One of the requirements in our diocese for ordination is that the postulant must have an experience as a chaplain in a hospital, a clinic, or some kind of supervised setting. In 1988 I opted to fulfill this requirement spending a summer at Grady. It was an experience for me! Half the time I was terrified at the awful things I saw in the E.R, and in the clinics. The other half of the time I was incredibly impressed with the care that so many people gave to patients. After I graduated from seminary, I decided to go further with Grady, and I spent a full year of residency there, assigned to the burn unit, the psychiatric crisis unit, and the aids clinic. As I think back over my training, this was perhaps the most valuable year I have spent, learning to hang in with people in crisis, depending on God for help every step of the way.

I was required by Bishop Allen to take a semester at general seminary in New York before ordination, but when I got back to Atlanta, I immediately headed back to Grady. Somehow I had a great affection for the place. I applied for, and got, a part time job in the aids clinic, and after ordination, I kept this job for some ten years, while at the same time working with a church.

In order to think about the gospel story I have just read, I go back to those years, particularly the early nineties. I think about the many funerals we held for our aids patients, some held in the Episcopal Church I happened to be serving at the time, some held in the chapel at the clinic. I was glad to be able to celebrate their lives because I had gotten to know these men well over time. Most were gay men. I heard over and over again the questions which haunted them; were they doomed to hell as gay men, how could god love them when they were told they were sinners? I was so glad to be an Episcopalian, a priest in church that was in many ways on the forefront in the declaration that to be gay, to have aids, was not a sin. Thank god there were some Christians who did what Jesus would do, recognize the marginalized, touch the outcasts, and welcome those excluded by human prejudice.

We don’t find the story of the ten lepers in any other gospel, which tells us something about Luke and his awareness of how Jesus reflects god’s love for all humanity. Just as today we find people who turn away from people who are dealing with an incurable illness; it was true in Jesus’ day. Fear was I guess the major reason to reject the unwell. It was awful to look at leprosy, to know that it was spread just by touching the lesions. Lepers were seen as unclean. In fact people knew much less about leprosy. And had much less control over that disease than we have over the aids virus today in this country. Many rules and regulations had been drawn up for lepers. Levitical law said they had to stay at least 50 feet away from any healthy person, and those ten lepers knew the rules. They knew that they were to keep their distance and stay out of the social life of their village, although they were allowed to ask at a distance for alms from those who were willing to help.

Jesus, of course, would have no part of this business of hatred and fear, just as I am sure he would have no part in rejecting HIV infected people today. When the lepers in our gospel cry out as he approaches, "Jesus, master, have mercy upon us," he responds immediately. I think they must have known something about him, more than his name, to call him "master." But the mercy they received was more than they could ever have hoped for because he welcomes them back into community by sending them straight to the priest in Jerusalem to be pronounced healed.

It isn’t clear exactly when the healing took place. It was more than a day’s journey to Jerusalem where the priests were, and these folk may not even have known themselves when they were healed. What we do know is that nine of them were pronounced cleansed of the disease and went back to a new life.

The tenth was somehow aware of god’s hand in the very process of healing, and it was he who returned to Jesus to give thanks and praise. As I read this gospel, I sense that this is a wonderful model of how we must respond when we pay attention to how god acts in our lives. Some people refer to this as spiritual insight, and I agree that awareness and attention are so much a part of our spiritual being. So often, though, it is our inclination to be insensitive to what that spirit is, how it shapes our lives in so many ways.

There is an ancient story that gives us some insight into how this works. It goes;

"Where shall I look for enlightenment?" The disciple asks.

"Here," the elder said.

"When will it happen?" The disciple asked.

"It is happening right now." The elder answered.

"Then why don’t I experience it?" The disciple persisted."

"Because you don’t look." The elder said.

"But what should I look for?" The disciple demanded.

"Nothing. Just look." The elder answered.

"But, at what?" The disciple asked again.

"At anything your eyes alight on." The elder answered.

"No, the ordinary way will do." The elder answered.

"But, don’t I always look in the ordinary way?"

The disciple said.

"No, you don’t." The elder answered.

"But why ever not?" The disciple asked.

"To look you must be here. You are mostly somewhere else." The elder answered.

And where are we, here or somewhere else? That one leper who thanks Jesus is one who is able to look, to pay attention to the "here." The rest are "mostly somewhere else." It has been suggested that those nine were still living in the pain and rejection on their life as lepers. Or maybe they were just so glad to be out of it, that they just want to "get a life." It is only the one that has learned of god’s mercy, who recognizes the miracle of god’s healing way, and takes time to thank Jesus. He is the one who is "saved."

I went to a movie on Friday night called "the motorcycle diaries." It is the true story of a trip which Ernesto che Guevara and a friend, Alberto, took in 1952 on a motorcycle covering some 5000 miles in South America in over 4 months. Ernesto at the time was 23, a third year medical student who was to do a residency at a leper colony in Peru. (yes, there are still 500,000 lepers in our world today). He kept a diary during this trip which provided the material for this film. We find these two young men who grew up in affluent families, ready to take on the world. Fun, women, drink were all to be part of this adventure and any anticipation of change in attitudes was far from their minds.

In this movie we are invited to see the dawning of new light in Ernesto’s vision, the awakening of social consciousness as these two meet up with the oppressed people of South America. Their fortunes were quickly used up, and they found themselves living with the dispossessed, the unemployed, and the hungry. When the motorcycle gives up, they are reduced to walking or hitchhiking through desert and over mountains. Finally they get to the leper colony in Peru and start to work. Ernesto, in his compassion, for example, refuses to wear gloves which would protect him from touching flesh, holding hands. Sitting at the bedside of the ill, it seems he has a heart big enough to "contain each detail of suffering," as one reviewer has said. He is "here", instead of being "mostly somewhere else."

And I guess that is the question we must ask ourselves. Are we "here," or are we "mostly somewhere else." I believe that the one leper who thanks Jesus is the one who is able to look, to pay attention to the "here," whereas the other nine are, "mostly somewhere else." They take their healing for granted and move on. Only one recognizes god’s gift of mercy and grace. Only one takes time to offer praise and love to Jesus. His faith has made him well.