Thomas J Parlette
“Where to Meet Jesus”
Luke 17: 11-19
10/9/22
I love trivia. I subscribe to more than a few daily emails that bring me all sorts of trivia questions on travel, other countries, inspiring quotes from well-known people and obscure figures you’ve never heard of. So I was intrigued by a recent piece of trivia asking “how loud is too loud?”
For most people, anything over 100 decibels is probably going to be too loud. To give you some context - a quiet rom would register around 10-20 decibels. Raindrops falling outside would come up to 40 decibels. A normal conversation would run about 60 decibels. Your average restaurant usually checks in at 70-80 decibels. A vacuum cleaner and city traffic would come in around 85 decibels. And here’s where it starts to get uncomfortable. A hair dryer or a lawnmower would generate around 90 decibels. A helicopter or your average rock concert would run around 105. If you’re working with a chainsaw, that’s about 110 decibels, that’s why you should wear ear coverings. By the time you get to 130 decibels, that’s the threshold of pain – anything above that and you’re running the risk of damage to your hearing.
If you are interested, there is actually an app you can download called Sound Print that lets you measure the decibel level anywhere you are. In fact, Sound Print actually has measured certain places, including restaurants, so you can find a suitably quiet place if that’s what you’re looking for.
So, just out of curiosity, I looked up restaurants in Rochester, Minnesota. The quietest restaurant in Rochester was a bit of surprise to me – it was Applebee’s, at about 32 decibels. Sorry, it didn’t specify which one. Others were not so surprising – India Garden, Lord Essex Steakhouse and Chez Bojji were all ranked among the quietest in town. But I was surprised that the Tap House, Outback Steakhouse and Fiesta were also ranked in the quiet category.
Coming in at the Moderate level – between 70 and 75 decibels – were Victorias, Terza and Hollandberry.
Moving up into the Loud category of over 75 decibels was Five West, Cameo and The Purple Goat.
But the loudest restaurant in Rochester according to Sound Print came in at 82 decibels – and I wouldn’t have guessed this. The loudest restaurant in Rochester is The Canadian Honker. Who knew!
You might wonder why I dove down this rabbit hole of decibels and loud restaurants. Well, throughout much of his ministry - especially on this travel narrative section of Luke – Jesus is surrounded by large crowds. I have no idea what the decibel level was, but I bet it was loud. If you’ve ever tried to shush a large crowd of people, you know how difficult that could be. I also notice how many times people in the Bible yell for Jesus’ attention. That’s what happened with the group of lepers in our passage for today, they shout out to get Jesus’ attention.
In the NRSV translation of the story, it starts out, “On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee.” That first sentence is very important to story. The people hearing this story would have been taken aback to hear that Jesus took this particular route. Jesus grew up in Nazareth, which was around Galilee. That was familiar territory for him, that was his home, his comfort zone. You might say that Galilee was Jesus “stomping ground.”
Most of Jesus’ ministry took place in the region of Galilee. But sometimes, Jesus went rogue, at least in the eyes of the religious establishment. The animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans can be traced back to at least 700 years before Jesus’ birth, when the Assyrians conquered the Jewish city of Samaria. Marriages between the pagan Assyrians and the Samaritan Jews led to changes in the way that Samaritans practiced their faith. Samaritans were considered impure, heretics, sinners to be avoided at all costs. In Jesus’ day, devout Jews avoided Samaria. They deliberately planned their travel routes to go around that area, not through it.
Dr. Courts Redford, a pastor and former President of a Baptist university, once wrote about visiting a poor, run-down neighborhood in St. Louis. As he walked the streets, Dr. Redford met a dejected looking man standing on a street corner. He struck up a conversation with the man and began telling him about the peace and hope he found in following Jesus.
The man responded, “Mister, nobody with peace and hope ever comes down here. I guess even Jesus wouldn’t come here.”(1)
But Jesus did go there. He went exactly to the people and the places that everyone else avoided – because Jesus loves those whom the world rejects. Jesus loves those who are at the margins of society. Jesus’ first public sermon in his hometown synagogue came from the writings of the prophet Isaiah – “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
From the beginning, Jesus never hid his agenda. He couldn’t have cared less what the religious establishment said, or what would make him popular with the crowds. He cared about bringing God’s love to everyone. And he didn’t wait for anyone to come to him. No, Jesus went outside his home turf and into the “bad neighborhoods” to find people who needed to see that love in the flesh.
