Luke
17:11-19
"Jesus, Master, have mercy on
us!" cried the band of lepers. But that wasn’t what they were supposed to
say. They were supposed to say, “Unclean, unclean!” to warn anyone who might
come close. Because leprosy was a fearful and dreaded disease in biblical times.
So much was unknown which meant that anyone who presented with any kind of skin
condition whether it be a rash, a scaly blemish, or actual leprosy was
categorized as a leper. And with that came strict rules of conduct. Forced to
live outside of the community, they were to wear shabby rags for clothes, keep
their hair unkempt, and shout “unclean” to anyone who drew near. Perhaps the
most frightening thing about leprosy was that it didn’t kill you. But with no
family, no friends except other lepers, no work, no temple, lepers were the
frightful equivalent to the walking dead - alive without any hope.
So, really, what did they have to lose on
the day that Jesus passed their way. Instead of, “Unclean!” they shouted,
“Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Exactly what they were asking for is unclear
- a piece of bread, some water, a kind word - who knows? But whatever they were
seeking I bet Jesus’ response took them by surprise. "Go and show
yourselves to the priests." Even if they knew of Jesus’ reputation as a
healer, what was he talking about? He hadn’t done anything. Showing yourself to
a priest implied healing because the only reason for a leper to visit a Jewish
priest was so the priest could verify a healing and allow reentry back into the
community. But they weren’t healed. Nothing had changed. They were no better
off than they had been before Jesus came on the scene. Still, they headed out
and a funny thing happened on the way, “as they went,” the gospel of Luke tells
us, “they were made clean.” Their step must have quickened as it happened,
anxious to find a priest to verify their health so that they might rush home to
wife or husband, to parents or children, joyously shouting, “I’m healed, I’m
healed!” They all must have been so excited and yet one of them did something
different than the others. Instead of rushing ahead to the next thing, one of
them stopped, turned around and went back to give praise and thanks to God.
"Were not ten made clean?” asked Jesus, “But the other nine, where are
they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this
foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your
faith has made you well."
How often we are willing to settle for
less than the fullness of what God desires for us? That’s what’s going on here.
Nine out of ten lepers are happy enough with a skin-deep healing. Only one is
able to recognize that full healing, a cure that is more than skin deep,
involves connecting with the healer himself. For when Jesus declares to the man
that, “your faith has made you well,” he’s talking about something bigger,
something deeper than just a physical healing. The leper’s faith expressed in
gratitude made him healed and whole inside and out. And it’s not that Jesus is
offended by the others who don’t return to give thanks. He doesn’t need our
thanks. But he knows that we need to give thanks because gratitude is good for
the soul. And that’s the deeper healing that God desires for us all.
Just as science now tells us that leprosy
is actually very hard to catch and not something to be afraid of, so has
science shed light on the fact that gratitude has measurable positive effects
on our minds and bodies. Gratitude does, indeed, makes us well. In part it
makes us well because it has a way of slowing us down. I’m sympathetic to the
nine lepers who didn’t stop and give thanks, but rushed onto the next thing in
life. Believe me, I could offer plenty of illustrations from my own life and
from many of yours, too, where a prayer was answered - a tumor benign, a job
found, a relationship restored, and so on - and yes, for a moment we may pause
in gratitude, but all too quickly then rush onto the next concern, the next
worry, the next prayer for relief.
Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, once
said that, “To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything.” That
is what Jesus wanted for all of the lepers and wants for us - to recognize in
the deepest parts of being God’s love in everything - in creation, in others,
in ourselves - for as we do, we are made well by that love.
That’s not to say that we are to take on
Pollyannaish view of the world - a determined, false cheeriness when faced with
real life burdens, pains, injustices, and sorrows. It’s no accident that Jesus
encounters the ten lepers in a land, we are told, that is somewhere between
Galilee and Samaria. Now that may not mean much to us, but to a Jewish listener
it would have signaled a type of borderland place - Galilee was good and safe,
Samaria, in the Jewish mind, was bad and threatening. This region somewhere
between Galilee and Samaria was a place of both/and - where both joy and
sorrow, strength and struggle, mercy and injustice existed. Quite similar to
the place we find ourselves in most of the time. And it is just such a place
that Jesus is willing to go, drawing near to find us, to heal us, and if we are
willing, to make us well. Gratitude helps us to see that in the midst of our
complex lives the Love of God is in everything. Sometimes, though, like the
lepers we are called to take a step in faith, in gratitude, and then in doing
so we become healed.
For gratitude is not just a feeling
outside of our control that randomly washes over us now and then. It’s more
like a radio channel that, with practice, we can choose at any time to tune into.
And as we tune in, we connect to God and from that connection flows love and
grace and compassion in us and through us.
“Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” That
cry never goes ignored. Jesus responds with a divine outpouring. And then he
waits, waits for us to notice and to know - to really know how much we are
already loved, already forgiven, already being made whole so that we might turn
to him full of thanks and praise. Thanks and praise that makes us well.
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