In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus is on a journey – a purposeful movement toward Jerusalem and his appointment with the cross. Luke, writing for a mixed audience, both Jew and Gentile, makes a point all through his gospel of telling stories about inclusiveness. He is the only one who tells the parable of the Prodigal Son, Lazarus and the Rich Man, the Good Samaritan. He is the only one who reminds the people of God's past inclusiveness using the story of the healing of Naaman, the commander of the Syrian army and the Sidon widow whose son was raised by Elijah. He is the only one who tells of Jesus healing the ten lepers.
There is an interesting dynamic at work here that I don’t think we, as Gentile Christians, quite understand. We have been raised in an age where our parents took great stock in proper manners and most of us are taught at a very early age to say those magic words… “Please” and “Thank you.” And so with that lens in mind, we listen to the story and we see people who don't appear to be grateful for what God has done for them. And that might not be true at all.
The key is the fact that it is a Samaritan who comes back, and Jesus makes a point of saying "Was none found to return and praise God except this foreigner? This is important to the story - it implies that the other nine were Jews. So let’s look at the scene. Ten lepers approach, but keeping their distance they call out, “Have mercy on us!” Lepers are not allowed to come near well people. What does it mean to have mercy? What does mercy look like? Did they expect healing, food, money, clothing, a place to live?
And how does Jesus respond? “Hocus pocus, you are well…” Jesus seldom made a big todo or a splashy healing. It was always very simple. And here he says nothing of healing. Simply, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” Notice they aren’t healed immediately – it is only when they are obedient – when they leave to do his bidding - that they are healed.
And for the nine Jews, even when they discover that they are healed, they still can’t come near people until they have been pronounced clean by a priest. So they are doing exactly what Jesus told them to do – they are obeying the law - going to the temple or the local synagogue to be pronounced clean by the priest. It is only the Samaritan, who is not so strictly bound by the purity and cleanliness laws, who comes back to give thanks.
A number of years ago, I read a wonderful little book called “The Way of the Wolf:" subtitled "The Gospel in New Images” by Episcopal priest, Martin Bell. One of the stories was called, “Where are the nine?” In story form, Bell chronicles each of the nine and their reasons for not going back. They ranged from not wanting the healing, to the man who was so overjoyed, he couldn’t wait to go home and hold his children for the first time in years.
I want you to also be aware that just because the nine didn’t come back, their healing was not taken away from them. It was their obedience that provided their physical healing. For the Samaritan, he was already healed, but Jesus tells him that his faith has made him well. The same word that is translated "healed" or "well" can also be translated "saved."
Jews did not consider Samaritans to be part of the “saved” race, so Jesus is accepting him into the family – so to speak. In other words, he has opened up a new relationship with this Samaritan. The outcast has now become part of the family. There is now a new relationship between the outcast and the elect.
The Samaritan reacted differently to the healing than the Jews because of his different world view, his different understanding, his different upbringing. I think we must all remember that we are not the same. We don’t all approach the gospel from the same viewpoint.
In this current story, Luke is showing that even the Samaritan is included in the healing. That healing is for all who believe, not just for the chosen – the insiders. The idea is that God’s grace spills out on everyone who is around.
From our Jeremiah reading - We learn that like the lepers, we can't always control the circumstances around us, but we can control our reaction and response to those circumstances. We've all heard that saying, "WWJD - What Would Jesus Do?" My standard reaction is, "Jesus wouldn't be in this situation because he wouldn't do the stupid things I did to get me here...". So, a better question here is," what would God have me do under these circumstances/conditions?" I find it interesting that God's answer to Jeremiah is to go ahead and live your lives as you normally would. Even in exile, they were to be productive members of their society and to flourish in that place. This tells us that we, too, are called to work and succeed where ever we find ourselves.
Our collect says, “May your grace always precede and follow us that we may be given to good works…” God’s grace pours out and overflows on all people. We can accept it and go on our way, just as the nine lepers did; or we can rejoice and praise God with the Samaritan – but the grace is there whether we acknowledged or not. It’s really important that we acknowledge and welcome the outsider into our midst - the visitors to our congregation. Jesus indicated this over and over - each and every time a Gentile or Samaritan is included in lessons. We are to be conduits of God’s grace where ever we go. We receive and pass on God's grace, through obedience and through faith. Amen.
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