Father Gary’s Sermon

Inspired from Luke 17:11-19

Proclaimed on October 10, 2004

When I come across the story that is told in our Gospel reading today, I am reminded of a letter that appeared in “Dear Abby” several years ago. It went like this:

Dear Abby,

I disagree with the grandmother who stopped giving her children presents because they didn’t write thank you notes. If she wants to know whether they received their presents, she should phone and ask. Jesus was not thanked by nine of the lepers that he healed, but he didn’t stop healing. A written thank you is a waste of time and money.” Signed, “Midwestern Grandmother.”

Abby’s response:

Dear Midwestern Grandmother,

When Jesus healed the ten lepers and only one thanked him, he said, ‘There were ten made clean--where are the other nine?’ So Jesus kept track of those who thanked him. Should a Midwestern grandmother do less? Furthermore, I am surprised and dismayed by the number of readers who agreed with you that thanks are not necessary.”

The manner in which Abby handles this wonderful story of grace in our Gospel reading today is fairly typical. However, I believe there is more to this story. Jesus is traveling to Jerusalem with his disciples. Unexpectedly, ten lepers approached them, an approach that would frighten any healthy person. During this period of time and in this place leprosy was not a precisely diagnosed disease. It could well be any sort of skin malady, but when a diagnosis was made it was taken very seriously. In the Hebrew culture it was mandated that a diagnosis be made by a priest, and once made the person was banished from family and society. You see, there was no cure and the disease was communicable, therefore society had to be protected. To be a leper literally meant to be one of the walking dead--a living being in a decaying corpse condemned to live only with other lepers. When a leper came into the vision of others that one had to warn anyone close by that he or she was unclean. However, these lepers that approached Jesus in today’s Gospel did not give him this typical warning of their disease, but rather requested that he have mercy on them. Jesus simply instructed them to go and show themselves to the priests, who alone had authority to restore them to society. When they turned to obey they found themselves cured and continued on towards Jerusalem. One of them, however, turned around to Jesus rejoicing and fell at his feet--thanking him profusely. Jesus then asked his disciples where were the other nine? Why did only one return to thank him?

The answer may be simple. This man was a Samaritan, who, according to the Hebrew faith was a hated foreigner. Were he to go to the Temple with the others, he would not be permitted to see a priest for he was not a Jew. Indeed, within the Temple area was a wall beyond which no foreigner could go without being put to death. So while he may have been cured, he could not be restored to society by a priest’s proclamation, but could instead lose his life for trying.

So he turned back to Jesus thanking him for his tender mercies, but also abjectly falling at his feet. Without a priest he could not return to family nor society, meaning he was still among the walking dead, and to find a priest would most certainly bring his end. So Jesus claimed the soul of the Samaritan leper, the soul of the leper who needed a priest, by putting on the mantle of a priest and by proclaiming the leper to be well.

The question now is what this may have to do with us? The answer is that we are not much different from the leper prostrate at the feet of Jesus. We too are foreigners by Hebrew standards and are therefore without a legal priest. We have no right to be loved and cared for while we are at our lowest, for like that Samaritan leper, we have no privileges within God’s Holy Temple. We have no legal access to a priest. By grace, however, as Jesus claimed the soul of the leper, so Christ claims our souls today. When we come before Christ in thanksgiving, he continues to give us God’s tender mercies by restoring us to wholeness. And how are these tender mercies provided? In part, they are presented to us on Sunday morning as we worship. During worship we enter that part of the service called the Great Thanksgiving--otherwise known as the Holy Eucharist. In this Holy Meal we, like the Samaritan leper, bow at the feet of Jesus offering our profound thanks, while Jesus claims our souls by becoming our great High Priest and giving us a place at the Table of Atonement. It is here that we are granted a part in the worship of the Temple through the Feast of the Passover, changing us from forbidden foreigners into the intimate friends of God. Through our thankfulness, God has not only given us shelter in the Temple, but when we dare take God’s attitude of gratitude, God presents us with new lives, as well. This is God’s love, this is God’s grace, this is God’s tender mercy, and this is God’s claim on our souls. We have only to be thankful. Then we share this grace with others that they too might come to know God’s love and tender mercies.