Singer and songwriter Rich Mullins could have made a lot of money and gained a lot of fame in the Christian music industry. He wrote best-selling songs for some of the top Christian singers in the 70’s, 80’s and into the early 90’s. He could have had a comfortable life as a Christian celebrity. But instead of seeking fame and attention, Mullins gave away most of his money, shunned the spotlight, and dedicated the last years of his life to teaching music to children on a Navajo reservation in New Mexico. Tragically, Rich died in a car accident in 1997 at the age of 42.
In 1996, while performing at a Christian music festival in Kentucky, a fan asked Mullins if God had called him to the Navajo reservation to share his faith and convert the Native Americans. And Mullins said, “No. I think I just got tired of a White, Evangelical, middle-class perspective on God, and I thought I would have more luck finding Christ among the Navajo.(2) I think all those from our church who have visited B’decan and the Pine Ridge reservation would agree.
Mullins also said in another interview, “If we want to meet Jesus, it won’t likely be at church, although I’m a big believer in going to church. I think when we meet Jesus, it will be somewhere outside our camp. It will be where people have been marginalized, people who have been literally imprisoned. We will meet God where we least expect to.”(3)
If we want to meet Jesus, it will be somewhere outside our camp. Jesus, who revealed to us the very heart of God, loves those whom the world rejects. The folks standing at the margins of society – the sick, the invisible, the “sinners”, the rejects. Jesus didn’t just see them. He went looking for them. Which tells me that those ten men with leprosy didn’t have to shout out to Jesus. We never need to shout. Jesus already knows our need.
Our story continues, “As Jesus entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean.”
That brings us to another insight we get in this passage – Jesus, God in the flesh, loves to show mercy to those who are hurting. That word “mercy”, also means “compassion”, or sometimes “pity.” There are seven instances in the Gospels – in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – in which people come to Jesus asking for mercy. And in every instance, all 7, Jesus responded. He never turned them away. That’s the whole reason he was walking along the border between Galilee and Samaria – because he knew someone there needed some mercy, some compassion, and Jesus, the Healer, the One known as Creator Sets Free, goes to where the hurting are.
The play Green Pastures won the 1930 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It was ground-breaking in many ways, but most notably because it featured the first all-Black cast for a Broadway play.
There is a scene in the play where God disguises himself as a poor country preacher and walks among God’s people on earth. God meets a man who begins telling him about how he worships the Lord God of Hosea. Hosea, you might recall, was an Old Testament prophet who preached a message of mercy and sacrificial love. God called Hosea to marry Gomer, an unfaithful woman who left Hosea and ended up being sold into servitude in the local marketplace. God commands Hosea to buy her out of servitude and restore her as his wife. In this way, Hosea serves as a witness to the mercy, sacrificial love and restoration of God.
So God, in disguise, asks this man,” What kind of God is He, this God of Hosea?”
“Well, He is a God of mercy.”
“Where did Hosea learn that?”
And the man answers, “Why the same way anyone ever learns it – through suffering.”(4)
Until you have suffered, until you have been cut off from the life and hope you used to know, you cannot fully appreciate the mercy of God. There are only two instances in the Gospels where people hesitated to approach Jesus – the woman who was hemorrhaging blood who reached out to touch Jesus’ robe, and Zacchaeus, the tax collector who was despised by the Jews. In the first case, Jesus saw the woman, spoke to her, and, of course, healed her. In the second instance, Jesus approached Zacchaeus and invited himself over for lunch. In both cases, Jesus approached them and offered mercy. Even when they didn’t ask for it. Even when they didn’t know they needed it. Jesus, God in the flesh, also known as Creator Sets Free, loves to show mercy to those who are hurting.
So, where do you go to meet Jesus?
Go to the borders, go to the margins, go outside your camp. If you want to meet Jesus it won’t likely be at church. You will meet God where we least expect it, because God loves those who are cast aside and marginalized.
And when we do meet Jesus, rest assured that the One also known as Creator Sets Free, will live up to that name, and free us with abundant mercy and compassion.
May God, also known as the Great Spirit, be praised. Amen.
1. Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 3, p 25.
2. Ibid… p 25.
3. Ibid… p25.
4. Ibid… p 26.
