Luke 17: 11-19
Mel Prestamo, Ruling Elder, PCUSA
Offered to the Wharton Hungarian Church on October 9, 2022.
Recently as we have been going through the Gospel of Luke, as we follow along the Lectionary for this year, we have been treated to some of Jesus’ most well know parables and stories. However, today’s text is not about one of Jesus’ parables but of an event that took place on this road between Samaria and Galilee.
The circumstances are that Jesus is on his final approach to Jerusalem. And on this path, this road, he is walking between the borderlines of Galilee [that’s Jewish Galilee] and Samaria [that detested foreign land of blasphemers]. On this route, he enters into a town. Now we don’t know if this town is in Samaria or Galilee. We assume that it is in Galilee because of what comes later, but we really don’t know for sure.
But what is most interesting about this day is that Jesus is walking on the borderline – on the edge, if you will. Now this is important for a couple of reasons. First, it gives us a clear visualization that Jesus is always where people on the edge are, where people are on the fringes of society. Now why do I think that is important to be aware of? It is because Jesus’ entire ministry is spent dealing and ministering to people who are on the margins of society – the lepers, the Samaritan woman at the well, the woman who reaches out to touch his robe to be healed, the tax collectors, the sinners, the neglected, those people who society has lost sight of. The story of the rich man and Lazarus that we read a couple of weeks ago makes it clear to us who [what kind of people] Jesus believes are important.
Now, I know that we often see him dealing with lawyers and Pharisees and other teachers of the law who often try to trip him up in the law setting traps for him, but his ministry was always to people on the edge of society, people who are often not seen by those in power. By those who are blinded by their power.
Second, from this vantage point, of Jesus on the borderline, we get a view of someone willing to love us when we are hidden within our own borderlines, that place where we hide our inner most weaknesses. That place where we go to hide when we, like Adam and Eve, are ashamed of our sin. There Jesus is walking on the borderlines seeking us out to minister to our needs.
That is where Luke tells us Jesus is while on his final journey to Jerusalem. While he is making his way to the Cross, He is on the borderline between our best and worst selves and reaching out to provide healing. Now this might be a great place to end a message but there is something more in this passage today that I want to look at.
In the story today Jesus is approached by a group of ten lepers, they were standing far off away from the crowd that is following Jesus for that was the law and they call out to him, “Master, have pity on us.” Jesus’ response was to tell them to, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” Why would he tell them that. It was because lepers were outcasts from society. They are literally living on the borders of society. They were not permitted to be close to anyone for fear that their disease might be spread. But also, the mere fact that they were stricken meant, in Jewish society, that they were sinners being punished by God. And to be permitted back into society, they would have to present themselves to the priests to be certified that they had been cleansed. Therefore, Jesus, sent them off to the priests to be certified as clean. And the story tells us, they left to do just that and found that as they went off, they had been cleansed.
But one of them, seeing that he had been cleansed, turned back to glorify God. “He fell on his face at Jesus’ feet and thanked him.” This was exceptional!
So, let’s look at this leper’s reaction to being healed for just a bit. First, now we find out that one of the ten is a Samaritan, meaning the other nine were Jews. It was highly unusual for Jews and Samaritans to mix but for the reason of their common affliction, these ten did. In other words, in the face of their common misfortune they broke down their cultural, national, and religious barriers and came together to minister jointly to their common needs. But at the moment that they were cleansed, they separated again. The Jews went off to the temple and the Samaritan stayed behind. Why? Because quite simply, he was not welcomed at the Jewish temple. Once their common bound was broken, they reverted to reveal the things that separated them.
Now, let’s look at what happens when this one man returns to Jesus. He returns giving glory to God in a loud voice and then he prostrates himself at Jesus’ feet to give thanks. This is WOW!. The Theologian William Barclay calls it the proper way of giving thanks to God. It is why, I try to focus on our giving thanks first during our Joys and Concerns each morning. We need to be grateful and give thanks for the gifts, the well-being, the healing that God gives us. Only one of the ten did just this. The other nine did as Jesus had instructed them and went off to the priests to be certified as clean so that they could reenter society. Now, I am finding it difficult to criticize too harshly that they left because it is what Jesus had told them to do. But Luke preserves the next part of this story for us for a reason.
Jesus asks those around him who are witnessing this outpouring of thanksgiving, “Were there not ten? Where are the nine? Did none of them turn back to give glory to God, except this foreigner?”
This is where we get the clarification that the foreigner was a Samaritan and the other nine were from Galilee. All were willingly given healing by Jesus. Only one was willing to give thanks to God.
Luke lays out a pattern for us here. First there is healing; then, there needs to be glorifying of God, and finally there is giving Thanksgiving, prostrate at Jesus’ feet.
Each of these steps is interpreted for us by Jesus. First, Jesus heals indiscriminately. All ten were healed. Then there is giving glory to God for that healing. Where are the others? Is there only this foreigner, the Samaritan here to glorify God? Where are the others who were healed.
Then there is the final step that Luke shows us, it is to give thanks. But not just, “Hey, you did me a solid. Thanks, Bud. I owe you one.” Not that kind of thanks. But the kind of thanks that displays total awe of the one who heals. It is a thanks that bows down in praise.
It is at this point that Jesus says to the one, Samaritan, “Rise and go. Your faith has made you well.” But the word that Jesus uses here is not to say that you are cured of leprosy. It is to indicate that his faith has saved him. Jesus uses the same phrase to the woman who had anointed his feet with oil (7:50), the hemorrhaging woman who touched his robe (8:48), and the blind beggar on the edge of the road (18:42). Jesus receives the one who returned giving glory to God and then who gives thanksgiving and then tells him he was “saved” by his faith. The other nine …? They were healed, yeah, they now have something that makes them happy in this world and they go running off to the priests but look at what they missed out on. They missed out on entering into the Father’s embrace and the joy of being with the Father. That is the saving that Jesus is speaking of.
No story in all the Gospels more poignantly displays human ingratitude. Ten came asking for something that they wanted. All were healed. One returned to give glory to God and thanks to the One, and through that expression of faith, only one was saved.
This tells so much about our relationship with God and how one-sided it can be sometimes.
God created us and set us up in paradise. Our response was to sin and walk away. God loves us so much that God sent God’s only son to die for our sins so that we can be restored to a right relationship with God, so that we can once again enter into God’s eternal presence in God’s kingdom. God heals all our wounds, all our inequities. But are we grateful? Are we the one who returns to give glory to God and thanksgiving at the feet of the One who has saved us?
I don’t like asking these questions because I don’t know if I have been grateful in my giving glory to God and thanksgiving at the feet of the One who has saved me. How much of my praise, my prayers, my worship – our praise, prayers and worship are just so much lip service and how much of it is heartfelt and sincere?
Father God, we give glory and praise to your holy name for the grace and mercy that you have showered upon us, and we give Thanksgiving to the One who has saved us and brought us home to your house.
CHARGE: My friends, today we see Jesus walking on the edges of society, ministering to those on the boundaries who are forgotten. My charge to you is this, if we are disciples of the Lord, then we have to also walk on the edges and look for and help those living on the edges who are neglected and forgotten.
