Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Richard Davenport October 9, 2022 - Proper 23 Luke 17:11-19 The story of Jesus cleansing the ten lepers is an amazing story. It doesn't have all of the flash and pizzaz of Jesus walking on water or feeding thousands from a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. We don't sit on the sidelines and chuckle as Jesus deftly turns the Pharisees' words back on them once again. It does have a miracle, but all in all it's a bit tame on the face of it. Instead in this passage, all of the goodness is hidden underneath. You have to know your Old Testament to really understand why this passage is so significant. It all starts out pretty mundane. Jesus is walking on the road, as he often does. He's met by some lepers. Jesus is known for healing people, so it isn't all that surprising you'd find someone hunting him down in the hopes of being healed. You have the story of the woman with bleeding who doesn't even ask, she just reaches out to touch his robe. These guys ask at least. What makes these guys different is that they're lepers. Lepers can't go near normal folks. They aren't supposed to come into contact with the stuff normal folks use. Skin diseases, at least those the Bible labels as leprosy, all made you unclean. You couldn't go near normal folks. You couldn't go to the temple. It wasn't that God had rejected you as one of his people and it wasn't a matter of whether you were forgiven and saved, but it did mean you were a bit of an object lesson. You were a living demonstration of what it meant to be separated from God and his people. Your life represented what sin does to people. You lived a life of isolation. You were cut off from your family and from the worship life of the people. So right off the bat we have a problem. A bunch of unclean people are coming up to Jesus. They aren't stupid. They know what the Law requires and what's allowed. They know they're skirting a line here. Whether you like Jesus or not, he is a Jew and making him unclean, even unintentionally, can bring pretty harsh consequences. Still, they seem to think the risk is worth it. They've been cut off long enough. Now they've heard the news that this Jesus guy can heal them and they're willing to see if the news is true. As is pretty typical for Jesus, he doesn't make a big show of it. The only reason he ever turns his miracles into a big to-do is when he is trying to make a point about forgiveness and the authority he has to grant it. Otherwise, healing someone is a simple matter for him. That doesn't mean he lacks compassion. He simply gets right to business and heals the person without dragging out the whole affair. In this case, he just tells them to go show themselves to the priests. This is one of the steps necessary to demonstrate that you are free from the ailment. The priests had a list of symptoms to look for. If certain things could be seen, then you would still be considered a leper and have to continue living outside of town. Part of this process involved a ritual bath to get yourself completely free of dirt, getting everything out of the way so the priest can make sure you are truly cured of the disease. You even had to go so far as to shave off all body hair. So, assuming everything checked out, you would be considered clean once more. What a great feeling! The disease, whatever it was, that had been plaguing you is finally gone. What a relief! That disease could have been the death of you, but now it's gone and life can go on without further worry. And yet, while that's true, there's so much more here. If all you had been given was the cure for the disease, then you'd still have the rest of your life living in isolation to look forward to. But, with freedom from the disease comes true freedom, the freedom to return to your life, the freedom to see and spend time with your family again, the freedom to enter into the temple courts and the presence of God without fear. All of these things that had been lost to you have been restored. You've been made whole once more. With that in mind, it's no surprise at all that the ten lepers rush off immediately to see the priests. They have much to look forward to. This is something they'd been waiting for, hoping for, for a long time now. This tremendous gift had been given to them and they were off. That's what makes the next part so interesting. Jesus doesn't heal them immediately. They all run off trusting in his promise that they would be healed on the way. Jesus makes good on his promise. They are healed, just as he said. One of the ten, a Samaritan, after seeing what happened, comes back. In one sense, he's disobeying orders. He'd been directed to show himself to the priests, especially since that's what the law demands. On the other hand, it seems he's realized something more important. The temple doesn't matter anymore. The law didn't free him. The priests didn't free him. Jesus freed him. Jesus was someone who wasn't afraid of being around a bunch of unclean lepers. Jesus made a promise and kept it. Jesus had the power to heal. Why go to the temple to meet God when you can come back to this man Jesus and worship him because he is God? This Samaritan comes back and falls at Jesus' feet, a position of worship and Jesus acknowledges it as such. God is no longer found in a temple but in a person and he is standing right there. The Samaritan gives thanks to the one who had mercy on him. Jesus sees the faith in the man who connected the promise to the one who gave it. Jesus announces that, because of his faith, he is receiving much more than physical healing. The faith of the foreigner is noteworthy. He puts together what is right in front of his eyes and he wants to acknowledge it. He might not have understood who he was really talking to at first, but he does now, and that takes precedence over everything else. He can't help himself. He has to come back and give thanks for the amazing gift he has been given. The ten lepers highlight the problem that afflicts all of us from time to time. They have been given a gift. That much is quite obvious. Sadly, the nine that leave don't take the time to truly understand the scope and importance of the gift they've been given. They are too busy looking at the immediate moment that they never dig any deeper. They never open their eyes to the richness that is right there in their hands. We come here on Sundays and we confess our sins to God. We receive his gracious forgiveness for all of those sins, knowing they will never be counted against us again. We feel some relief that that problem has been resolved. We don't have to worry about the eternal consequences of what we've done. But, at the same time, we don't spend any time thinking about what that forgiveness does to us here and now. We don't consider how God's grace is his ongoing declaration of love to us. We don't consider how this changes who we are, God's redeemed and chosen people. The baptismal theme is present here as well, as the leper has to wash to present himself to the priest. The Samaritan comes to the realization he already is clean and returns to Jesus. The magnitude of what baptism does for us is ignored. We don't deserve to be here, none of us do. If God had not washed us clean, we'd never be allowed to set foot here in God's house. We'd never be able to approach him. We'd never have the opportunity to share eternity with him. We would be outcasts who look longingly at God's house and those within it, knowing we could never go there ourselves. Baptism has set us free from our life as outcasts. It has opened the door to God's house. It allows us to enter God's presence without fear. Christ walks among a bunch of unwanted lepers, he stoops down to wash us and make us clean so that we may be with him. Communion is also alluded to here, as the Samaritan comes back to give thanks. The church has always understood giving thanks as part of what Communion is all about. We come before our Lord and worship him, we give thanks for all he has done for us. The fact that God takes the time to be here with his people personally, that he cares enough to want to be here with us. In with the grace he gives to us as he mercifully pardons our sins is the reality of our God being here on earth with us. He is here and he is here because he specifically wants to be with you. All of this had been given to the ten who called out to Jesus, but only one realized the importance of what was happening. That God has forgiven your sins is clear. This is why Jesus comes to earth. He comes to give you all of this. All of it is yours, whether you see it or not, whether you acknowledge them or not. He comes here today and offers his forgiveness, the forgiveness he died to bring you. His grace is yours, a free gift, there as often as you come looking for it. But if you just take that and run, you'll miss the rest of the riches God is offering you. He has rescued you from death and eternal isolation, but even there, he didn't just rescue you, but more, he wants you to be with him. He wants you to see firsthand his love for you. He wants you to know you'll never be cutoff again. You'll never be lost or forgotten. Nothing will separate you again. He has come here to find you, to seek you out, to heal you and make you clean again. He has come here to show you what you mean to him. God, the creator of distant galaxies, the fiery stars, the deepest oceans and tallest mountains, has come here specifically to be with you. He is here inviting you to his table. Do not take his gifts lightly or consider them frivolous. Instead, let us come into his presence with thanksgiving. Let us share this time together. Let us go before our Lord not in fear but in joy, knowing what we see here is just the beginning, for all eternity awaits us together with the God who loved us enough to die for us.