The Tenth Leper

Luke 17:11-19

11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus^* was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. ¹²As he entered a village, ten lepers^* approached him. Keeping their distance, ¹³they called out, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ ¹⁴When he saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were made clean. ¹⁵Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. ¹⁶He prostrated himself at Jesus’^* feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. ¹⁷Then Jesus asked, ‘Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? ¹⁸Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’ ¹⁹Then he said to him, ‘Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.’

The Tenth Leper

This has been a brutal week, for our country and for our world.  Although the brutality has been evident in our presidential campaign, as well as images coming from war-torn places around the world, the harshness of the world has most easily been seen as a huge hurricane has ravaged the Caribbean and our east coast. Several of us in our UKirk group have been to Haiti over the last several years, we have all been heartbroken as we have prayed for the lovely people we met there. The hurricane has left the Haitians and their land ravaged once again—a nation that, in many ways has been shunned by the world because its people are so poor, so in need, because so many false and negative assumptions have been made about them, that they are just easier to ignore and not think about. There are many awful things about natural disasters, but one of the things that always bothers me most is when prominent American Christian ministers blame the disasters on sin, shunning everyone who is suffering. When the earthquake hit Haiti 4 years ago, a minister blamed the disaster on the religious practices of Haitians. And the same thing happened again this week when a minister blamed the approaching hurricane on the gay and lesbian folks who live in South Florida, where it was forecasted to hit first. Can you imagine how the Haitians must have felt when they were blamed, how the folks in Florida must have felt, as ministers of the Gospel blamed them for disaster, just as their lives were falling apart? These ministers were trying to shame folks for where they were born or for what their circumstances were or for who they loved, trying to shun them for something that none of us can understand, trying to make them retreat to the shadows, making others fearful and scared of them. It is disgusting and disgraceful.

I have a feeling that that’s how the lepers of biblical times felt as well, the shunned, the lonely, the ones set apart from the world. People in the community were scared of them when they came out of the shadows of their caves; they looked at the lepers with fear and disgust when they saw how damaged and broken their bodies were. The community shunned them and let their fears about them rule their lives.

Our Old Testament books of Numbers and Leviticus tell us more about the disease of leprosy and how those who had it were forced to live. Leprosy was incurable during these times, so contagious that it could spread easily just by touch. Lepers were forced to live outside the community in small caves, made to grow their hair long and wear torn clothes as signifying markers. The only way they could be made clean was through being healed by a priest, and that was only if the priest had time to clean himself after healing the leper before he had to be at the temple to serve everyone else. And to be healed and cleaned, the lepers literally had to come out of the caves in which they lived, scaring everyone who saw them and forcing them to back away so that no skin fell up on them.

Lepers had very little way to take care of themselves and fight for a better life. They couldn’t work, couldn’t talk to others about how they felt or what they experienced. They were shunned by the community, shunned by folks who would not and could not acknowledge their existence, lest they become sick themselves. They were forced to literally change their identity and mark themselves as sick by changing where they lived, what they wore, how long they grew their hair. They were left out and looked down upon, and they could not worship like they wanted to. They were forced to identify themselves to others by what their disease was by yelling to others, warning them not to come near: “Leper! I’m a leper!”

Those with leprosy were shunned in so many ways, broken in so many others. They needed the gift of physical healing, and needed the gift of emotional healing as well, of being welcomed back into the community—the gift of being made clean, of being made whole. It is so important for us to hear this story today—so we can know the true power of Jesus’ healing, so that we can discover where we need healing in our own lives, important so that we can recognize who the lepers of our world are and heal them, find ways to welcome them into community.

The ten lepers have heard about Jesus, about how he and his disciples have been going from city to city healing those with disease, feeding those who are hungry, listening and talking with those who have been isolated and shunned, offering new life to those who have had no hope. Perhaps these particular ten lepers have come out of their caves and gone to the priests before, asking for healing. Maybe the priests haven’t listened to them or had the time and space to heal and cleanse them, so the lepers think approaching Jesus is their only chance for healing. As they have been told to do, they don’t come near Jesus, keeping their distance from him. They call out to him: “’Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’” When Jesus hears it, he tells them to go to the priests for their healing and purification. We don’t really know why Jesus says this instead of healing them himself like we know he can, like he knows he can. Perhaps it is because the priests and those in charge are becoming wary of Jesus and his healing, so Jesus feels he needs to appease them. Perhaps Jesus tells the lepers to go to the priests because he thinks the community will only accept them back if they have been healed by the trusted and revered priests. We aren’t told why Jesus tells them to go to the priests, but the important thing is that they do. They offer themselves to the priests, asking for healing. They are cleaned, healed of their leprosy, given physical healing and new life by the priests. They are restored to the community and go on their way, at least nine out of the ten, anyway, to their new lives as healed and non-diseased folks.

