Oct 13, 2013 ... Not all who were called “lepers” had true leprosy, or Hansen's ... Scottish pastor
John Bell writes that Jesus “…came to recognize and indicate ...
2 Timothy 2:8-15 Luke 17:11-19
Your Inner Leper First Presbyterian Church, Birmingham
October 13, 2013 Ordinary 28
J. Shannon Webster
See how Luke writes this episode. He has Jesus going through the region “between Samaria and Galilee,” that, is a no-man’s land, border area, liminal space. Jesus enters an unnamed village and ten lepers approach him. That’s not odd. Lepers formed their own communities apart from others, and hung out the road with a sign to collect charity (like at the US 31 offramp near St. Vincent’s). Not all who were called “lepers” had true leprosy, or Hansen’s disease, as we call it today, but had some sort of skin ailment that sometimes went away, sometimes not. What was worse than the disease was being ostracized from any community but that which they provided to one another. In the in-between space, they ask for mercy, and Jesus says, “Go show yourself to the priests.” Only the priests could officially certify a cure. The text says, “As they went” they were healed. Not as they waited around to see if it took. Jesus treats the lepers as if they were already healed, and the healing happens as they go. Nine of them follow Jesus’ orders and do what they are supposed to do; one turns back, praising God and falling at Jesus’ feet. Then the punchline: “He was a Samaritan.” The Samaritan has no requirement, legal or religious, to show himself to a Jewish priest. Yet Luke makes the point that the man comes back to give thanks. We don’t know why he comes back, but Jesus expresses admiration – “Was none found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” – and tells him, “Go on your way; your faith has made you well.” Scottish pastor John Bell writes that Jesus “…came to recognize and indicate that God was the ground of all goodness, the quality of which manifests itself in all religions and none.”i In Luke’s gospel, the healing stories and ministry stories of Jesus are filled with people who come from unexpected categories (to Luke’s first hearers and readers): Samaritans, lepers, Gentiles, women, even the hated tax collectors. N.T. Wright observes that many whom Jesus healed came from one of those banned categories, and writes “Jesus’ touching the dead and raising them to life should have brought him uncleanness, but in fact had the effect of restoring them.ii” There are no unwanted guests in the company of those who follow Jesus, as Gene Peterson points out, and the leper who turns back being (surprise!) also a Samaritan, is Luke’s way of bringing “a doubly unwanted person into the story of healing and acceptance.”iii We have been throughout this lectionary year in the gospel of Luke, and seen repeated stories where Jesus heals the surprising person, the sinner-woman in chapter 7, a Roman Centurion, a blind beggar in an upcoming chapter. This particular story foreshadows Paul’s mission to the Gentiles, which Luke writes about in the book of Acts. Israel had turned in on itself, their calling as a Chosen People turned into a sense of entitlement. Luke shows us a Jesus who is pushing his own people and nation to look outward, to paint grace with broader strokes. Commentator Frederick Danker puts it this way: “Goodness, Luke implies, is to be encouraged and appreciated wherever it is found, and God’s people do not have a monopoly on it.”iv 1
The Good News, the proclamation of hope, is that God’s grace will not be denied by any impediment in the world, will not be handicapped by social prejudice, culture or politics, will not be deflected by ignorance, fear or avarice. The word of God will find a way to be get out. In our epistle lesson, the Apostle Paul writes from prison to his colleague Timothy, saying, “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead…this is my gospel, for which I suffer hardship to the point of being in chains like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained.” He is willing to do this for the sake of others that they may obtain salvation, he says. Paul might have imagined that God would make his bail, break him out of jail (as happened to Paul and Silas in one story in Acts), somehow intervene then to deliver him. Instead he observes that God’s word cannot be imprisoned. In prison, Paul takes the long view, seeing his life and ministry in the cause of a great good that is worth any sacrifice, rather than begging God to fix his immediate problem this very minute. That’s not how we usually pray. And that’s okay; sometimes we need to experience God’s presence in a present crisis. Sometimes it is worth suffering, to be part of the history of glory. In a sinful world, the most loving human acts are often met with hatred and violence. Christians in Egypt and the Middle East are persecuted not for anything they have done or did not do, but because they are a convenient political target. