Luke 17:11-19
October 12
David A. Davis
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“How about a word or two on behalf of the nine lepers who did not return to give thanks?” That’s how Martin Bell begins his essay on Luke’s familiar passage of the ten lepers in an intriguing collection entitled The Way of the Wolf. “What about the others? It’s simple really,” Bell writes. And then he goes on to tell of the one who was so frightened that he could only look for a place to hide. He describes one of the former lepers who was offended that Jesus didn’t make him work harder in order to be healed. Another one discovered pretty quickly that he didn’t want to he healed. Bell imagines that one was a mother who did not return to give thanks because she was rushing to see her children. One was so happy he just forgot to say thanks. For one of those healed, it was going to take a long time to repair the broken dignity. There’s something that happens to a person forced to beg and shunned by all and still expected to say thank you.
In his sampler of poetic license, Martin Bell writes of a seventh leper who was convinced there would be a perfectly intelligible, scientific explanation for what happened. He didn’t return to give thanks because he believed Jesus had nothing to do with the healing event. And then a leper numbered eight did not return precisely because he did believe Jesus had everything to do with it. To return and give thanks when the Messiah had arrived, when the Kingdom of God was at hand, well that would be unheard of. He ran to tell the news. And one last leper, the ninth leper, Bell invites the reader to just ponder. Because no one really knew what happened to them. If you have ten, one is bound to fade away.
Perhaps you can anticipate this author/preacher’s conclusions. It is much easier to condemn the nine rather than understand them. It is good to give God thanks and maybe understandable sometimes not to because God doesn’t heal people and then stand around just waiting for the note. Jesus knew about the ten and where they were and where they went and why they were and who they were, and he healed them all the same. Martin Bell concludes with the thought; “perhaps the point is not in the one who returns, but in the ten who were healed.”
Perhaps. But then there’s Luke. There’s the author/preacher Luke. The stickler here is Luke. Here in the 17th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, the account of the ten lepers healed falls smack in the middle of some very difficult teaching from the lips of Jesus. “Occasions for stumbling are bound to come” That’s how Luke’s Jesus begins the chapter. “It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble!” And the Lord goes on to teach the disciples about sin and forgiveness, repentance and rebuke. The twelve beg Jesus to increase their faith. He tells them about the mustard seed. “If you had the faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘be uprooted and planted in the sea’, and it would obey you’”. Jesus warns them about doing the bare minimum, only what they have to do, when it comes to the life of faith. A life of obedience defined by only what has to be done and nothing more.
It is also here in this chapter that Jesus goes on to describe those days when the Son of Man comes in all glory. “Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it.” Jesus tells them. “On that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken, and the other left. There will be two women grinding meal together; one will be taken and the other left.” And chapter 17, this chapter where Luke the author/preacher tells of “the Christian life,” ends with this very uplifting quote attributed to Jesus: “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.” Whatever on earth that means?
Luke’s account of the healing of the ten lepers rests at the very center of an entire chapter of challenging teaching about discipleship, God’s future, and figuring out how to live the faith. It is at the center of a chapter full of imperatives from the Teacher. Right in the center of all the tough stuff, between forgiveness and the coming kingdom, comes the healing story. And smack in the middle of the healing story, you will find that one leper flat on their face at the feet of Jesus praising God with a loud voice. While the disciples, and the reader, and the church, and you and I are scratching our heads trying to understand the Savior’s teaching, Luke invites us to see the one. One for ten. Luke crafts the entire chapter, inviting the readers’ eye to the very center, suggesting that we focus on the one. Just as Jesus does.
Ten lepers approached Jesus as he headed for the village that day. Ten lepers obediently kept their distance, living their own identity. Instead of shouting out the expected word of warning, “Unclean, unclean!”, ten lepers give the shout out to Jesus, a shout in response to his identity. “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Ten lepers were told by the Lord to go and show themselves to the priest. Ten were invited to head down that road toward the proper entry back into community and family. Ten lepers were invited to return to life. Ten lepers were made clean. Ten lepers were healed. Ten lepers were restored to life surrounded not only by the disease and the alienation that defined them, but here in Luke, they were restored to life amid the challenging, complex, even troubling teaching of the Master, teaching about discipleship and the life of faith and living in response to the identity of this Jesus.
