But it doesn’t work like that, does it. Dieting always takes work. Shedding those pounds is a result of eating less, exercising more, and being smart about when and where you intake food. You can’t expect a change unless you are willing to change your behaviors.

Jesus warned him sternly not to tell anyone, but to present himself to the priests… An interesting conclusion to a miracle story. “Don’t tell anyone…” Why? Because all the fad dieters of religion will come my way. All the people who want religion as a quick fix will be at my door, and I’ll never get any peace or sleep. But even worse – THEY’LL never understand what discipleship really means. They’ll come for the touch, the cure, the high, the marvelous experience – and it will stop right there. There will be no depth to the relationship, no integrity to the living, no discipleship that will make it to the cross, for as soon as suffering steps back in, that will be the end of their following. “Tell no one of the cure...” until you’ve had the chance to let it sink in. Until you’ve had the realization that to be a disciple will cost you all that you are and have. THEN –you can speak of me. Because you will have come, not for the touch, not for the moment, but for the duration.

At the end of our retreat this weekend, Pat Tinkham who was giving the final talk said: You can leave this experience of retreat and be angry at the world because it will never be this close or loving or caring. Or you can leave committing yourself to the work which this retreat demands of you.” The same is true of this community this evening. You can leave this place, glad for the prayer, glad for the music, glad for the chance to let Jesus touch you with his grace, and still be on the search for a fad religion. Or you can leave here, committing yourself to what our communion demands – that we embrace the leper, reach out to the aids victim, embrace the terrorist, love the enemy, and do what Jesus would have us do – be his presence and his love to the world.