Luke 17:11-19
Based on an idea by Rev. Richard J. Fairchild
11 Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance 13 and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” 14 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed. 15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan. 17 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” (Luke 17:11-19)
Imagine that this morning the tenth leper is here among us — that Samaritan who turned back and gave glory to God for his cleansing. If he had the chance to tell us his testimony, perhaps he would say something like this:
We were standing by the old road, the one that crossed the border between Samaria and Galilee. There were ten of us — nine Jews and me. Even though I was a Samaritan, they had not cast me out. Suffering draws people together, and among the hopelessly sick, in a condition like ours, the walls people build between one another melt away. We were friends. But we had no income of any kind. So whenever we felt a little better, we would usually sit by the road and beg for alms.
It was a scorching summer day — the kind of day when the dust of the road rises into the air with every step you take and clings to you, when the sweat runs down your face and sticks to your body. We sat there by the road. Everything was still. For a long while the only sound to be heard was the buzzing of the insects in the air. But then, in the distance, we saw a group of people. They were coming down the road, drawing nearer to us.
When they came close, we did what the Law required of us. We began to shout, “Unclean! Unclean!” (Leviticus 13:45-46). And they stopped. That was a good sign. Often people simply pass us by, because they do not want to have anything to do with us. There were ten of us, and even if they had not heard us shout, they would have had no trouble recognizing what we were. Some of us had rags wrapped around our hands; the legs of others were bandaged in strips of old cloth. We were all dressed in tattered, worn-out clothes, the kind that people in our condition were required to wear, and all of us had, as was expected of us, long, uncombed hair. There could be no mistake about what we were — we were lepers, lepers who were carrying out our duty to stand off the road. We looked like a pack of hungry, wounded animals. People treated us as some kind of horrible, wretched creatures, creatures no one wanted to come near.
Of course, I remember that I too looked at lepers that way when I was clean. I mean, everyone knows what leprosy is, don’t they? It is something simply terrible. No one can recover from it. It causes the tissue to rot away slowly. Little by little it destroys the body. And what is even worse, it is so easy to catch. That is why the priests insist that everyone who develops any spots or blemishes on his skin appear before them at once for examination. The priest looks them over, and if they have inflamed patches, white swellings or reddened marks on the skin, or if the hair on the body has turned pale, he declares them unclean. Then the person must remain under quarantine for seven days, isolated in such a way that no one else is put at risk.
It is very hard for people who are in such a state. I know, because I lived through it myself. Through all those days you wonder whether you really do have leprosy, whether you will ever be able to live with your family again… But it is fair. It is fair to the rest of the people in the village, and it is fair to our own families, because leprosy is not a good thing — not a good thing at all. Most of the time a person does not have leprosy; he returns to the priest after seven days, his inflammation has healed, he is declared clean, and he is allowed to go back home.
But for others — for people like us ten, whom Jesus saw that day — the spots on the skin grow worse. The color of the inflammation grows paler. The infection on the skin spreads and covers more and more. Such people are sent into exile and isolation (Numbers 5:2-3). We had been declared unclean forever. Never again able to have normal contact with people, unable to bounce our children on our knees, unable to embrace our friends, unable to do anything at all that might cause someone else to catch the disease from which we ourselves were suffering.
Imagine it, if you can — to live out the rest of your life in some closed-off hovel, to have to stay in some camp and spend all your time with those who are suffering and sick like you. It is so hard to think about — that you cannot see someone you love except from a great distance, that you can only speak to one another by shouting from afar. After a while everyone you know stops coming to see you. No one wants to look at you or to have anything to do with you. And no one, in spite of the fact that they claim to love you, will ever again embrace you, kiss you, or touch you. No one, except those like you, those whose bodies are twisted, sick, and rotting away.
Imagine, too, what it is like to wait and see what will happen to you. To wait and see whether your disease will develop as it did in the others, taking your own fingers and toes, disfiguring your mouth and your nose, until in the end you simply die of hunger, or of some cold or fever — but not before you have suffered for several years first. Imagine it. Waiting, and trying to hope. Trying to hope in that one-in-a-million chance, hoping that your sores and inflammations will heal, that one day you will be able to go to the priest, and you will be able to hear him pronounce over you the word: “Cleansed!”
Imagine what it is like to have to walk about dressed in rags and to wear clothing that is torn and threadbare. Think how hard it would be to let your hair grow and never again let a comb pass through it. Imagine how you would feel if, every time a healthy person came near you, you had to shout, “Unclean, unclean!” On top of all this, people regard leprosy not merely as a disease, but as a punishment from God. They think that since we are lepers, we must have deserved it. This makes them colder and harder toward us. They count us as sinners bearing our punishment from God. This is what leprosy is. No one in his right mind would want to come near any of it.
