There’s an interesting little story found only in Luke about Jesus and the ten lepers.  You may have heard it before.  I can sort of picture learning this story when I was a child—probably in Sunday School.  And I’m sure I have heard and read this story as an adult, too.  Here’s how I remember the story: 

          There were ten men who lived out in the wilderness because they had leprosy.  In those days, if a person had leprosy, they had to live far from the rest of the people, because everyone was afraid of catching their disease.  So these ten men lived together. 

          Then one day, Jesus came by, and he healed all ten of them, and told them to go and show themselves to the priest.  The reason they needed to go to the priest is that the priest was the person who would see that they were well, and if they were well, he would allow them to come back and live among the people.

          In the story, after these ten lepers were healed, there was one leper who came back and thanked Jesus, but only one out of all ten said “Thank You.”  The lesson from this story was that we need to be thankful like the one who came back, not like the nine who didn’t bother to say “Thank You.”

          I’m sure I contemplated this story many times, particularly on those occasions when I was invited to a Birthday party, and as I was leaving, I tried very hard to remember to say “Thank You.”

          But this past week, when I took a closer look at this little story, I was surprised to see that there were a number of elements I had never noticed before.  I still think it’s a good idea to remember to say thank you when someone does something for you, but I think, as we look more carefully at this story, you will agree with me that there’s much more here than I at least might have thought.

          I am reading from Luke 17:

¹¹Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. ¹²As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance ¹³and called out in a loud voice, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!"

 ¹⁴When he saw them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were cleansed.

 ¹⁵One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. ¹⁶He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

 ¹⁷Jesus asked, "Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? ¹⁸Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" ¹⁹Then he said to him, "Rise and go; your faith has made you well."

          Well, to begin with, we are faced once again with this Samaria thing.  The first verse tips us off:  “Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee.”  In the Bible, Samaria represents the neighborhood we avoid.  It’s the place we don’t go if we can possibly help it.  Our story takes place in this border area between Samaria and Galilee—probably a ways off and somewhere in between the settlements either in Samaria or Galilee. 

          They are probably traveling in just about the same place where Jesus tells the story about the Good Samaritan finding someone who had been beaten and robbed and left by the side of the road.  This wilderness area is probably not a very safe place to be.  But Jesus chooses to go that way anyway.

          And just before he comes to a village, this group of lepers approaches him.

          Leprosy was a serious disease, and the way they kept it from spreading was to isolate those with the disease from society.  Even today, we isolate people who have certain illnesses in order to keep the rest of the population well. 

          Several times, I have visited people who were in the hospital with infections that were considered contagious.  In order to go into their rooms, I had to put on a paper gown, latex gloves, and a face mask.  When you’re finished visiting, you sort of back out of the room, dropping your gown, gloves, and face mask into special containers provided for them. 

          I’m not sure just how comforting it is to have someone dressed like that come and visit, but I suppose it’s better than nothing.  Some of those hospital rooms even have special ventilation systems that pull all the air from the room into a vent that sends it out of the building, so the airborne bacteria does not spread.

          So even today, certain diseases require isolation.  But it’s not hard to imagine the incredible stigma that came with leprosy in those days.  You would have to leave your family and friends and go out into the wilderness.  These ten lepers probably had their own little colony, and hopefully they had their basic needs somehow taken care of.

          I think there are a number of populations in our society that somewhat approximate the plight of those lepers.  Certainly there are the homeless.  There are a number of reasons people find themselves homeless.  But probably in all cases there is some sort of isolation that has put people into the predicament of being without a home.

          About a month ago, I was at a pastors’ meeting at a Baptist church in Issaquah.  That church is hosting Tent City 4 on their church property for several months, and a few of us had a tour of their camp.  It’s pretty impressive.  They have a nice area that is fenced off.  There is electricity run from the church to the camp, so they have some lights sort of like street lights, and a shed with laundry facilities, and some electricity for cooking, or at least making coffee.  It’s neat and clean.  There are tents on wooden pallets for the people to sleep in. 

          Tent City is a safe place for a homeless person to stay until he or she finds something better. Still, when the temperature drops, I imagine it gets pretty cold in those tents.  It’s a shelter of sorts, but it’s certainly not a palace.

          I imagine life for those ten lepers was difficult, to say the least.  Their living situation was makeshift at best.  Then one day, Jesus came their way.  And somehow, even those lepers knew about Jesus.  So “They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!"”  They knew they were not allowed to come close.  In fact, when people came upon them, they were supposed to call out, “Unclean!” so the person would know they should keep their distance.

          Somehow they knew that if he wanted, Jesus could do something to help them.  So they called out to him, “Have pity on us.”

