Last Sunday Jesus assured us that sin is not a problem; . . . neither are temptations to sin a problem, . . . but when you cooperate with sin and make it your friend, . . . then you have a problem.  . . . And so, Jesus told us last Sunday, “Take heed of yourselves!”  He told us to point out one another’s sins to one another; He told us to gratefully repudiate the personal sin that is brought to our attention; . . . and He also told us to forgive the sins that are repented.  . . . It rather puts me in mind of a community of primates (the jungle kind; not the episcopal ones).  . . . It puts me in mind of a community of primates who diligently groom one another of harmful parasites:  . . . one monkey will groom another, who will turn around out of sheer gratitude and return the favor.

    It doesn’t work quite the same with humans, though.  You may diligently name my harmful parasite -- you may diligently name my sin -- . . . but I’m not likely to return the favor with gratitude.  In fact, I’m more likely to turn on you with wrath and unpleasantness.  . . . As a result of this, the advice of our Lord Jesus to His Church to take heed of Herself . . . goes pretty much unheeded.

    It goes unheeded because it doesn’t seem to be very good advice.  For instance, look at the New England Puritans of the seventeenth century -- you know, the ones who roasted turkeys and invented Thanksgiving?  In the off-season they incinerated witches and invented unspeakable tortures to eradicate sin; all in the name of taking heed.  With those embarrassing excesses to Her credit, the Church of the twenty-first century has become very wary of pointing out the sins of Her membership.  In fact She has made an artform of rationalizing sin and calling it something more benign, and She has taken to embracing the unrepentant sinner in the name of “inclusivity”.  . . . But all of that’s unnecessary.  You see, where the Puritans went wrong is that they became so occupied with taking heed of one another’s sins . . . that they forgot all about the repentance and forgiveness part of Christ’s teaching.  . . . And so, the Puritans lost track of the whole object of our Lord’s exhortation, which was to instruct the Church that sin must not defeat us!

    Sin is not the problem, . . . but cooperation with sin is.  And so, each of us must be mindful when another member of our Family in Christ tells us that we’ve stepped in sin and are carrying it about with us, soiling the rugs and creating a godawful stench.  . . . Each of us must be mindful when we are told that we’ve stepped in sin and be willing to let go of it; . . . to go and do the hard work of scraping it off our boot and allowing a priest to wash our feet.  . . . And then the rest of us must be willing not merely to overlook a penitent’s sin, . . . but we must forget it ever existed.  That is the essence of taking heed of ourselves:  . . . for the penitent to relinquish sin and the rest of us to forget he or she ever had it; . . . this is how sin does not defeat us.

    Upon hearing this teaching from the lips of Jesus, the disciples said (last Sunday), “Lord, increase our faith!”  To which Jesus replied, “Don’t be ridiculous.  If you have a modicum of faith; faith even as small as a single mustard seed, . . . you can do anything.  . . . But it isn’t anything that God wants you to do,” Jesus said, “He simply wants you to do your duty.”

    So, faith is important to the Christian Life.  Faith is necessary for doing our duty.  In fact, on numerous occasions, Saint Luke tells us that Jesus has shown faith to be essential to doing our duty.  And so, on this Sunday (and for the next two Sundays) the readings from Saint Luke’s gospel provide us with a discourse on faith.

    Now, the first thing we need to know about faith is that everyone here has it.  None of us would be here if we didn’t have at least that fleck of faith Jesus says is necessary to do the impossible.  And that’s because faith isn’t a skill to be cultivated.  Faith doesn’t depend upon your state of mind.  Faith isn’t something you can will into being or conjure up with aroma-therapy.  Faith isn’t the product of positive thinking nor is it the result of proper exercise, yoga, and deep meditation.  Faith is a grace:  . . . it comes from God.  You have faith because God gave it to you.  Faith is a gift from God as natural as your skin.  . . . And, like your skin, faith has several important functions essential to life:  . . . faith saves, faith strives, and faith absolves.

