Text: Luke 17:11-19
Date: Pentecost XX + Proper 23 + 10/10/10
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI
We used to hear this Gospel reading only on the Day of National Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Day, with its obvious parallel of the Samaritan healed of leprosy returning to give thanks to Jesus. Unfortunately, this only encouraged the temptation for preachers and others to moralize this text to be but an annual lesson to remind little Johnny or Suzie to remember to say “Thank You.” Restoring this reading to the normal round of the lectionary ought to help us break from that temptation and discover what is really here presented by St. Luke and the Holy Spirit for us to see. For it is of much more eternal value than any mere moralism.
When you hear the account of the Ten Lepers, I ask you, What Do You See? After all, notice, “seeing” is an important part of this story. Jesus didn’t respond to the lepers’ entreaty until after “he saw them.” On their way to show themselves to the priests they were cleansed. And only one, we are told, “when he saw that he was healed,” turned around and went back to Jesus. The important implication is that the Samaritan experienced another kind of seeing, namely, an awakening, the opening of the eyes of faith in Jesus. So let’s see what we can see.
Begin with the ten lepers. At least one, we are told, is a Samaritan, a “foreigner” Jesus calls him. The word literally means someone of another race or genealogy. This is one more story that shows that the salvation Jesus brings breaks down the old walls of separation. As Jesus here crossed over the border between Galilee and Samaria, and as He crossed the old Jewish boundary between “clean” and “unclean,” so God’s mercy and salvation is for all people of every race and nation. Because of sin all people are “foreigners” to God. But because of God’s mercy all people can become fellow citizens of the kingdom of heaven.
The ten lift up their voices and cry for “mercy.” What were they asking for? What were they expecting to receive from Jesus? What do you expect when you come here and together pray, “Lord, have mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy upon us. Lord, have mercy upon us.” “O Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, that takest away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us.” “O Christ, Thou Lamb of God, that takest away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us.” And one more from the end of the liturgy, “O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, and His mercy endureth forever.” Were the lepers asking only for healing? or for something more?
The prayer for mercy is a prayer for salvation; salvation from what is the root cause of all disease, evil and death, namely, sin. The mercy of God is His love that moves Him to seek and save His world. And so the “Kyrie” of the liturgy has been called the prayer of the heart; not exactly or only a prayer of confession of sin but a prayer to be folded into God’s love where every good and perfect gift is given and received. So the “mercy” the lepers were begging could include hope of healing or forgiveness but certainly deliverance from every evil.
Jesus told the lepers, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” This is the same instruction He had given another leper in Luke chapter 5, only after He had touched and healed him. Here there was no touch, no healing; just the word, “Go…show yourselves to the priests.” It was really a mini-pre-miracle that, even though nothing had yet happened, the ten lepers did what Jesus told them to do. They went. We would call that an act of faith. “And as they went they were cleansed.” Now, surely all ten noticed, “saw” that they were healed even before they found the priests. One (our Samaritan) stopped and turned back. But nine continued on, maybe running a little faster, maybe excited and rejoicing at their healing. I wonder…as with so many others we hear about in the Gospels…whatever happened to them? And, for a moment, this little detail can make us stop and consider the many if not miracles at least gifts or good we receive every day much of the time, like the nine lepers, just taking them for granted, forgetting or never realizing the Source of every good and perfect gift, namely, “from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17).
One of them, however, when he saw that he was healed, stopped in his tracks, turned around, ran back to Jesus “praising God with a loud voice,” and “fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks.” Here was the spiritual awakening of faith—faith that saw that Jesus was no mere rabbi, teacher or miracle-worker, but that (if you will) “in, with and under” His physical presence, Jesus is—no! Can it be?—JESUS IS GOD! God come in the flesh to bring “release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed” (Lk. 4:18); God come in the flesh to destroy sin and death and “to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).
The Samaritan returned, falling on his face at Jesus’ feet, “giving him thanks.” Eucharist-own is the word. To make or give “eucharist” is to give thanks, and the word always means giving thanks to God. Here, from the Spirit-guided pen of St. Luke, is the only time in the entire New Testament where this word refers to the giving of thanks to Jesus, because, as was revealed to our Samaritan and is revealed to every true disciple, Jesus is God, the Son of God from eternity and also Man, born of the virgin Mary, “perfect God and perfect man, composed of a rational soul and human flesh” (Athanasian Creed). Likewise, in our worship at the feet of Jesus we confess our faith that God is present with His mercy, cleansing, salvation, and every good and perfect gift. Let us give thanks unto the Lord, for His mercy endures forever.
And don’t miss the punch line of it all! Jesus says to our Samaritan, “Rise and go your way; your faith has saved you” (sesoken). The Samaritan must “rise” because he has been on the ground at Jesus’ feet. By faith, however, he has experienced the rising from spiritual sleep, which will lead, ultimately, to the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come.
“Rise and go.” When I read this I thought I remembered something similar from the first Lutheran Witness article of our newly-elected synodical President, Matt Harrison. And, sure enough, you know how certain people adopt a Bible passage as a sort of motto? I remember with the former Lutheran Hour speaker, Ossie Hoffman, his was Galatians 2:20. Well Matt Harrison’s motto is from Mark 1:38 which he translates simply as “Let’s go!” So here when Jesus tells our Samaritan (and us) to “Go,” we are set in motion—the motion of discipleship, as the hymn says, ever following and walking with Jesus, ever suffering, dying and living with Jesus. We journey with Jesus to Jerusalem, through the cross and resurrection.
Now certainly we will remember to say “Thank you” to the Giver of every good and perfect gift. But may each of us receive that continued spiritual awakening that sees and knows that the only way of giving thanks to God for His mercy is at the feet of Jesus.