and every celebration of Eucharist, in which God gives to us the body and blood of the resurrected Son of God.
To say, you are cleansed, you are my children.  Have faith and be saved.
Imagine what we could do once we open ourselves to the Reality of a truly merciful, truly Alive God!

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