GRACE AND PEACE TO YOU FROM GOD OUR CREATOR AND OUR LORD AND SAVIOR, JESUS THE CHRIST:

Thank God for pain. It tells us when we need to change something about what we’re currently doing. One of the very unfortunate side effects of leprosy is that one loses sensation in the nerve endings—so the person with leprosy can seriously injure a foot or hand and not know it. The people of Jesus’ day did what they knew how to do when someone contracted leprosy. They isolated the person in an attempt to keep others from catching it.

In that era there were no cures for this terrible disfiguring disease. Nor were there any centers for their care other than colonies that kept them away from the general population.

So to have leprosy was a terrible condition on several levels. There was the disease itself to deal with. The very real and present danger of doing serious harm to oneself because one could not feel physical pain. And the isolation from the rest of the community. The person with leprosy’s only companions were others with the same condition. Even if someone wanted to help they could not unless they wanted to forfeit their own life in the community to go live in a leper colony.

Then along comes Jesus. He was on his way to Jeruslem, traveling in the region between Samaria and Galilee. This was an area of outcasts. Samaritans were half breeds in the opinion of the Jewish people and not welcome among them. They had no respect, no rights, and no welcome among the mainstream Jewish people.

In a very sad and tragic way leprosy was a uniter of the outcasts. The common denominator of leprosy erased other lines that might separate people. When people had leprosy other traits didn’t much matter.
Our text today does not tell us the ethnic or national affiliation of the ten lepers except that one was a Samaritan. Let us suppose for a moment the other nine were not. In their mutual desperation they call out to Jesus to have mercy on them. Jesus, seeing their condition, tells them to go to priests.

So they start on their way and amazingly—they are made clean—cured of the leprosy. The priests had the authority to declare them clean and therefore able to rejoin the community. A person with leprosy was required to call out “unclean, unclean” to warn others to stay away. A certificate from the priests meant they could rejoin the community! Unless they were Samaritans. In which case they still would not be welcome.

One turns back—and that one we know was a Samaritan. He was so stunned that he, a Samaritan at that, should be cleansed from the dreaded disease that he went back and said “thank you.” Jesus notes that ten were made clean, but only one comes back.

The strange thing about this is that the other nine were doing exactly what Jesus had told them to do. They were told to go to the priests. And they did.

So, perhaps they figured the best way to thank Jesus was to do as he instructed. Obedience to God’s word is frequently lifted up as the appropriate response in scriptures. Perhaps they were so ecstatic that they were clean that they couldn’t wait to get their verification from the priests and get back to their lives before leprosy. We don’t know.

What we do know is that one turned around and came back to thank Jesus. Perhaps he realized he still would no longer be part of the group of 10. Perhaps he feared the priests would reject him, and hoped Jesus wouldn’t.

We don’t know what he was thinking either.

What we do know is that Jesus tells him to get up and go on his way; his faith has made him well. The English word well in this passage comes from a Greek word that means saved. The nine were cleansed of their leprosy and would be declared so by the priest. The Samaritan was cleansed of the leprosy and was declared to be healed—saved—by Jesus, the high priest who makes us all whole or healed or saved.

This one got a double healing—of both his disease and his broken life of rejection and alienation. Jesus doesn’t tell him where to go next. He only blesses him to be on his way—now a well—whole—saved person. He has a new identity now—where it counts most—as he perceives himself. He has been twice blessed by the one who not only has mercy, but also has power to restore, make new, heal, save.

He is a leprosy survivor—and that will be part of his biography for the rest of his life. However leprosy is no longer the focal point of his life. It’s not the first term used to define him. His new image is one of himself as one healed by his exchange with the Healer.

When I did my hospital chaplaincy training at Hermann Hospital I soon learned that it was common for someone who was being treated for a physical disease to also be wrestling with some kind of emotional or spiritual pain. The doctors might be treating an ulcer or cancer but the patient was still feeling guilt over the suicide of a son or an unconfessed affair or the estrangement from a parent.

After listening to these stories for a while I would always ask a patient if they’d like me to pray for them. I was never turned down. And often the result was a spontaneous flow of tears. Tears that were washing out emotional pains and fears that went back years.

We go looking for healing in all the wrong places. Instead of crying out to the Healer for mercy, we take matters into our own hands and try to do a self-healing job. We fill our bodies and our schedules with all sorts of things that distract us from coming to terms with the alienation we too often experience. Alienation from our Lord, the community we’re created to experience and even a healthy sense of being who we were meant to be.

We deceive ourselves into believing our angst and unhappiness come from circumstances out there. We experience leprosy of the soul. If we avoid coming to terms with it long enough we no longer even feel the hunches that something is wrong. We can be so convinced that the problem is out there instead of within or between us and others that we lose our sensitivity to pain. We no longer feel the nudges and invitations to change. Thus we see people indulging in any number of potentially destructive behaviors to distract themselves from themselves. Such excesses frequently leave people feeling emotionally and spiritually exhausted—wondering what’s wrong.

Efforts to distract ourselves often backfire. We don’t need to change our circumstances. What we need is a deeper awareness of our connection with our Creation and more authentic relationships with a core community of people who love and cherish us for who we are.

The ten with leprosy all began their healing process by crying out to Jesus for mercy. A good starting place for any of us.

Perhaps we see ourselves as one the nine in this story—on our way to the priests who can validate our cleansing and welcome us back into the fold. Perhaps we see ourselves as the one who turned back to say “thank you” and in doing so received a second, individual blessing for our effort. I wonder if we dare see ourselves as Jesus—as Martin Luther would put it—little Christ’s to one another. If we can think of ourselves as those who can declare to others, get up and go on your way—your faith has made you well.

Leprosy no longer condemns people to live in colonies apart from others. But there are other factors that keep people isolated and cut off from the mainstream community. Who are some of the people we put aside in colonies of isolation in our day and age?

Who are the people we consider to be on the outside – unfit to dwell among us? And what criteria do we use to decide that? Who should decide? Do we ever condemn people to alienation from the community because of factors over which they have no control? We have in the past.

We used to do keep the mentally ill isolated in attics or basements or institutions that were more like prisons than hospitals. It took until the 1960’s and Dr. Martin Luther King’s persistent, patient, passionate insistence that we should judge people by the content of their character rather than the color their skin to really start shifting our attitudes about racial justice issues. My grandmother was the first generation of women in this country to be allowed to vote.

I think there’s been a long history of those who have the power and opportunity to make decisions deciding who will be accepted in the community and who will be kept separated—often for conditions over which they have no control.

How will these folks be invited and welcomed into the community if not through us? We are recipients of Jesus’ healing through our faith, through our baptisms, through our hearing of the word, through our partaking of the communion meal. Are we not also called to extend the invitation to others? To those who, like the ten with the leprosy call out for mercy.

I think the point of today’s story is that we don’t have to settle for a physical cure of a disease when Jesus holds out to us complete healing for our minds and spirits as well. We are free to get up now and go on our way—assured that there is no condition that can ever separate us from the love and care of Christ. As we believe that, I believe we’re also now invited to extend that kind of acceptance to others. Today we hear Jesus saying to us, individually and collectively as a community of faith filled people—get up from whatever holds us back. Go on our way. Our faith has made us well. Let’s believe that good news and share that blessing with those outside of the community. Amen