That is why those who were approaching stopped. They were careful — and rightly so, for “care” is exactly the right attitude that any sensible person should have when drawing near to danger. Jesus, however, contrary to all common sense, was not afraid of leprosy. We had heard that once he had touched a leper who came to him and begged to be healed. Jesus reached out, touched him, said to him, “Be clean,” and instantly the man was healed of his disease (Luke 5:12-14). We had heard that this same miracle-worker and prophet was coming down the road. So when we saw him coming with his disciples, we began to shout: “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
Usually, when we turned to travelers passing by and cried, “Have pity on us!” we meant our need for alms. But from Jesus we expected not only alms — we expected forgiveness, and healing, and cleansing. We understood that Jesus had heard us, because he turned, looked at us, raised his hand, and called out: “Go, show yourselves to the priests!” We looked at one another. We knew that anyone could see we were lepers. So we wondered, what did Jesus mean? Would he come with us? Would he make us do something special? We knew that healing from leprosy was impossible. It required a miracle.
I looked at the other nine in our group. I wondered whether they had heard or understood something different from me. I had examined every infected place on their bodies, every bald patch on their heads. I knew that all of them, like me, bore the plain marks of leprosy. Although only a few moments had passed, they seemed like hours to us. Hearing the Master’s words, we could do nothing but wonder. At the same time, all of us hoped — we believed — that Jesus could heal us. So we had to accept that the impossible would become possible. We realized that we had to obey. In the next moment we all turned and hurried on ahead toward Jerusalem, to get there before Jesus and his disciples. In an instant we believed that we would be healed, and we began to think no longer so much about our disease as about reaching the temple as quickly as we could. We walked faster and faster; with every step we felt a greater and greater surge of strength, until at last we broke into a run.
Later, as I reflected on what had happened, I remembered the story of Naaman the Syrian. He too had thought that the prophet of Israel would come out, would walk around him, would wave his hand over him, and so would heal him. But all that Elisha commanded him to do was to go and dip himself seven times in the Jordan. Jesus, likewise, told us to go and show ourselves to the priests. Truly, marvelous are the ways of God. What matters is that we be obedient.
By the time we reached Jerusalem, we were all out of breath and covered in dust. The people in the city panicked, while all of us at once were trying to explain to them what had happened. As we shook the dust from our bodies it became clear that we were already well. Jesus knew this too, but he also knew that everyone healed of a skin disease had to be declared clean by the priest. He examined us. Our skin, especially in the places that had been diseased, was rosy and fresh. When he saw that we were well, the priest could not stay silent. He began to praise God for the great miracle that had happened before his eyes. We did the same, marveling how Jesus, with only a word, had healed us all — all ten of us.
Then I understood. Jesus was no ordinary man. He was the Son of God. He was the long-awaited Messiah. The priest ordered that two doves be brought for each of us, along with cedar wood, scarlet yarn, and hyssop. He killed one of the two doves. He dipped the living dove, the cedar wood, the scarlet yarn, and the hyssop in the blood of the slain dove and sprinkled us with the blood seven times. Then he set the living dove free and said, “Cleansed!” You have never seen such amazement and joy. He commanded us to shave off our hair, to burn our old clothes, and to bathe.
We were all in a hurry. Everyone wanted to get back home as soon as possible. I, however, felt that first I had to thank Jesus, so I rushed straight back to the place where we had left him. As I drew near I was singing and shouting, “Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” Very soon I was standing before them. I told them how, with every step toward the priests, we had felt better and better, younger, more full of energy, and how it seemed that on the last bend before we reached Jerusalem we had been completely healed. A thousand thoughts and feelings passed through my mind that day. Just think of it — after all the suffering we had lived through, suddenly, in the blink of an eye, at the command of one Stranger, our loneliness, our pain, our exile had begun to evaporate. With every passing minute it became clearer and clearer that we would be with our families again, that we would play with our children again, that we would work again alongside our brothers and relatives in the fields and in the barns of our old homes.
As I stood before Jesus, overwhelmed with feeling and saying, “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” I threw myself at his feet, thanking him again and again. Until at last he touched my head, and looking toward the others he said: “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one else been found to return and give glory to God except this foreigner?” Was Jesus angry with the others for not returning to thank him and God for receiving their lives back? Was he trying to say something about himself, or about foreigners like me? At first they did not understand what Jesus was saying to them, but then they understood. I spoke with a Samaritan accent. I was one of those whom they despise — a man who refuses to worship God in the right way and to bring sacrifices in the temple at Jerusalem. They were nine; I was one. But I had come back. I did not find my actions to be anything remarkable. To me it was only natural, when I received something, to say “Thank you!” All the more so, since for me there was no greater gift than being healed of leprosy!
Then I began to wonder. Truly, why did my other companions in misfortune not come back with me? We had all been sick, all of us had cried out for mercy, all of us had been cleansed of our leprosy. Did they not want to say “thank you” to God? Perhaps they did not understand who Jesus was. Perhaps they were in a hurry to get home and see their families. I do not know. But he had healed us with only a word. Is there something special about giving thanks to God? How do we behave when we receive something from him? Do we return to thank him? Or are we so happy with what we have received that we forget the one who gave it to us? When we receive something, do we think about the gift, or about the one who gives it to us?
While we were still wondering what Jesus meant by his words, he looked at me and said: “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” In that moment I experienced something — something different, something more. Something I could not put into words. Yes, you can cry out from a distance and God can give you physical healing, but personal fellowship and spiritual blessing can happen only in the presence of Jesus. They can happen only if you are thankful.