Proper 23 - 10.9.2022

Preliminary

Jesus - it mattered even for the other 9

2Timothy - milking Paul in prison, good on evangelism themes

In God’s economy, value is not based in return on investment - Luke - 10% return, the one that returned was Samaritan ( a foreigner!)

Jesus sounds a bit surprised - perhaps not how he would think it would go down - maybe the other 9 were worried for they were Jews and suddenly they no longer needed to associate themselves with him? The Samaritan had more of a knack for inclusion than the Jews - they went from oppressed to align themselves with the oppressors.

Could the Samaritan actually go to the Priests? Or would they throw him out?

Gratefulness, to whom we are ultimately responsible, and whose approval we should really have. What are miracles for? To give God praise. etc. They did as Jesus asked, but only Samaritan went above and beyond - they were only obedient, but he was actually grateful. (link to last week)

2Tim: Ultimately, it is not a priest that is the intermediary between us and God the Father, but Jesus - have his approval, not a human approval.

Good morning,

As tomorrow is Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I need to recognize once more that we are currently standing on land of the tribe Munsee Lenape (mə́n'si·w lanapi), the Wolf tribe of the Lenape, and one of the first tribes to meet European settlers. Members of this tribe suffered decades of oppression and marginalization in their own lands and eventually got swept up into the power struggle between the French and British in the French Indian War and that led to the Treaty of Easton that saw the Lenape to move westward and then over the decades led to more forceful displacements.

Today we continue in what is a rather long section on parables and miracles of Jesus. This time, we can witness the healing of ten men with leprosy and their reaction to this miracle. In modern terms, we understand Leprosy, or Hansen’s disease, as a curable infectious disease caused by the bacterium Mycobaterium leprae which causes mainly skin lesions and nerve damage. While the disease has become more rare, it still affects about 200 000 people around the world, with most cases found in Asia and Africa. If you have seen any of the images of untreated leprosy, you know it is nothing to be disregarded - the deformations can be quite severe. However, we do now understand that it is not as easy to spread from person to person and do not, for the most part, associate it with moral and/or religious causes.

In the times of Jesus, the understanding was, of course, quite different as bacteria would not be discovered for many years more, until 1676 by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek ([ɑnˈtoːni vɑn ˈleːuə(n)ˌɦuk), the so-called “father of microbiology.” Moreover, what is referenced as tsarath in Hebrew Bible or lepra in New Testament should be more accurately translated as “skin disease” because the exact type of skin disease is unclear. Having a skin disease in Judaism was a matter of cultic understanding as in Leviticus chapter 13 The Lord (Yahwe) gives various cultic instructions to Aaron for how to deal with people with skin diseases. It is my belief that Aaron wouldn’t understand yet to be discovered medical realities, so God translated it into something much more understandable - religious (cultic) tenets in regards to the individual and community.

It goes for a while, but some instructions include:

When a person has on the skin of his body a swelling or an eruption or a spot, and it turns into a “leprous” disease on the skin of his body, he shall be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons the priests.

[Upon examination], if the hair in the diseased area has turned white and the disease appears to be deeper than the skin of his body, it is a leprous disease (…) and the priest shall pronounce him ceremonially unclean.

When a man or woman has a disease on the head or in the beard, the priest shall examine (…) and if it appears deeper than the skin and the hair in it is yellow and thin, the priest shall pronounce him unclean.

And so on, with variants, quarantine times, re-examinations, times when a person can be, once again, pronounced clean and thus allowed to re-join the life of the community. It would appear that having a skin disease can range from a minor inconvenience with some communal time out to a rather serious stigmatization with needing to announce one’s uncleanliness, wearing torn clothes, and living outside of the camp.

With that in mind, let’s return to our text. Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem, we may consider it his last triumphal entry that led to the last supper, his condemnation, crucifixion, death, and resurrection. He entered a village and ten lepers approached him at a distance asking for mercy, the same mercy we ask of Jesus in our kyrie - eleison. Jesus looked at them and said “Go and show yourselves to the priest” They did so and were made cleaned - ekatharisheesan from katharos, which you may know in latin as catharsis - purification or cleansing. Only one has actually returned to Jesus to praise God and prostrate himself at Jesus’ feet and thanke him. And lo and behold, he was a Samaritan. Jesus notes all that and then sends the Samaritan on his way for his own faith made the Samaritan well.

I think now we can better understand why the lepers kept their distance (they were required to by religious laws) and why Jesus sent them to the Priests as their cleanliness needed toe validated officially. But what about their reaction? It is not clear whether the Samaritan has gone to his Samaritan priest or not (as the region was between Samaria and Galilee), but the text claims that on the road is when the cleansing/catharsis happened. Perhaps those, let’s assume Jewish, former lepers really felt like they need the external religious validation by the priests, so they continued on. In a community governed by religious laws, it wouldn’t be surprising - the same religious law that bound them, also bore the promise of release.

However, perhaps the Samaritan did not feel like he needs all that, for he was possibly experiencing a double oppression - not only for being a leper, but also a Samaritan. Jesus took one of those things, but the other is his innermost identity that will not change. He may have felt seen by Jesus in a way that even his fellow lepers did not see him - shared oppression or calamity may bring diverse people together, but what happens when the connective tissue is removed? It may no longer apply. What remained for him is seeing and being seen by Jesus and he decided to praise God from whom the ultimate power of healing comes and give thanks to Jesus, the willing and loving conduit of this miracle.

And we can learn from this Samaritan a lot, I think. In this world, there is no shortage of trouble and problems, ways in which we may found ourselves excluded and alone, and among all that we find our little circles of acceptance and support. However, they are not perfect by any means - there are ways they may fail us again and again. And in our divided world, we may also found ourselves belonging to groups and organizations that only appeared aligned with our values and beliefs and suddenly we are putting a lot of distance between us and them. If for example, the church I belong to started doing what the Christian settlers did to the indigenous people here some centuries back, I would probably find myself a new denomination to belong to! But what ultimately matters is not belonging to earthly groups and organizations but that we are seen by Jesus, from whom proceeds the love and care of God and that we remember to give praise and thanks for that. The lepers were required to seek external validation, but nothing like that is ultimately needed with Jesus - he sees us and through this we are made clean. Amen.