But only one, one out of ten, one in ten, one for ten, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, threw himself at the feet of Jesus and said, “thanks.” Only one. Only one offered praise to God with a loud voice. Only one turned back. And he was a Samaritan. You may recall earlier in Luke, when Jesus insisted on going with the disciples through a Samaritan town. When the Samaritans didn’t receive Jesus, James and John wanted to invoke the fires of heaven on the town. Jesus rebuked them. You remember the man who was a neighbor to the person in the ditch in the parable in Luke, he was a Samaritan. The lawyer trying to justify himself before Jesus couldn’t even bring himself to say “Samaritan.” No, he could only say “the one who showed mercy” was the neighbor. In John, chapter 4, the disciples were “astonished” that Jesus was speaking to a woman and to a Samaritan. The healed man at the feet of Jesus, shouting praise, was a Samaritan. He was an outcast. He had two strikes against him, on his skin and in his blood. He was a foreigner. He was an alien. He was an other. He was one of them. But only one turned back. He’s the one who came back. And Jesus looked around, and said to no one in particular and everyone all at once: “Only one for ten?”
It is interesting to note that one was heading down the road with the other nine. He was on the way with the others. He was headed in the same direction. Then he saw that he was healed. He had to have looked around. He had to sense the peer pressure to be on the way, to get back to life, to finally fit in. But he stopped, looked around, waited just a moment, and he turned back. I’m curious if that’s the moment of grace. The turning point. The work of the Holy Spirit. The gift of faith germinates like a mustard seed. Yes, he knew Jesus by name, but they all knew. Yes, he begged for mercy, but they all begged. Yes, he was healed, but they were all healed. But in that moment down the road a ways, to use the Apostle Paul’s language, “in the twinkling of an eye,” in that window of opportunity that shuts quicker than an instant, in that moment of grace, the person healed by Jesus decided to be the one. One for ten. He turned back.
A pastor friend of mine shared a story of when she was in high school. She volunteered at a food and clothing pantry in the lower level of the Episcopal Church in her town. It had something to do with community service credit for the National Honor Society. She told of arriving to volunteer on a cold winter afternoon. The line was already forming outside. The first thing she did was invite the folks to come inside out of the cold. As the staff and volunteers were assisting people one by one, an older man came down the steps struggling with several bags of clothes. Every month or so, he made the delivery from his congregation using the church van. he made several more trips. So many trips that some of the other folks waiting in line gave him a hand.
A gentleman came to the front of the line and asked the high school volunteer if she had any shoes, size ten. She went back to the box of shoes to check and came back to apologize to the visitor that there were only women’s shoes in the box that day. It was obvious to everyone in the basement that the man needed a new pair of shoes. My pastor friend recalled that the delivery man from the other church was heading back up the steps, but he turned back and asked the guest, “Did you say size ten? I think I just carried in a pair of shoes. Let me check.” It didn’t take long for the man to come back to the counter with a pretty new pair of size ten heavy-duty shoes. “Well, that’s good timing for me!” the man said, adding a word of thanks and putting them on before heading out into the winter afternoon.
After a few more trips out to the church van, soon void of bags of clothes, the man from the other church offered his thanks and good-byes to the staff and volunteers. It wasn’t until he made his last trip up the stairs that the high school student noticed what she said she would never forget. Yes, the man going back up the stairs was only in his socks. There was no bag of shoes.
Have you ever seen someone who knew what it meant to turn back? I have to admit, they are hard to find sometimes. It’s not because they aren’t around. People who turn back aren’t often seen. They seem to avoid the spotlight. They blend in while standing out. Their lives overflow with thanksgiving. They have learned that when it comes to the Christian life, it’s less about piety, it’s not about self-righteousness, or judgment, or having to be right all the time. It’s about being thankful. Their lives are characterized not just by giving, but by giving back. They embody thankfulness. They give back to God in little ways and big ways as a means of offering thanks and praise. There is a certain recklessness to it, to turning back. It’s daringly counter-cultural and by the world’s measure, makes no sense. No sense at all. That’s why Luke puts the one in ten at the center.
Maybe it’s Luke calling you and me. That amid the very real challenges to understanding the Christian life, the life of discipleship, what Professor Migliore describes in the signature title of his book “Faith Seeking Understanding”, that when it comes to understanding our faith in this world especially these days, still, yet, and always, at the center of it all, is our gratitude and praise to the One who heals us and makes us whole in and through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Savior who so loves us and yes, loves this hurting world.