More than a Miracle; my first sermon at SELC

Text: Luke 17:11-19

In my brief tenure at the hospital, I’ve come across a fair share of lepers. No, it’s not the same leprosy that we’ve seen the saints like Mother Teresa tend to, nor is it the same as the lepers we hear and read about in today’s Gospel from the book of Luke. I say that I’ve come across a fair share of lepers because of the similar circumstances my patients share with Luke’s lepers.

According to the law of Israel as written down in Leviticus,

If there is on the bald head or the bald forehead a reddish-white diseased spot, it is a leprous disease breaking out on his bald head or his bald forehead. The priest shall examine him; if the diseased swelling is reddish-white on his bald head or on his bald forehead, which resembles a leprous disease in the skin of the body, he is leprous, he is unclean. The priest shall pronounce him unclean; the disease is on his head. The person who has the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be disheveled; and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, “Unclean, unclean.” He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean. He shall live alone; he shall be outside the camp. (Lev  13:42-46) 

In the same way, some of my patients are pronounced leprous. In instances of severe infection, when they are “unclean, unclean,” they are forced to live alone, outside of the camp. If a visitor were to come close and enter the unclean room, the visitor must don a bright yellow gown, medical gloves and a breathing mask. And before exit, the visitor must discard their bright yellow gown, medical gloves and breathing mask into a refuse bin. All of this tells the leper—my patient—that no one will come too close, no one will touch them, for no one wants to catch what they’ve got. They become a thing and not a person. Of course, it is important to have compassion in these situations, with these people, for it is a sad and lonely feeling to be separated and told that you are “unclean, unclean.”

However, these sorts of precautions make sense. They are the law. If one wants to enter, then one must suit up. After all, it is for my own health and for the health of all of the other patients I see. I don’t want to catch what they’ve got and I don’t want to spread their disease to other patients. We take precautions because they are necessary; it’s unfortunate, but, that’s life. Of course, there is no need to demonize the leper, but there is no need to romanticize the leper either. A leper is a leper. This sort of happy medium was Jesus’ approach to the lepers of his day.

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. 

If all we’re looking for is a miracle, then we can stop reading here. Jesus healed all ten lepers; Jesus is batting 1.000 in the playoffs; unfortunately he isn’t playing for the Diamondbacks. All ten lepers confessed that Jesus was their Master and all ten were sent to the priest. As they went, they were made clean. Herein lays the miracle. But our story does not end here. Jesus does not stop here. You see, Jesus offers a miracle, and then some.

Listen to what comes next:

Then one of the lepers, when he saw that he as healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then Jesus said to the Samaritan, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” 

Now, the men were told to show themselves to the priests. This was in concordance with the law that labeled them unclean. Though healed, their leprosy was still “on their head” until the priest declared them clean.

Jesus asks this tenth leper, “Where are the other nine?” You know, Jesus. You sent them to the priest. The nine are on their way back to society, just as you had told them.

The irony of the story is that the nine were obedient. How could they not be? I imagine the nine couldn’t wait to be seen as clean, I imagine the nine couldn’t wait to see their family and friends, their loved ones from who they were forced to be estranged, from whom they were forced to be separated. Of course the nine listened to Jesus and gladly made their way back into society, back into regular life. Herein lays the miracle. But our story does not end here. You see, all ten were healed, but only one was made well.

Jesus did not tell all of the lepers that their faith had made them well; he said it to the one that we would not expect, the tenth leper, the dirty Samaritan, the outsider, the foolish man who was found head to ground at Jesus’ feet, groveling; all ten were healed, but only one was made well. Jesus tells the leper, “Your faith has made you well.”

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard these words from Jesus.

In Luke 7, we hear the story of the sinful woman who washes Jesus’ feet with her hair. Though others looked down upon the woman for her sins, Jesus tells her, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

In Luke 8, we hear the story of the unclean woman who had a hemorrhage for 12 years and dared to touch Jesus, and Jesus tells her, “your faith has made you well; go in peace.”

Today in Luke 17, we hear Jesus say those same words to the tenth leper who turned back to worship him, Jesus says, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

What is it that Jesus sees in these people, these people the rest of the world deems unclean? Faith. You see, faith was all they had. Jesus was all they had. When everything that surrounded them collapsed, it was faith that sustained them, faith that compelled them to ask Jesus for healing, and, as Jesus states time and time again, it was faith that made them well.

So too is it that faith makes us well. Jesus’ work to forgive our sins, our personal leprosy, is already over. When Jesus took upon himself the sins of the world, yours and mine included, when he bore them upon his cross, when he took them into his grave, he left them there. You have already been made clean. Faith in this promise is what makes you well, today, tomorrow, forever. Faith is what sustains us in our day to day lives, when we cannot trust what we see. Faith is what we cling to when the rent check is too high and the paycheck too low; when our bodies starts to fail you and mortality creeps in all around us; when it would be easier to have just one more sip, one more hit, one more bite, one more game, than to seek help for a habit that will not let us go; when we hear news of another bombing halfway across the world and pray yet again that it is not someone we know, someone we love. It is faith that leads us to Jesus in prayer. It is faith that sends us to our Christian brothers and sisters to ask for help. It is faith that tells us that though we cannot see our miracles, Jesus is still at work in and for us, now and forever.