This was Sunday's sermon from October 10, 2010 - Title: "10/10/10" ... for those of you who might be interested!

Until the year 2012, each year there will be one day, like today, where are all the numbers are the same – May 5, 2005 – or 5/5/05; or September 9, 2009 – 9/9/09. You get the idea.
People pay special attention on a day where all 3 numbers are the same – expecting it to be somehow uniquely special … or at least simply unique. After all, they only come around once every 100 years.

But, to be honest, I fully expected to find dire, apocalyptic warnings about today being 10/10/10. After all – there is something about the number 10 that lends itself to this kind of thinking. It’s fairly basic in our lives. We count by tens. Most of us have 10 toes and ten fingers.

In the Bible, the number “10” often symbolically represents divine order or completeness. There were 10 plagues that Moses called down upon Pharaoh and Egypt. There were 10 maidens with their lamps burning in Jesus’ parable about being ready for his coming. And of course, there is the idea of a tithe – or a gift of 10% that is to be returned to God. And just in case you thought I had forgotten the most obvious - there are 10 Commandments.

With all of that symmetry and order – of course there must be massive conspiracy theories out there expecting something that would happen at 10 min. 10 sec. after 10 a.m. on 10/10/10. After all, that’s going to be not too long from now (and this is one time during a sermon that the preacher won’t even mind if you check your watches).

So, where do you go if you want to find out what strange and curious things might happen on 10/10/10?

Well, a random search on the Internet actually turned up … not much.

Other than the fact that if you’re in a store that sells clocks – you might notice that they’re usually all set to 10 minutes after 10.

And yes, there is the rumor of a massive Internet virus that will crash all computers at 10:10 this morning. But since in every 24 hours there are over 60,000 pieces of malicious software that are launched – one security engineer wondered why anyone would worry about today in particular?[1]

I did learn that Bride’s magazine is reporting that more than 30,000 couples will be married today – about 10 times the normal number reported for any other day.[2]

For a while I muddled my brain with all those “zeros” and “ones” from today’s date, trying to figure out how to convert from a binary system into a decimal system and I remembered why I didn’t major in math. But I did find out that 101010 in binary code converts to the number “42.” For those who know the classic science fiction book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, they will quickly recognize that the number “42” is the answer to life, the universe and everything.[3] There’s definitely a sermon or two in that.

But overall … I found no global-apocalyptic-cosmic cataclysm-conspiracy theory for 10/10/10.

In fact, I learned from one website that, even when taking into account the differences between the Gregorian and Julian calendars, nothing significant appears to have happened a thousand years ago during the year 1010 nor did anything significant appear to have happened two thousand years ago during the year 10.[4] Their point being: so why would we expect something significant to happen today?

The closest I got to any worldwide conspiracy is simply that the Gospel Lesson for today in the Revised Common Lectionary – used by most American Protestants and Roman Catholics – is indeed about the 10 lepers who were healed.
I have to wonder if the Lectionary Committee had a good chuckle about that one. Or maybe they didn’t even notice.

Which may be part of the point.

I have always read this healing story as a lesson in gratitude.
So just as the Samaritan who turned back, so we are to become a grateful people who live each day in thankfulness to God. That seems simple enough.

But the more I sit with this text, it seems to me to be more than simply a call to be thankful, as important as that is.

After all, there is nothing in the text that would lead us to believe that the other 9 men were not thankful – my guess is they were very thankful indeed to be healed and they ran as fast as they could to the priests in order to start to live a normal life again.

But the difference came in what they saw – or did not see. What they noticed … or did not notice. Ten men are healed – but only one sees what has happened. And that seeing makes all the difference.

In fact, Jesus is always teaching his followers – then and now – that faith is not just a matter of believing certain things, but it is also about seeing – about seeing and naming God’s presence and work in our lives and in our world … and helping each other to do the same.

Someone once said that in fact, what we do in worship each week is “cataract surgery” because every week we need to have our sight restored and our vision clarified.[5]

During any given week there can be so much busyness and doubt in our day that it can be difficult to sustain faith in a loving God. A day or two of things going wrong at work; tensions with our children; bad news from the doctor … as someone said, “even though our faith might be sure and confident on Sunday morning, by the following Friday – and … some weeks it’s by Monday afternoon – we need to have our faith rekindled.”[6]

And so every week, and sometimes every day, we need to be reminded that even when our vision becomes cloudy, Jesus still sees us in whatever confusion or clutter our lives and our world might be in – and God reaches out to us first, to make us whole.

Time and again, we need one another to help clarify our vision and restore our eyesight, so that we are ready to recognize that moment of grace when it comes.

This past month when we have been busier than I ever knew we could be – with anniversary events and Malawi friends to host, I have felt like one of those 9 lepers. I was so relieved to be “healed” that I was the first to run off, ready to get back to “normal” – whatever that is.

At times when life is at its busiest, I can find my senses dulled as I simply check things off my list, and my nerves stretch to their limit and I’m consumed by anxiety and everyone else’s expectations, let alone my own pettiness and distraction. I wouldn’t recognize a moment of grace if it came up and hit me. It’s all I can do some days to simply keep moving.

But when I’m at my best, even if I’m at my busiest … when my eyes are opened, like that 1 Samaritan’s were … I find that grace is all around me. I can look back now and see how I almost missed it these past few weeks – but grace and God’s presence have been there all the time.

I’ve been learning that I have to practice this kind of seeing – and I’ve actually tried “exercising” my ability to see by taking an assignment for a day – by telling myself to notice one thing all day long: like one day it might be the color orange; the next day it may be to notice shoes. I’ve learned it doesn’t matter what the thing is I’m supposed to notice – simply that I’m practicing learning to pay attention – it’s the discipline of being “mindful” about what is happening.

And I find that when I am “mindful” … I start to be aware of God’s presence in any number of ways during the day … in shared conversations; in the routines of the day; in the simple beauty of the garden, and the sound of the geese overhead. Instead of simply being only annoyed and angry with the failure of politicians and leaders the world over to make peace and act justly, I find myself praying my way through the news of the day – seeking God’s wisdom for us all. I become more aware of God’s presence in answered prayers – and even when prayers go unanswered. I am less likely to take the good in each day for granted.

And when I am here in worship every Sunday, I find my spirits lifted, my heart stretched and strengthened because we have been together to pray and listen to God’s word, to sing and even be silent. My sight is restored for now because we have been together … and I can recognize that by the grace of God and the presence of Christ in this community I too have been made whole.

These are moments of grace … and I find myself filled with praise.

When the 1 man who had seen what was happening had turned back to praise God, Jesus said to him: Rise and go …

And so do we … we turn to praise, and then we rise and go, ready to see and notice and to help each other see that God is still at work in the world and in our lives – God sees us and in Jesus Christ, God keeps making us whole … at 10:10 on 10/10/10 and on the 11th and the 12th and every day hereafter.

Maybe that is the answer to life, the universe and everything.
May it be so. Amen.

[1] As reported at: www.abcnews.go.com/Technology/101010-interent-virus-hope-rumor/ – “Rumors of a 10/10/10 Internet Virus …”
[2] Also from the same www.abcnews report.
[3] The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.
[4] From the website: http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Interpret-101010-Sunday-October-10-2010.
[5] These ideas are from an article, “Cataract Surgery,” by Dr. David Lose on the website: www.workingpreacher.org.
[6] Ibid.