But one of them doesn’t join the other nine as they leave the temple to begin their new lives. The tenth leper turns around to Jesus, prostrating himself, falling at Jesus’ feet, to thank him and praise God for what has happened, for giving his life back to him—not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually. The text tells us that he is also a Samaritan—so not only has this tenth leper been shunned because of his physical disease, but he has also been looked down on, shunned, left out of community because of where he was born, because of the false beliefs and assumptions that have been made about him. He has been left out in the caves his whole life because of his physical disease, and left out of the community his whole life because he was born a Samaritan. Because of all of this, he is so thankful--thankful for the priests who have healed him and given his life back to him physically, thankful for the Christ who has loved and welcomed him back to life in every other way. As his life has been turned around in every way possible, he turns himself around and gives thanks to God.

Physical healing and holistic salvation are intertwined for this tenth one, who has, until now, been shunned by the community because of being a Samaritan, who has only been able to yell to others and identify himself as “Leper! Leper!”—this tenth one who is now proudly able to identify himself as saved and whole. And he responds to this physical healing, to this salvation of wholeness, by praising God and falling to his knees in thanksgiving. Jesus’ response to him is a simple one, but a deep and telling one: “’Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.’”

In her commentary from the Feasting on the Word series, Margit Ernst-Habib depicts this story so beautifully. She writes that this tenth one

…demonstrates a faith that lays hold on God, that cannot and will not remain silent in response to what God has done in his life, that publicly, spontaneously, and joyfully directs its thanksgiving to God…With his prostration at Jesus’ feet and his giving thanks, the Samaritan demonstrates a faith that is complete because it includes thankfulness…The Samaritan is not grateful because it is his duty to be so, but because of is faith in and experience with Christ, because Jesus, his master had mercy on him…[this] response of thanksgiving is not only appropriate, but the most joyful thing to do.

I love her idea in this writing—that the tenth one demonstrates a faith in response to what God does for us, the way God loves us and gives us life, a faith that lays hold on God. In the beauty of creation, and through the incredible grace of God’s love given to us through Jesus Christ, God cleans us, welcomes us, and lays hold on us. And because of that, we are called to lay hold in return, to thank God by praising God with joyful thanksgiving, by sharing God’s love with others.

I’ve thought about God laying hold on us and us laying hold on God as I’ve thought so much about Haiti this week. I’ve remembered a beautiful woman I met there—remembered the faith and thanksgiving to God she shared with me. On one of our last days there, we went to a hospital to work. It was a Sisters of Charity hospital started by Mother Teresa’s group, meaning that it served the poorest of the poor, the ones who had no money or family to take care of them, the ones who had been turned away every where else, the ones who were sick without much hope of physical healing. Simply put, this woman and those in the hospital were present-day lepers, shunned by the world, forced to live in the modern-day cave of a rustic hospital ward with flies buzzing around, with dirty and bloody bandages on the floor, a hospital where physical healing is rare. We were asked to talk with the patients who shared space together, to paint their toenails and massage their hands and legs.

I approached a woman who was very skinny, too skinny, obviously very sick. She had beautiful, smooth, brown skin and was wearing a thin pink nightgown. I don’t know what was physically wrong with her, partly because I didn’t speak Creole, but all I needed to know was that she would probably never leave this place as a physically healed person. Because we didn’t speak the same language, I held lotion up and put some on my hands, motioning to ask if I could do the same for her. She nodded yes, so I put lotion on her tiny hands and arms, massaging it in. She saw this ring on my finger, the cross ring my parents gave me when I was ordained. She touched the small beautiful crucifix on her neck, pointed at me and asked, “Catholic?” I nodded no and replied, “Presbyterian, but Christian like you.” She might not have understood my words, but she understood the meaning behind them and understood that we were both people loved by God. She had never met me before, and she knew that I would soon leave her to go back to my life of luxury in the States. She could’ve ignored me, but instead she invited me into her life, into her space, with a sense of intimacy I had never before experienced. As I massaged the lotion into her legs, she lowered her nightgown and pointed to her shoulders for the lotion and massage. Then she raised her nightgown above her legs and stomach so I could put lotion there. Then she raised it around her breasts for me to do the same. There was nothing sexual about this, but everything about it was emotional, spiritual, everything about a faithful experience for us both. This woman, who had been shunned by her disease, shunned by the world, expressed such an incredible faith as she welcomed me with love. Although there might not have been physical healing to come for her, there was no doubt in my mind that she knew she had been claimed by a God who loved her, by Christ who had died for her to give her new life. By inviting me into her most intimate space, this woman laid hold to God and laid hold to me, welcoming me in joyful thanksgiving through all she did—modeling Christ’s acceptance and love for me. In those few, dear moments, she taught me so much about the faith of Christ that makes us well in wholeness. I will never forget it, and I will always be thankful to her for teaching me anew about a faith that makes us well.

In a few moments, we’ll stand and affirm our faith together, using part of our Brief Statement of Faith. As we proclaim our faith today, let us read and hear and believe these words, let us celebrate these words in all that we do: “We trust in Jesus Christ, fully human, fully God…In gratitude to God, empowered by the Spirit, we strive to serve Christ in our daily tasks and to live holy and joyful lives.” Because we have been claimed and loved by God, we are called, in and through our faith, to live lives of thanksgiving—to be joyful to God in all that we do.