If you are like me, you have been touched by those who have stood here and told the stories of their spiritual journeys to St. Thomas’ Parish. I don’t plan to be quite so eloquent, but I do want to say that I share many of the hopes and fears joys and pains many of us have experienced in our lifetimes. I am deeply grateful to the Creator of all of us, for leading me here. St. Thomas’ is a unique place of vision and not just hope but opportunity for Christ’s love that spills out onto the streets of Dupont Circle and around the globe. Jesus Christ is in this place!

The first line of today’s Gospel gives away the meaning of the parable that Jesus tells us. That first line says, “Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always, and not to lose heart.” Usually, parables are supposed to be puzzling and provide a surprise for the listener, but here we are given a heads up at the start: pray unceasingly and do not lose heart.

When I first set foot in St. Thomas' several years ago I was, quite simply, a spiritual mess. You see, I had been raised in a very religious, Southern Baptist home. And while church was a place of great comfort and peace for me when I was a child, it became a source of even greater fear and pain for me as I grew older, and I began to realize that I was gay. By the time I left home as a young adult, I was well on my way to completely turning my back on the Church.

I had a message for today's homily that very neatly partnered with today's Gospel reading from the book of Luke. In today's lesson we witness Jesus as he makes his way to Jerusalem, stopping in a village in the region between Samaria and Galilee. In this village, Jesus meets ten lepers, who cry to Jesus from a distance to have mercy upon them. He tells the lepers to go and show themselves to the priests in the village and when they do so they are made clean.