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis, Gandhi was assassinated on the way to prayer, and so it too often goes – but do you think either of those men would have for a moment backed away from their work? For Paul, suffering for his faith (a common New testament theme) was to imitate Christ: “If we died with him, we shall also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us; (but) if we are faithless, he remains faithful for he cannot deny himself.” Christ is never less than Christ, God never less than God. Country and folk musician Tom Russell sings about an Alaskan Native ex-con with the nickname of “Blue Wing” – for the tattoo on his shoulder. From a prison cell to a rundown trailer park to, in the end, a plain pine box, that tattoo points beyond Wing’s current reality. “It’s dark in here, can’t see the sky, but I look at this blue wing when I close my eyes. And I fly away beyond these walls, up above the clouds, where the rain don’t fall on a poor man’s dreams.” v It could be heard as a sad song, or it could be heard as a hope that refuses despair – God’s word, perhaps, that finds a way into the world, no matter our condition. Paul’s model for life itself is resurrection, and there is no resurrection without the cross. (To quote another old song, “Without a hurt, the heart is hollow.”vi) In the resurrection, we see God’s intentions for humankind – not a one-time thing for Jesus alone, but a template for oftrepeated grace breaking into our lives. This is how God works – resurrection! The ten lepers of Luke 17 were healed in an interesting way. An earlier healing of a leper had seemed to require Jesus’ touch. In this case, his very word was enough, perhaps because he IS the Word, the word that creates still, creates a new reality. The Samaritan leper with two strikes against him had twice the reason to be thankful. He was doubly blessed. Those who have experienced religion or churches not as a place of grace but as one of judgment and hatefulness are often – when they find a faith community of acceptance and love – twice as 2
likely to be joyful and to thrive. They don’t take it for granted. So here is the double blessing for us, from these texts today. First, we are promised that no matter how grim the world may sometimes seen, it is God’s world yet and God’s word is not chained. We are free to love the outcast and the leper, and those whom the powerful and comfortable of the world may scorn. Second, beyond that, deeper within our own selves, this is a word for you on a personal level. It is the rare person, I suspect, who does not harbor doubts and fears about his/her own value. How many have thought, to some degree: I am a fake. I am somehow unworthy. I am too young to know anything, or I am too old to be any use. I am weak, I am afraid, I am not attractive, I’m not smart enough for that, I am ashamed, I am a pretty bad sinner, I am tired, or – I am not lovable? What is the template? It is this – I am even dead, but no, I am risen. You are one of those people Jesus loved and healed and was dying to redeem. Franciscan priest Richard Rohr wrote, “Deep within us lives both a leper and a wolf, both of which we are ashamed and afraid of… Francis embrace the leper below Assisi and called it his own conversion; later Francis tamed the wolf. These stories did happen historically, but first of all they happened in our own soul. Our inner life, our emotional life, our prayer life is where we must first do our battles. If we haven’t been able to kiss many lepers, it’s probably because we haven’t made friends with our own leprosy.”vii If you can muster up the honesty, the courage, and the tenderness to embrace that part of your own self that you have believed unlovable, unworthy, perhaps untouchable, your inner leper – you will find the love of God there, for you. Then you can love others who also hurt in secret, and they you. You are beautiful, you are powerful, you are a beloved child of God. Go be healed. But if you think of it, give thanks to God, the giver of all grace.
i
Bell, John. 10 Things They Never Told Me About Jesus, GIA Publications, Chicago, 2009, p. 91 Wright, N.T. Jesus and the Victory of God, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 1996, p. 192. iii Peterson, Eugene. Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, Eerdmans Press, Grand Rapids, 2005, p. 285. iv Danker, Frederick. Luke, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1976, p. 65. v Russell, Tom. Blue Wing, The Long Way Around, Hightone Records, 1997. vi Jones, Tom. Try To Remember, The Fantasticks, Applause Theater Productions, 1960. vii Rohr, Richard. Radical Grace, St, Anthony Messenger Press, Cincinnati, 1995, p. 276. ii
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