          Many days my route takes me past someone standing on a street corner holding up a sign that has something that means “Have pity on me.”  I confess that I don’t usually have much pity.  I’m convinced that most of the people holding up those signs are just trying to get money to support their habits of drugs and alcohol.  In fact, one guy who is often at a corner not far from my house has a sign that says “Why lie?  I need money for beer.”  So I look the other way and drive on by.  The fact is, I’m pretty sure I am right.  But somehow when I read the gospels, I’m not sure that in Jesus’ eyes it’s a matter of being right.  I can’t answer the question of what we should do in every case, but I do know that Jesus teaches that it’s more important to be compassionate than to be right.

          But back to our story.  The ten lepers stand at a proper distance and call out to Jesus and ask him to have pity on them.  Jesus apparently does not lay his hands on them, but instead he speaks to them.  He says to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.”  And it says that as they went, they were cleansed.

          This is interesting.  Apparently Jesus requires from them an act of obedience and faith.  The only reason for them to show themselves to the priests is if they have been healed.  But Jesus instructs them simply to go, apparently before there is any sign of healing.

          And they do exactly as Jesus has told them to do.  They take off towards the priests, full of faith, and as they went, they were cleansed.

          I think this has an important message for us.  If we ask Jesus to heal us, our healing may not be instantaneous, and it may not happen until we ourselves obey him and move ourselves in faith towards the health we are seeking.  Most of the time, we take a very important part in our own healing.

          Amazingly, all ten of the lepers take off to show themselves to the priests, as Jesus instructs them, before they have experienced healing.  And as they went, they were cleansed.

          Then, there’s the ending of the story.  “One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.”  It’s tagged on almost like an afterthought—“and he was a Samaritan.”

          The implication is that probably most of the lepers were Jews, but at least this one was a Samaritan.  And it’s the Samaritan who comes back to say “Thank you.”  Keep in mind that the original readers of this gospel were Jews, and Jews, by definition, hated Samaritans.  So this story has an important message to the readers.

          The message is not just that one out of ten is thankful.  The message is that sometimes it’s the person you have already decided to hate who is the one who does the right thing.  And isn’t that just downright annoying?

          I can assure you that the original readers of this gospel would have been pretty bothered by this story. 

          And the story ends with Jesus using a bit of sarcasm in order to drive home a point:  Jesus says to the Samaritan, “‘Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’ Then he said to him, ‘Rise and go; your faith has made you well.’”

          By calling him a foreigner, Jesus really is mocking the terrible attitude his own people, the Jews, have towards the Samaritans.  This man—this “foreigner”—who is first an outcast because of his race and secondly an outcast because he has leprosy, becomes the good example that Jesus holds up.  He is the one who Jesus praises saying, “Your faith has made you well.”

          Who are the outcasts in our world?  Do you ever think of yourself as an outcast?  I think all of us have had the experience, somewhere along the way, of being the one who is left out.  It can be pretty painful, can’t it?  Does it help to realize that Jesus seemed to have a special love for outcasts? 

          Here’s something else to consider.  In this story it is not spelled out, but there is an assumption that somewhere there is community that bridges the differences between Jews and Samaritans.  Do you remember where that was?  It was in the colony of ten outcasts, some Jews and some Samaritans, who were bounded together by their common affliction, the dreaded disease of leprosy.

          I think at its very best, the church is like that.  At our very best, we realize that we also have a common affliction, the dreaded disease of sin.  And the thing that binds us together is that we know we are sinners and we have cried out to Jesus, “Have mercy on us!” 

          The truth is that the only thing that unites us as a church is our dependence on Jesus Christ for salvation.  We are every one of us sinners saved only by God’s grace.

          The sad reality is that most churches around the world are made up of people who are pretty much the same, racially, ethnically, socially, and economically.  Someone has said, and I believe it, that the most segregated hour of the week in America is Sunday morning at 11 am.  That is a terrible truth about the church.

          We have Black churches and White churches and Hispanic churches and Asian churches.  How can this possibly be right?  Didn’t God make all of us?  Doesn’t God love all of us?

          My dream for this church—my vision—is a church that is completely colorblind.  A church that is at least as diverse as its neighborhood, and since we happen to be in a neighborhood that is not very diverse, I hope our church will one day be way more diverse than this neighborhood.  And I’m not just thinking about race, but of all of the things that tend to divide us as people. 

          I think Jesus would like that.  I think Jesus would smile, as we learned from one another and say, “Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”  I would like to hear Jesus say, with a smile, “Was no one found to turn this church around and make it grow and glorify God except these foreigners?”

          A church like that would look a lot like I imagine heaven to be.  You know, there will be people of every nation and color in heaven, there will be people with every sort of disabilities in heaven, there will even be people with ornery personalities in heaven.  And I really don’t think God is going to segregate us according to our skin color or any of the other things that tend to divide us.

          Let’s start by learning, right here in this little leper colony of sinners saved by grace and grace alone, to love each other.  That’s what Jesus would want us to do.

Prayer:

          Lord, thank you for your Word, which challenges us again and again.  Thank you for your love that includes each one of us.  Remind us that we can do no less than love one another as you have loved us.  Thank you for the gift of forgiveness and eternal life though your Son Jesus.   Amen