Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity (2024)

Luke 17:11-19

My brothers and sisters in Christ, in our Gospel lesson this morning we revisit the passage where Christ goes to heal the 10 lepers, and Jesus bestows upon them a great and marvelous gift as He heals them miraculously and restores them to the lives that they had lost, but only one returns to give thanks to God.

Unclean and Ostracized

Today it’s curable, but it takes years.

But at that time no such option was available and it became a death sentence for anyone diagnosed. They would slow watch their body fail and break down and hope that by God’s grace and mercy might be shown to them and they would receive healing. As though that weren’t bad enough

Leprosy made you an outcast.

You couldn’t stay with your family, in your home, or even in your city. It was expected that you would leave lest you spread that infection to others and it bring about their death as well. This sounds harsh, but that was their reality. They didn’t have the treatments or the means to cure or heal the person. You were cut off

Not just from your family, but also the temple.

There were very strict rules about who could enter the temple and what type of uncleanness was permitted in the presence of God. Other forms of uncleanness could be dealt with easier, typically with a washing or a sacrifice, but this one remained. You first had to be declared clean by a priest, then you could offer up a sacrifice and finally after a week be restored to God’s presence. In this misery something strange happened.

There was a foreigner in the group.

Now given the region that foreigner is rather surprising. For Jesus is between Galilee and Samaria and the Jews were not friendly with the Samaritans at all. They hated them greatly and this led to quite the rift. But in suffering this illness he was not turned away from the group, but he was the only one to turn back and give thanks to God. This foreshadow that as the prophets had long ago foretold salvation was not just for the Jews, but for the Gentiles as well.

Leprosy of Body and Soul

Leprosy is helpful to understand sin.

Leprosy isn’t sin, no more than cancer, or a broken arm is sin. They are a consequence of original sin, and a reminder that we are living in a broken world that is not as it should be. It serves as a useful parallel to show what is in each of us. By our sins we are unclean, corrupted, and heading towards death. However leprosy isn’t quite strong enough because

Sin is worse than leprosy.

It brings with it a mess of ailments, look at the list in Galatians 5, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. We are warned those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Leprosy just afflicts your body, but sin destroys both body and soul.

That is why the Scriptures urge us to flee from these things, and it isn’t about embracing one and fleeing from others, or choosing one that we are going to deal with as being better to flee than the other, the Scriptures tell us to have nothing to do with these things. Yet we are surrounded by them fornication is the norm, people don’t care about what’s decent they praise lewd behavior and dress, idolatry and false religions are on the rise in our country from Islam to New Age religion as Christian wander into their own self-chosen spiritualities instead of honoring God. Wicca or witchcraft is on the rise and then we see the enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, rivalries dissensions as we tear ourselves apart, and create subgroups who are envious of what the other person has. When it all becomes too much for us to handle, we turn to drunkenness, and pursue pleasures of the flesh, so we can just feel something pleasant. These are all symptoms of the disease that is sin. It’s killing everyone in the world. The only hope that we have is found in the one who these 10 lepers sought out.

Jesus cleanses them with the Word.

He heals them of their affliction before they can even present themselves to the priests. Jesus restored them to good health. A true miracle there was no way for them to be healed at that point except by an act of God, and that who is who stood before them that day removing from them their affliction.

The Word of God

Faith believes God’s Word.

Whatever God has spoken, we say Amen, which translated in english means truly. That God’s word is truth whatever God speaks it goes forth and accomplishes what it says. You and I say it is light in here, but God says let there be light and light comes into existence where there was nothing before. That is why

Faith comes by hearing.

For the Word actually creates faith inside of us by the Holy Spirit. It is a marvelous thing and that is why we want to be around the Word of God as much as we can. That it fills us with God’s grace and His mercy for the more we are in the Word, the more the Spirit works upon our hearts and minds to strengthen the faith that has been given to us.

What Word has God given you?

We know these collectively as the Means of Grace, and means refers to the means by which God gives His grace, His love, and His forgiveness to you. So what promises has God given you? There is the Promise of a Savior who would forgive our sins and heal mankind. There’s the promise that Jesus would give up His life to save you. There’s the promise that whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved. There’s the promise that is Given with Christ’s body and blood that it is for the forgiveness of sins. Faith says Amen to all of those things receiving them gladly.

Jesus Made Us Clean

Our sin made us unclean.

That is why no matter who you are, you are in need of Christ. Now Leprosy was a disease that you could see and it was worn on the skin of a person. Sin is a bit different, there are sins that are outwardly visible, but we don’t like people to know what our sins are.

We hide our sins because we’re ashamed.

It is nothing that we are proud of. We know what the right thing is or we know how we should act or what we should say, and yet we find that instead of doing what is right we end up doing what is wrong, and the question is why. It’s because it reveals that we are the problem, not our neighbor, not our family, not our friends, not even God is to blame. That shame has been there since the beginning that we don’t want to take responsibilty for the fact that all of us have failed to live up to the only standards that matter, which is God’s Word.

You might think there is no shame today.

Indeed the things the way our world is running headlong into sin and shame you would think that nothing bothers them. But how do you hide the fact that you’re a coward, you take big risks so that no one can accuse you of cowardice, just a like one who is poor will surround themselves with riches, or one who is evil will cloak themselves in good deeds. The truth is revealed when you challenge them, and how much they blow up and how tightly they hold on to the lies, they are running so hard from what they are ashamed of, that when it catches up with them they fight like a cornered animal.

Jesus takes our shame and guilt.

Jesus takes our sins, and all the things that we are ashamed of, and that we have hidden away from our fellow man, and lifts them up on his shoulders and bears them to the Cross. So that the burden might be lifted from our backs and that we might have peace with God. For Jesus forgives not the good or the righteous person, but the sinner that we are ashamed to admit we are. No matter how awful the sins are, no matter how much we have failed, He takes our burdens upon himself and gives to us His body and blood for the forgiveness of sins. That’s why we are

Giving Thanks and Praise to God

Jesus restores us to our Father.

We are welcomed in the house of God as His children adopted and given the spirit of sonship, and this is all because of Jesus. This foreigner rejoiced that His flesh was restored, and we rejoice that our sins are forgiven.

It’s why our hymns focus on Jesus.

Not on ourselves, but on who God is, and what Jesus has done for us. That’s what is praiseworthy, not our lives, not our feelings, not even our faith for everything we have comes from Him.

Jesus has saved us and taken away our shame.

Is that not a reason to give thanks to Him? This is what we have been longing for, it is what we have been concerned about, its what we have hoped to receive for years, and Jesus has covered our shame with His own blood.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, let us rejoice in God’s bountiful gifts, for Jesus, who was able to heal and restore these lepers, has done something far greater for you. He took away your guilt, your shame, and the source of those things, your sin, so that you might enter the house of God in Joy. That’s what happened at Confession and Absolution, and now Christ comes to you in with and under the bread and the wine for the forgiveness of your sins. In Jesus name. Amen.