Mini self guided service

 I've got a cold so have been unable to record a sermon this week as I'm too croaky, so here we have something of what I would have said.....

 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed. Luke 17:12-14

Wrth iddo fynd i mewn i ryw bentref, dyma ddeg dyn oedd yn dioddef o'r gwahanglwyf yn dod i'w gyfarfod. Dyma nhw'n sefyll draw ac yn gweiddi'n uchel arno o bell, “Feistr! Iesu! – wnei di'n helpu ni?”

Pan welodd Iesu nhw, dwedodd wrthyn nhw, “Ewch i ddangos eich hunain i'r offeiriaid.” Ac roedden nhw ar eu ffordd i wneud hynny pan wnaeth y gwahanglwyf oedd ar eu cyrff ddiflannu!

Reflection

With coming down with a cold leaving me feeling out of sorts and going over with people how being dyslexic/neurodivergent can be a real headache at times. I came to the story of Jesus healing 10 people with leprosy in a bit of a weird headspace. 

I couldn’t see where God was speaking to me in the reading. Then the other day I heard something from my Twitter friend, KT Tupling. She was talking about disability and the church when she said that we need to understand the difference between Healing and Curing.  

It was a lightbulb moment because it was something I’d thought about but could not put into words. If I was to be healed I would neither expect, or want my dyslexia to go away. It is part of me, it is the lens through which I glimpse God and if I suddenly wasn’t dyslexic then I would not be me either. 

Healing is about removing that barrier between us and God, whether that is taking away a condition which prevented someone from being part of their community and from going to temple, as it does with the Lepers in the story or healing the internalised ableism which tells a person with a disability that they are somehow a marred image of God, that they are broken. The people with leprosy in the story were cured, the leprosy went away but they were also healed, they could go back to their families and community of faith, they could see themselves as loved and valued by God. 

Loving God, please cure my cold, heal me of my self-doubt and the church of the barriers to my inclusion, but please leave my Dyslexia alone. 

 

Gweddiwn, let us pray.

Loving God, reach out your hand into our lives, unconcerned by our condition. Touch us.

Cure us of our illness, heal us of what separates us from you, and help us to understand the difference.

Amen