Seeing a New Reality through God
The following is a manuscript draft of a sermon I gave on Luke 17:11-19. This sermon was preached first to a group of my peers in a preaching class at Luther Seminary and then again to the congregation at Grace Lutheran Church on Thanksgiving Eve 2022.
Jesus Cleanses Ten Men with a Skin Disease
11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he entered a village, ten men with a skin disease approached him. Keeping their distance, 13 they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 14 When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16 He prostrated himself at Jesus’s feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? So where are the other nine? 18 Did none of them return to give glory to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
Please join me in prayer: God, our Redeemer, help us to place our whole trust in your absolute and abundant love. May we feel your powerful presence in our life and know your blessings are upon us. Amen
What comes to mind when you hear the word leper? Do you think “defiling skin disease,” “Cast out of the city,” unclean? We have been made to think that leper equals deplorable. It’s a label placed on people when something about them is different. Often, this label is placed out of fear. Wanting to keep the community “clean,” “whole,” and “unblemished” – because the effects of keeping that person around are unknown. So, they are kept at a distance. Yet, in this story, Jesus sees the group and acts, heeding their call for healing, and ultimately bestowing salvation upon the one who returns.
Just as Jesus sees the group of ten lepers, cast out of their community and families, standing at a distance, God sees us when we are burdened by labels and keeping our distance, and gives us an opportunity to see a new reality through our relationship with God.
We read that the group of ten kept their distance when approaching Jesus. In those times, people with leprosy, which included a wide range of ailments or illnesses, were not only sent outside of their communities and families, they also carried the additional burden of enforcing their isolation. Leviticus 13:45 tells us that “the person who has the defiling disease shall wear torn clothes…and cry out “Unclean! Unclean!”” And while the burden of identity was on those who were called lepers, the reality is, the people of the town would have known who they were. The ones who were barred from worship, lived on the fringes, were unkept, and who had been ritually removed from the community in a ceremony akin to a funeral.
How is “leper” different than the labels we use today? Sinner, homeless, alcoholic, barren, gambler, cheater, widower, disabled, divorced, addict, mentally ill, non-believer. Each of these lobbied against someone’s identity, often out of fear or uncertainty on how to act or what to say. We tell people they are too sad or anxious, too much or too little of something, out of control with their vices, too secular – afraid that any of those could seep into our own lives. Which can further isolate them from loved ones, church, friends, work, the world around them. This isolation, either dictated by the community or self-imposed, can lead people to search for change but keep a distance from their support systems. Afraid to bring their pleas to God. Maybe because they are ashamed or they think their problems aren’t big enough or they question if they really believe.
Despite the distance kept by the group and the stigma associated with them, Jesus saw the group, heard their cries, and chose to act. “Go and show yourselves to the priests,” Jesus commands the group. He doesn’t ask questions. He doesn’t assess their need. He doesn’t give them a conditional answer, “If you do a cartwheel then, I will heal you.” He sees them and ,he acts, no questions asked.
God is the same way for us when we’re keeping our distance and crying out. God does not care about what we did, the labels we carry, or what our ask is. God hears us in our despair, when we feel lost and left alone, and takes action. There’s no questioning. No, “Well this ,person deserves my grace more because they’ve been suffering longer.” No, “I’ll only answer your cries if you do this for me.” That’s not the way God’s love and grace work.
Jesus gives the group a command and immediately the group takes off for the village. And they don’t ask any questions either! They hear Jesus’s command to show themselves to the priests and they go. This visit to the priest is the next step in being reunited with their community and families. The priest is the one with the power to declare someone ritually clean or unclean. And that designation dictates the access someone has to society.
As the group runs back to present themselves to the priests, one member of the group sees that he is healed. You’d think the whole group would see that they were healed. After presumably years of suffering from a physical ailment, a miraculous healing would be noticeable. But the text doesn’t say anything about that. Instead, the focus is on this one individual, seeing, realizing that he is healed. Something different must have happened.
“Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’s feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.” He recognizes that God is at work here. Which is a big deal, considering many believed God to be in the temple. It’s an even bigger deal because while the rest of the group was presumed to be Jewish, we find out this man was a Samaritan. The ultimate outsider. Not only does he praise God, he then throws himself at the feet of Jesus, someone he’d likely only heard stories of, stories that didn’t fully align with his beliefs. Just a few chapters earlier in Luke (9:51-56), Jesus and the disciples were turned away from a Samaritan village because they were traveling to Jerusalem. Now it’s the Samaritan that turns back in praise!
What does the man see that makes him stop? We probably won’t ever know. But what if this is about God inviting the man to see something beyond the physical? We know that the Samaritan noticed something was different, something that resulted in him reconsidering his path and choosing to praise God. For an outsider, someone burdened with labels, this seems like the ultimate act of faith and belief.
Again, the text doesn’t say what it is the man noticed. Just that once he saw he was healed, he changed direction. And then, at the very end, after his praise and gratitude, Jesus tells the man, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
While we read that the group is cleansed (katharizō – kah-tha-ree-zo) and the man sees that he was healed (iaomai – ee-ow-my), which are sometimes used interchangeably, the phrase “made you well” carries an additional meaning – saved. In Greek it reads, “Eh pistis sue-sue-ken say” or “Your faith has saved/preserved you.” The group was healed from their disease, but the man who turned back was saved. This act of salvation invites the man to see and experience the world differently. The New Interpreter’s Bible says, “The other nine had been healed, but only this one received Jesus' declaration of salvation. They got what they wanted, but this one received more than he had dreamed of asking for.” That’s what we get when we come into relationship with God, not only can God remove our labels and answer prayers, God gives us so much more than we could ever dream of.
By exploring and growing in our relationship with God, by choosing to turn to praise or wonder, our eyes are opened to possibilities beyond our wildest dreams. We find a space for praise and thanksgiving after being isolated. We find connection and community where we were once outcasts. We find a new identity when we were once weighed down by labels. And with this new vision we have, we are invited to see ourselves and others more clearly. Not as society says, not by the labels given, but for who we or they truly are – showing up authentically as our whole selves. Because…
Just as Jesus sees the group of ten lepers, cast out of their community and families, standing at a distance, God sees us when we are burdened by labels and keeping our distance, and gives us an opportunity to see a new reality through our relationship with God.
Amen