    Today we have been told about the first:  that faith saves.  . . . Now, what do you suppose I mean by that?  . . . Well, in order to describe the saving effect of faith Saint Luke tells us about a time when Jesus was met by ten lepers on his way into a village.  Jesus was met by ten people infected with mycobacterium leprae, a bacterium which attacks the skin, peripheral nerves, and lining of the nose.  In Jesus’ day it was a terrible disease.  It horribly disfigured its victims, . . . and, because it was communicable, anyone who contracted leprosy was an outcast.  They were forbidden contact with all human society.  They were forbidden employment; they were forbidden to live with their families; they were forbidden the comfort of a spousal embrace; . . . they were forbidden to kiss or to be kissed by their children.  Leprosy was a living death.  . . . And so, these ten leprous people intercept Jesus on His way into a village, and they cry out to Him, “Master, have mercy on us.”  . . . And Jesus, interrupted and surprised by this cry for mercy, . . . Jesus looks up and sees the lepers off in the distance pleading for Him to help them, . . . and He goes over to them, peers at them, closely, . . . and then says, “Oh, well, look, none of you have leprosy.  Go and show yourselves to a temple priest, like the Law of Moses says, and he’ll tell you as much.”  . . . And the ten lepers stand there looking at Jesus wondering if He’s been in the sun too long.  But then one of them says to the others, “Look, I told you how he drove an unclean spirit out of my brother-in-law’s child!  I say we do what he tells us.  What do we have to lose?”  . . . And the other nine consider this for a minute, . . . and they shrug their shoulders and set out for Jerusalem.  . . . But, on the way, one of the lepers, a fellow by the name of Joshua, . . . Joshua begins to get this tingly sensation where there has only been numbness for years, and Samuel notices that a swollen and discolored patch of skin has begun to become smooth and pink.  And each of the others notice similar changes.  And as they go the lepers become more and more excited!  Their leprosy is clearing up!  They will be judged clean by the temple priests!  The thought of it is like being raised from the dead!  . . . And the group’s pace begins to pick up so that soon they are fairly running, their skinny legs flashing and their sandals slapping the road.  . . . All except for one poor fellow, a Samaritan named Achmed; . . . Achmed gets so excited that he goes back to Jesus shouting God’s praises.  . . . And when he arrives back at the village he had set out from, . . . Achmed kneels down in front of Jesus weeping, and takes hold of Christ’s feet and kisses them and thanks Him profoundly.  . . . And Jesus says to Achmed, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

    The original Greek text reads that Jesus said, “pistis sou sesoken se”, . . . which literally means that Achmed’s faith has saved him from death.  . . . And that is what I mean by “faith saves.”  Faith saves us from death.  And the word sesoken conveys the idea of saving the whole person!  . . . Jesus tells the one leper that both his external self and his interior self have been saved from death:  both body and soul are well; . . . both body and soul are in the presence of Life.  . . . The other nine lepers are healed, . . . but they have not allowed their faith (the faith that brought them to Jesus in the first place) . . . the other nine lepers have not allowed their faith to make them well.

    And how does faith make us well?  . . . By evoking gratitude.  This is how our faith saves us.  It evokes gratitude.  And gratitude brings us into the Presence of God.  Gratitude brings us to Jesus.  . . . How?  Well, gratitude is a surrender of self to the One to Whom we are grateful; . . . gratitude is an opening of heart and mind and physical will to Another, so that Their presence inspires joy and a willingness to do just about anything for Them which will communicate our gratitude.  It is the self-surrender of Ruth to Naomi when she says, . . . “May the LORD do so to me and more also if even death parts me from you.”  . . . And faith inspires this same self-surrender to God.  Heart and mind and soul turn in unison toward God to utter a kind of physical hug conveyed with spiritual energy.  In other words, faith makes you present to God.  . . . And when you are present to God Who is eternally present, . . . you are in God’s Presence.  Remember how I keep saying you don’t have to die in order to go to Heaven?  Well, faith is why it is so.  Faith evokes gratitude, which brings you into God’s Presence.

    And the effect of such a thing, Jesus says, is tremendous.  When faith brings us into God’s Presence, the very Being of God impinges upon our complete being, so that a kind of wholesome energy blesses our body.  The touch of God’s Presence makes us feel like ourselves; . . . indeed, there have been many, many times when it has restored original health; when it has materially affected diseased flesh; . . . when it has infused life into some who have been near death.  . . . But even setting the miraculous aside, it is the effect of faith to make us, in subtle ways, physically well.  . . . But there is more, because the touch of God’s Presence imparts wholeness to our spiritual being as well; . . . the touch of God’s Presence imparts shalom to the human soul.  The touch of God’s Presence evokes a harmony between body and soul which makes you completely yourself.  The touch of God’s Presence is the touch of the ineffable and divine and eternal Life.  The Life that has been breathed into each of us by God at our Baptism to make us who we truly are.  And the touch of God’s Presence is the spring from which the water of Life bubbles up so that you may drink of it . . . and live.  . . . Or, as Jesus says to grateful Achmed, healed of leprosy, . . . your faith makes you well.